After reading the first page of “Don’t Make Me Think”, I learned that most of the eCommerce websites are designed in the way that it should be self-evident, obvious and self-explanatory. People using the website should be able to get it- able to know what it is and how to use it. My recent experience about this came from gifts.com, when I bought a product from their website.
The home page of the website is beautifully laid-out. It shows very nice gifts presents which can attract the attention of the user in a few minutes. Even if someone is not willing to buy something, he would get attracted towards it and will end up buying it. On the top left corner, they have their website logo and on the top right, they have account registration, blog and cart.
Across the top of the website is the main menu, subdivided into various different categories including Valentine’s Day, birthday, occasion, recipient, category, red envelope, and personality. These categories are further divided into the occasion that you need to gift for and the gender to whom you want to give the gift. It is also include the gifts according to the age of a person. Depending upon what the user is looking for, he can easily find it from the top shopping section of the website. Underneath the main menu, they have different kinds of gifts arranged in a symmetrical way.
I was looking a gift for my brother’s birthday and eventually I found an oversize beer cup which can be personalized as you want. I didn’t order the first time when I found it, and the next time when I wanted to order I just typed the name in the search bar on top right of the website. It was very quick and easy to find it again and order it. Once I added the item in the cart, it asked me to proceed to checkout or continue shopping. When I proceeded to checkout a coupon code popped up on the screen for the promotion of their products, and helped me saving couple bucks for my order. Checkout is also very quick and secure.
I think the search keyword works the best for the website. A user can find the product that he is looking for very easily. Also, the different gifts presented as a gallery of beautiful gifts attracts people to buy their products which works the best for a website. I guess site make me think of buying more and more products from their website as they are pretty cool. I don’t think if I would like to make any change in the site. I like how it is designed and programmed with all the main buttons in the front that are subdivided into small different categories. Each category is divided in a way that it makes a user’s search easy and help him find exact what he is looking for.
The design principle and elements works very well in this website. The white background color is suitable for this site because it helps the gifts to reflect their own color and design to get more attention of the users. The alignment of gifts are also perfect. They all are aligned in 4 different columns with same gap in between. Proximity is also good in between the gifts with not too much space in between. Different colors from the gifts reflects differently all over the site on the white background.