Ulta has a visually pleasing website at first glance. The colors work well and tie in to the brand as a whole, coming from an Advertising point of view. The search bar is front and center with an easy-to-decipher navigation bar on the lefthand side. The categories make it easy to break down what you’re looking for into smaller subsections. Also, when looking at the homepage it has the sales pictured in a slideshow type of way in the very center of the page. There is a popup at the bottom of the homepage (it follows and stays at the bottom even when you scroll down the page) that gives you the option to sign up for emails and future sales. The homepage is very scannable.
I used the search bar to look for the Tarte Shape Tape Concealer and placed it in my cart. The process was easy and thoughtless. The links were made obvious and once I added the item to the cart there was an option to go to checkout or to continue shopping and this was made clear with the buttons shown on the screen. There were suggested products based on my purchase interest that made it easy to browse similar products.
Going back to the homepage, if I didn’t use the search bar it would take a few extra clicks to find the exact product that I was looking for. However, I would still successfully make it there in a fairly short amount of time with minimal thinking and question. If I was searching for concealer in general, it would be easy to find all products that fall under that category and then compare all products to find the best match for me. If I wanted to shop for products in term of brand, that would be just as easy with the “Shop by Brand” link at the top of the navigation bar on the lefthand side.
There was not a moment that I questioned where I should click or what to search for or which link would be the most efficient one to click to take me where I wanted to go. Navigation through this website seemed natural and “thoughtless”. Users with little online experience would be able to successfully navigate their way around the site to find the products they’re looking for and checkout with little to no frustration. According to Steve Krug in his book, Don’t Make Me Think, it is important for users to not question where they need to go within a site; everything should be easy and scannable. When scanning Ulta’s website, I can easily find my desired destination thanks to their good use of layout and links.