Category: Site Review

Chapter 1 of “Don’t Make Me Think” will have readers realizing just how effective and non effective a web page can be. Last week I visited an effective website called Amazon.

Amazon is a very simple looking website compared to most but because of it’s simplicity, I find it pleasing to look at. At the top center of the page you have your search bar, which is nice and big instead of off to the right in a small corner like most websites have them. Since the search bar is the first thing you see when the page pops up, it literally takes you a couple seconds to search for what you want. I went looking for a 521 Nokia Lumia phone case. It took about two seconds for the page to navigate to another page with a list of results.

On this page you are shown several different options varying in price, color and style. I didn’t have to use the “Shop by Department” drop box, on the top left hand side, because Amazon took me exactly where I wanted to go by using my key words. What I didn’t know, however, was exactly which case I wanted to purchase. So what I did was narrow down my search results by using the “refine by” column on the left side of the page. Free Shipping by Amazon: check, Condition: new (check), Price: $0 to $5…GO (check).

There is one thing that I wish Amazon would improve. One thing that wasn’t the greatest while narrowing down my results was that for each refining I checked, the page would reload itself with new results. I checked off three things to narrow down my search and the page reloaded 3 times with different results from the last. Chapter 1 of “Don’t Make Me Think” mentions several times that web users are “usually in a hurry” which is true in most causes! So I think it was a poor choice to have the page keep reloading every time a customer clicked an option that narrowed down their result.

I think it would have been more efficient if you could click all the things you want and then have the page refresh it self. Other than the page reloading several times, the website is pretty much the closet thing you’ll get to easy, online shopping. The check out process was simple and easy. Users of all age and web experiences can operate amazon.com with just a few clicks here and there. Never once did I get frustrated or question, “What is this” or “where should I go”, like Chapter 1 suggested web users do. The simplicity of Amazon’s layout makes it pretty easy to find what you’re looking for.

 

As one use to frequent the salon or local drugstore once a month I frequently shop for make up conveniently online, well to be completely honest if you can buy it online I am most likely shopping online for it. Consistently each month I order the same beauty products as they run out, through my preferred choice cosmetic supplier, Ulta Beauty. With five easy steps I have what I need in my cart. Upon check out, after I log in and confirm my saved shipping address and select my saved method of payment, weather it be my credit card or my debt card that month, both are there at my convince. Just a few more clicks and I have my items on their way to my front door.

For someone who is not as familiar with the web site, or with beauty products in general, the website follows all the rules in order to prevent the user from exhausting any unnecessary brain function. The website starts to guide the user with first glance, you see a navigation menu on the left side of the homepage and to the upper right there is a search bar. If using the search bar, the site will compose a list possible search options in order to help guide you faster. Like many search sites this is not an unfamiliar feature but nonetheless it makes the site think for us, providing the guidance and convinced we are looking for. If one not sure of the exact product, the menu has categories that begin rather vague but become more specific as they lead you to the item you may be looking for. After choosing “make up”, then “foundation”, you may already have found the products you are looking for if not, there are more filtering options to narrow down the product search. This offers such categories as type of foundation, price range, brand, or even as specific as the amount of coverage you would like. The user doesn’t even have to know what exact product you are looking for but he web site will provide the user with enough direction to send them right to where they need to be. And just a few more steps and they are set up for a first time user check our or able to login and have the web site enter the requited stored information for them.

Either a website works or it doesn’t, there is no in-between. In order for a site to function the information the site provides needs to be clearly displayed, and even more importantly, clearly labeled. Categories and sub categories are what provide the user with direction, with miss leading titles one can get lost and then choose a different site to search. In order to keep the users attention you want to fundamentally make the choices for them. Put the answer right in their face. We as humans want everything as convenient as it can be, tell me what I’m looking for and show me where it is. We expect this not only from customer service at a department store with human interaction with one of their employees, now we expect the same if not more convenience and direction from the websites for those same services, minus the tedious trip to the store.

Ultas’ web site uses a gird base layout and minimal use of color. It’s very easy on the eye and neatly done as far as an aesthetic point of view. The website provides organization of categories and subcategories as well as clear labeling. Someone who knows nothing about makeup or beauty products can find something as simple as what shampoo they want or even make an appointment for the salon with no disruption, the site illustrations what rout that you need to take to get you to the service or produce you need with no noise in-between.

I chose ModCloth for my first review. ModCloth is known for their vintage clothing but also sell shoes, accessories, socks, and home decor. It is all listed across the top of the website, each category including a drop-down menu for specific searching. It is also pleasing to see pictures available on the drop-down menu.

The website had a color scheme of white with variations of blue for the text and search bars. Overall, the layout of the website is very welcoming to a new shopper. The site is clean and simple to read and control. The one thing I dislike is the light variations of blue, since it is harder to read fast.

After browsing, I chose to “buy” a pair of shoes. The page changed into a dominating picture of the shoes with options to zoom in for a closer look, choose a shoe size, and see customer reviews. I then chose to proceed by clicking the red “Add to my Bag” option and was sent directly to checkout. At this point I had the options of checking out, removing the item, or continuing to shop. On this page, the checkout button were prominent in color (red) and text (bold).

Overall, Modcloth is a great website for vintage shoppers who are looking for a quality item, fast.

While reviewing Shoedazzle.com, a few complications were noticed upon first visiting the website. Upon visiting, shoedazzle’s website was confusing because there were links leading to ‘getting started’ on the website, when I was looking on where to click to start browsing the site. I looked around, scrolled down but the only way forward was to ‘get started’, which what was assumed to be creating an account. This may not be very successful because myself and others want to browse a website before deciding to make an account, and being forced to simply makes me want to close the website and browse elsewhere.

Surprisingly, there was a quiz to get the best style taste from users instead of setting up an account. Already feeling impatient because most websites allow users to browse their site right away rather than forcing them to create an account, I went through the quiz as fast as I could. The quiz is a great gesture, but should be an option for users instead of being required. Once finished, I was able to create an account and was finally happy. The full website was accessed at this point.

The navigation was easy to use and easy to find, and the website made finding everything simple without looking too far to find anything. When checking out an item, there is another page showing more products for last minute buying and to market more products. This was annoying because once a person reaches checkout, surely they want to buy the product and move on instead of being forced to look at another page of products.

The design of the website was very clean, simple, easy to read and easy to navigate. The overall design of the website and navigation worked well and was user friendly. A suggestion to make this website better is to not force users to have to sign up or go through a quiz in order to browse their site. Most users want to browse, buy, and leave. If users really like a website and its products, then they will create an account.

The web site that I decided to use was the popular retailing cites Amazon. I chose to search for shoes. The first thing I noticed was it gave me some random shoes initially but the side of the page it gave me options to narrow my search. They had some very helpful short cuts such as brand, price, or even ratings. While I think this is a very clever way to go about narrowing someone’s options and it worked very efficiently. I would like to see more done with the initial browser when a generic topic like shoes is typed in. Maybe even moving the brand selection into the main page and divide the page into types of shoes instead of hiding it to the side. After finding the shoe I wanted I added it to my cart and noticed a few things that I never noticed before. One was the short and concise wording that is used. The second thing I noticed is that they do not ask you to commit right away. It is kind of sly but first it takes you to the chart then asks you to proceed to the check out. They have taken away wording that may make you question your buying option. In the past I found words like buy now or check out seem very final making you question your choice of whether you really need it. Over all I thought the experience is very pleasurable but after reading the text and going to the site it has opened my eyes to what I may have been to naive to notice before hand.

For me, online shopping is my way of buying everything I need. With a busy schedule, shops and malls are out of the picture so I have become quite an expert online shopping by being familiar to several sites. I know very well to play it smart by finding good quality items, trusted brands, the lowest prices, sales, coupon codes, you name it! However, a site that I surprisingly have never visited was JustFab.com. Not only did I hear about it via television ads, but from a friend who talks about how good the website is and how she enjoys using it to pick out the new shoe to buy every month. As I clicked on the site, right away was I drawn to it with the vivid sliding photos, bold headings, and easy to read text illustrating the company’s products and styles. The layout on the home page was self-explanatory with the different routes you could take that were listed upon the top bar, such as “top sellers”, “our story”, and so on. The website did have a color scheme that was consistent throughout the whole site of black, white, and the accent of hot pink, which in my views attracts the typical girly user of the site. Posted in the middle of the page was the options of signing in or getting started which then took you straight to a quiz that asked simple similar questions such as asking which type of shoe do you favor most, or which one would you rather wear? So easy, it took me 30 seconds! Following was a few boxes for your personal information to fill out and clicking complete was right in front of you. For choosing a shoe, they were catorized by style and form and the buying process did not make you think. For the chosen shoe it asked you for size and color, then simply add to cart. The billing and payment information had the standard fill out form and provided a listed summary towards the left of the page with any discounts, taxes, or shipping prices listed with the total. Overall, I feel that the website had to question to it. The bold hot pink buttons leading to links and pages made them pop out and easy to locate with just a glance. The website’s goal to making its page self-evident was successful in that it was very sufficient so there was no point of being frustrated or having to guess on my options. In addition, the process, even for a brand new member, was so quick and easy that “being in a hurry” , as most internet users are, never had to be an issue.

 

The large eCommerce site I chose was Puma. Once I chose this site I was expecting the webpage to have a certain look. The expectation was an easy, understandable website. Most of this was described in the reading. In the book, Don’t Make Me Think, the writer talked about obvious decisions and ones that require more thought. People today as said in the book do not want to spend forever on a website, they want their item, or search to be as simple as possible. In the book they showed a table with a man’s face. There were three different clickable buttons. The first was the most obvious saying “jobs”. The second said “employment opportunities”; which requires a little more thought. Then the third said “job-o-rama”; which the person looking at the site had to think more than what they wanted to.

When first on the Puma site they have a slider of different pictures which portrays the different items they sell. They have five different tabs, that are clickable; which are men, women, kids, sports, and sales. Right beside that is their logo, which when clicked upon leads you back to the homepage. When I hovered on the women tab more options appear. They had a featured tab, shoes, clothing, accessories, and sport. Under these tabs there are multiple lists of options to choose from. I chose sneakers. Once on the sneakers page, they had all of the new arrivals first then the other shoes after. They had very readable text and the page had very easy navigations. The book mentioned that people also like knowing what is clickable and what is not. The Puma website made it understandable to know what is clickable and what is not. They also have a search bar which helps the customer find a specific item. The book claimed that people do not like to have multiple drop down menus to choose from, just a simple search bar.

When adding an item to the cart it has you select a size and which color is wanted. Then in a bold red box are the words “add to cart” which is very simple to do. then once clicked the item appears in the shopping cart. Which looks like their shopping bag from the store. This website makes it very easy to purchase an item. It has the requirements that the author was talking about. This webpage is a site I would come to again if I needed a particular item.

For my first review, I chose to look at Amazon.com. I have been needing to purchase a new battery grip for my Nikon D3200. I have always preferred to use Amazon because of the simplicity, but I have not really stopped to think about why it is easy to use or why I like the site.

According to Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think, a website needs to be usable without forcing people to think. Websites should almost be navigated mindlessly. We should not have to ask questions for every click we need to make.

Amazon does a good job of following the thoughts of Krug. For the battery grip that I wanted to purchase, I went to Amazon’s homepage, and right at the top, found the search bar. When I began typing “Nikon D3200 Battery Grip” Amazon gave me suggestions based on the characters I was typing.  In Don’t Make me Think, the example of the airports is similar to the auto-filling of Amazon. After clicking the suggestion for the battery grip, Once loaded, the page showed matching battery grips to what I was looking for. On the left side, I was given a chance to filter my search by brand, price, and battery type, and could also limit results based on specific categories from Amazon. I selected the first option shown, a Neewer battery grip. When added to my cart, I got a notification that it was saved, and asked if I wanted to view my cart or continue to look. I clicked on the Neewer grip, and scrolled down the page. On the page of the Neewer grip, it had reviews from customers that had purchased the same grip, specifications, and also suggestions similar to my original search in case I wanted a different brand. For fun, I clicked a suggestion for another battery grip, and looked at a Vivitar grip. This page had the same filters for my search, as well as more suggestions. I decided to keep the Neewer battery grip because it was cheaper and had similar reviews.

Overall, the simplicity of Amazon to purchase items is very high, and it does not make a person think too much to navigate around pages. The site is very clean and does not have much clutter. I feel that anyone could navigate Amazon without much trouble at all. All links are highlighted and easy to find, the white background is not distracting, and navigation is very easy. Amazon does a nice job of avoiding the questions of a viewer by allowing limitations of a search and being able to go back to the main page when needed, while saving searches and giving suggestions. The only change that I could suggest is making it more clear that hitting the Amazon logo at the top left corner will take the viewer to the home page.