OllyDog critique

It doesn't matter if you do all the error checking in the world, or if you have the most beautiful graphics, if your site or application design isn't usable, it's not going to do well. Get input and advice on usability and user interface issues here.

Moderator: General Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
Luke
The Ninja Space Mod
Posts: 6424
Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2005 1:53 pm
Location: Paradise, CA

OllyDog critique

Post by Luke »

Alright, you guys know the drill! Please take a poke around this site and tell me every little detail wrong with it:

http://www.ollydog.com

It was released today... it was a redesign of an old miva site they had that was just not working out.
User avatar
Kieran Huggins
DevNet Master
Posts: 3635
Joined: Wed Dec 06, 2006 4:14 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada
Contact:

Post by Kieran Huggins »

Very nice - the only criticism I can offer is the URL scheme. Seems rather unnatural to me, but I'm being exceptionally picky when I say this.

"categories" would be "products" in my world, the next segment of the URL being a filter.

"product/new/2131-21/uri-safe-name" screams out over-complicated: there are filters in the URL when there don't need to be. Is this part of a CMS? What part of the URL actually matters when you type it in? I'd stick with just a distinct URI-safe string to identify each product.

Also, the "/html/something.html" URLs bug me, but that's probably just because I'm me.

Incidentally, switching from https to http when submitting certain forms is bringing up security warnings in FF (which is scary to users).

Altogether, an awesome job. Really wicked.
User avatar
pickle
Briney Mod
Posts: 6445
Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2004 6:11 pm
Location: 53.01N x 112.48W
Contact:

Post by pickle »

  • I've mentioned it for every other site & I'll mention it again - it's static width. Fluid width (of course in my opinion) is a much better use of browser space. Much tougher to design for though.
  • Use 1 image for the background of the navigation & change the positioning of it on mouse-over. I believe this is called using sprites. This will stop the temporary flicker when someone mouses over the first time & the background image takes a moment or two to show up.
  • It may just end up being a placeholder, but make a home "Products" page so I can click on it. The word "Products" is right in the menu & immediately looks like a link, so it should be clickable.
  • ...further to that, I'm thinking a slight background lightness shift on mouseover might be appropriate too - the changing of the bone colour might be a bit too subtle.
  • ...and further to that, a background colour shift for the top navigation probably wouldn't hurt - even a subtle one to a really light grey.
  • The "Add to cart" buttons & other custom graphic buttons don't look quite right. The font is a bit off - maybe too blurry or too big or too bold? It doesn't seem to fit in 100%.
  • The title for the "Checkout" link at the top should probably read "have what you need?" rather than "got what you need?".
  • The contact page should have more content in it. It really looks like just a placeholder.
  • I tried to add an item to my cart & it said /store was not found
  • You call it a "cart" everywhere except when I go to the cart page & the message says my "shopping basket" is empty.
  • Most of your form elements are single pixel, solid borders - except for your select boxes and the buttons on the "Dealer Locater" page
  • The font for the form elements is different than the Verdana font used elsewhere. This is of course a personal design decision, but I usually try to keep them the same.
I love the colour scheme. Orange & grey worked together really well here. Really well done. The only reason I even mention the things above is because you asked for it. Dogs & I have an annoy-hate relationship so I probably wouldn't find myself casually browsing this site. If I were though - I'd be really interested in this company because their site is really well designed, simple & well set up. Good job.
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
alex.barylski
DevNet Evangelist
Posts: 6267
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:00 pm
Location: Winnipeg

Post by alex.barylski »

Cute web site. :)

Nice design.
User avatar
Greenconure
Forum Commoner
Posts: 30
Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2008 8:19 am

Re: OllyDog critique

Post by Greenconure »

https://www.ollydog.com/login - The titles for the boxes are misaligned in Safari. Fine in Firefox. (Mac OS X)
User avatar
pickle
Briney Mod
Posts: 6445
Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2004 6:11 pm
Location: 53.01N x 112.48W
Contact:

Re: OllyDog critique

Post by pickle »

This thread is 7 months old. I'm pretty sure the original poster has moved on since then.

Don't revive stale posts threads please.
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
Post Reply