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Website Critique   URGENT - Need Help Fast!  
 
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Website Critique For Network Security / Info Tech FirmPremium Member
Posted By: stlubahn on 9/4/2006 10:16 AM (CST) 500 Points
We have a major redesign of our corporate website I am planning to take live this week, I could use some assistance in a review for any minor tweaks I should make before launching the new site.

The company is called LockNET, and we focus on network security and remote network adminstration. The existing site can be found at www.locknet-inc.com I suggest you give that a quick scan first.

The new site is on a staging server at the marketing firm I work with, you can access it at http://stage8.visiondesign.com. We have done some redesign on the home page, and major restructuring of the menus. The Products page has also been completely restructured.

There are some other changes we have made to the site as a result of actual traffic analysis, such as moving the Careers section to a top menu item. The current site went live in February of this year.

You are welcome to comment on any aspects of the site, note I am mainly interested in overview comments. There are still a few areas of content being fleshed out, and you will also note the Technical Sales Reps page is not currently active.

I am also very much behind in posting company news, I have about 10-15 press releases I need to add, you will note the current news items are getting a bit long in the tooth. I also have a Media Center I am working on, but this will need to go live after the launch of the new site design (only so many hours in a day!)

Thanks for your help on this!

Steve

Posted by: bcoots Accepted Answer
9/4/2006 3:39 PM (CST)
Well the changes in some cases are subtle, but I would say quite effective. The use of photos in place of lists of links is particularly striking in terms of navigability and overal effectiveness. So here's some of my minor quibbles:

1. The green news box looks nice with the gradient fade to white, but it does make it blend in with the main body of information. In general, this makes it hard for my eye to decide where it should go. I found myself visually scanning each page several times before my eye settles where it should.

2. The different "segments" of your site (main body of text, news box, and lower links) all blend together a little too much, they aren't compartmentalized enough for my eye to know exactly where to go when the page loads. Each page feels like a daunting amount of text scattered about, but a slight change in design could make things feel more segmented.

3. Products page is WAY better. I like the side menu on the left, but I am a bit confused as to why the last two menu items, Compliance and Services, are the same color. It throws the flow of navigation off a bit.

4. If possible I would continue your move towards using photos more, several other sections of your site now feel very text heavy by comparison to the nicely done photo-enhanced pages.

5. The font for the big "Contact LockNET" phone number at the bottom of each page is chunky and not particularly attractive. I doubt you need this phrase for SEO, so maybe this element could be a graphic using a nicer font?
Also, because this link is centered to the page, it actually appears to be left-justified with the main white text box on each page (aside from the home page), which looks off. For good flow, it seems like it should be centered to the main white text space of the page, not centered to the page itself.

Looks great, I'm sure you will get good results from the changeup!
 
Posted by: stlubahn Author Response
9/4/2006 7:23 PM (CST)
bcoots,

Thanks for the overview, some great suggestions for further refinement of the site.

Just a note on the colors of the various products, we had settled on specific colors for the main product lines nfire and nsentry and use that in the printed literature. We also have another major product line just rolling out that will need its own color, we were worried about taking up to many different colors along the way may get to look too much like a rainbow.

We may want to rethink that, we do like the impact of the color bar continuing throughout the product section the visitor is currently navigating.

Steve
 
Posted by: alyvin* Accepted Answer
9/5/2006 5:10 AM (CST)
Overall the site has a good feel, good job so far.

personal opinions on enhancing the site would be:

1) As mention above about the 'green' colour. If this area is meant to highlight certain things, you could go with a warm colour to give it a contrast from the overall blue theme/feel. It doesn't have to be some bright colour, but a contrasting warm colour (try pastel colours) or if the blue-theme is your direction, then use a darker shade of blue instead.

2) On your product page. Why don't keeping the 'N' logo branding thru-out you rage of products. Using the 'N' logo in front of your product gives it a sense of consistancy even on the look & feel of your product navbar (e.g. using Ncomplience instead of putting 'N'logo where it is now).

3) I know the intro text its an important part of highlighting your expertise & stressing the importance of network security. Another approach is to use hook-lines instead.

E.g.
i)Imagine your business network security was breached, Catastrophic? At LOCKNET, we specializes in integrated network security that will.....(and so on, but keep it shot ans simple yet straight to the point. giving the feeling that Network breach is serious and when that happends you go straight to the rescuse without wasting time.) The other parts of the product documentation can feel in the blanks, but for the intro, K.I.S.S.

4) As for the (800) number below, give it a border. Something that complements the Topbar design, hence giving the bottom page a base. That way, it won't make the numbers seems like it is in limbo.

5) After having bottom border, you could opt to have the bottom links at the same area on top of your address.

6) Lastly, to keep the look & feel on the Top Navbar, space out the text links above and give it a drop shadow like the Logo, where the shadow streaches to the back & fades.

All in all, good job and good luck. Cheers
 
Posted by: Frank Hurtte Accepted Answer
9/5/2006 9:41 AM (CST)
i think your new site is absolutely great... I like the colors, the skin and the ease of moving around. I wonder why a person would come back to it more than once...
you will need to work extra hard on populating the news and events area..

you may want to find a way to add a section on changing regulations... that would draw a person back to your site as a resource.
 
Posted by: leslie* Accepted Answer
9/5/2006 11:57 AM (CST)
I think overall the website looks great, your old site was down by the time I got a chance to go look so I don't have a comparison..

Just a few minor things...I am not a huge fan of all the blue, especially since your page blends into the background.

I agree that sometimes my eyes get scrambled from all of the text on every page. Defining text areas a little more will solve that, or just cutting down on the amount (don't cut out too much though, content is still king).

A graphical call out for the 800 # would be nice, I honestly didn't notice it until I read one of the above comments about it.

Perhaps a company blog would help visitors return. New product annoucements, event wrap ups, new executive staff memebers, that sort of thing.
 
Posted by: Tatyiana Accepted Answer
9/5/2006 1:55 PM (CST)
Hi!

I think the overall navigation of the site is clear and well done.

All of the technical aspects or rules of thumb has been followed. however I think the font choice for the entire site needs to be changed. Looks like word processing normal to me.

there is something distracting to me that i cannot put my finger on but I have to wonder if it would be more pleasing to the eye if you background was not the blue on blue but blue on white. It would cleaner and not seem like the site is trying so hard to add another graphical element.

I would also make your top level nav titling a larger font.

It looks like they do a lot of events. I would add a graphical item to that and a "Visit us" invitation for the events. The point of putting it on your website is to drive traffic to the event. A pre-registration is a helpful tool.


T.
 
Posted by: rbauman* Accepted Answer
9/5/2006 2:26 PM (CST)
You old site was not active, so I can't compare the new one to the old one.

The new site contains the information that I'd expect to see - but your home page doesn't give me any compelling reason to delve further into the site.

Consider adding dropdown menus to the navigation links across the top. For example, if I know what product I was to see this will eliminate some clicks for me to get the info I want.
 
Posted by: stlubahn Author Response
9/5/2006 4:03 PM (CST)
Lots of great ideas so far, I am reviewing which of those to try and adopt before we go live.

Note the URL for the current site should be www.locknet.com - the post I put out with the question included a comma, that is why some of the respondants did not get to the current site.

Steve
 
Posted by: stlubahn Author Response
9/5/2006 7:14 PM (CST)
Oops, I just realized the URL for the current site above is incorrect too, should be www.locknet-inc.com - sorry for the confusion.
 
Posted by: skoobie99 Accepted Answer
9/6/2006 7:39 AM (CST)
Steve,

Just a few comments from me:

- First, I agree that the use of images to denote industries served is much more effective.

- I think there is too much blue color (it is kind of overpowering), however I realize this might be a tough change to make - I see the same degree of color saturation carried-over from the old site. At least the addition of pictures on a few pages cuts through the blue a little.

- I found most of the pages to be long on copy - I think some editing may get you down to shorter, more concise messages.

- Under news items, I saw one recent one and three from April - looks like there was no worthwhile news before this time period (just looks funny).

- Under "contact" the visitor first sees an e-mail form, which I find a huge turn-off. You have a telephone number and physical address, which gets you some bonus points, however these are hidden at the bottom of the page, where people need to scroll down to see them - suggest moving these to the top.

Hope this helps,
John
 
Posted by: stlubahn Author Response
9/6/2006 9:22 AM (CST)
Thanks so much to all who responded, we are making some tweaks and will take the site live later today. Check back in a week or so and we see how we incorporated your suggestions.

I appreciate the input!

Steve
 


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