flawless evaluation???

I took a look at the Web Marketing Association’s WebAward for Outstanding achievement in website development winner in 2008 – Justyna Collections Catalogue. From our reading, a checklist was provided by IBM’s Web Design Guideleines – Ease of Use. I wanted to put this site to the test and see if it would have a flawless evaluation.

Is the purpose of the site clear?
Yes – to look at different fixtures

Does the site clearly address a particular audience?
Yes – younger, professional women, looking to upgrade their home
The grey background and sleek feel throughout gives the user a feeling that these are elite pieces for your house

Is the site useful and relevant to its audience?
Yes – it provides details and pictures of all the products, all the information you are looking for

Is the site interesting and engaging?

Meh – the pictures are great to show you what the products look like; however, there is not much engagement other than clicking on pictures. Maybe if there was a way to upload a picture of your bathroom or even change the colour of the sink and backsplash.

Does the site enable users to accomplish all the tasks they need or want to accomplish?
Yes – you are able to compare all the different models, pick which ones you want, then find a dealer closest to you to purchase. It would be nice if they had a built in “shopping cart” to summarize all of your choices to make check out easier.

Can these tasks be accomplished easily?
Meh – you can compare and look at products with no problem. Once you want to buy something, that’s when it makes things a little tricky. You have to find the dealer closest to you, then phone, and schedule an appointment to come in.

Is the information organized in a way that users will expect and understand?
Yes – sorted by room in the house – kitchen, bath and shower, then sorted by product

Is the most important information easy to find?
Yes – all the specs and pics are easy to find on the home page and subsequent pages

Is textual information clear, grammatically correct and easy to read?
Yes – the gray background provides a canvas for the easy to read white-light grey text

Do you have a clear idea of what the site contains?
Yes – information about fixtures

Do you always know where you are within the site and how to get where you want to go?
Yes – they provide easy to follow back and next buttons

Is the presentation attractive?
Yes – it is a very sleek design, clean cut, nice lines which complement the upscale, sophisticated brand image

Do pages load quickly? (Optimization)
Yes – all pages and pictures load almost immediately

Is the site accessible?
Yes

Overall - Well designed. The look and feel of the website is right on target with the company's brand image. However, in terms of easy to do business with, that is where they fall short. If this website's interactivity was turned up a notch and each user could checkout and buy a product easily, this website would have had a flawless evaluation.

doing laundry...

Tide isn’t trying to portray the concept of doing laundry, but the excitement of having a fresh and clean wardrobe.

The idea of doing the laundry is not the most exciting thing in the world. With this in mind, Tide decided to go with a predominately Orange and Yellow colour scheme with a little bit of blue. The major colours, orange and yellow represent: excitement, fun, cheeriness, joy, sunshine and summer.

There is one example of metaphorical design on the home page of Tide’s website.

At the bottom, there is a place where you can find out more information about different products and cleaning tips. On either end, there are arrows that imply there is more to see. When you click on the arrows, new products/information cycle through.

you win...

I found a copy of a marketing magazine in my office the other day that had a list of companies that won all different types of marketing awards. There were a few that particularly jumped out at me and had me thinking of this course.

The ad that I want to focus on was created by DDB Canada, based in Toronto for Bosch Home Appliances. The point that Bosch wanted to get across is that they had more efficient appliances compared to their competition.

The theme of the advertisement was the damage that all of our appliances are doing to the environment. When we describe this theme in words, we think of fog, haze, darkness, pollution, garbage, dreary etc… A couple colours that come to mind are black and brown.

In terms of layout, I think we can clearly see why it won an award. Talk about simple. One beautiful picture, depicting what the future may look like if we don’t do anything about the environment, that really makes you feel bad for what we are doing to the planet. The text is aligned horizontally – along with the horizon in the picture. There is quite a bit of white space used in this ad as well that guides your eyes from building to sky to the text.

I especially like how the BOSCH logo pops out of the advertisement. Great use of colour contrast.