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Website Critique     
 
This question has been closed, and points have been awarded.
Time To Work On The Website
Posted By: skoobie99 on 9/22/2006 4:22 PM (CST) 1500 Points
OK folks, I am asking for your input once again.
The website address is:

www.bayerfantasia.com

We took comments from the previous critique into consideration and performed a minor makeover (mostly of the home page) staying within the corporate constraints we have to abide by.

I would like to see what else jumps out at you, so here's your chance to sound off. I would love to hear from as many of you as possible, so I'll assign a good chunk of points.

John

Posted by: Amy Madsen* Accepted Answer
9/22/2006 5:46 PM (CST)
i think the front page is great (however, the movie image section is slow to appear). i immediately learned of fantasia, what it does, and that it's a bayer company. the tagline is very clear.

i like the movie. the blue spoon gets your point across very clearly - special effects for plastics. I don't, however, fully understand

"it's a color your design will want all over again..."

i wish that were more clear.

also, i wish the flash movie would not keep repeating the same stuff - the spoon and blue marble-looking thing. it's making me a bit batty when i look around the rest of the index page.

if i wait long enough, i think you have another story other than deja blue (i think i saw something read). i would be ok with you running a flash movie for a longer period of time if it were different movies. or just run the movies twice and then stop so there's some peace on the site. if you run it just twice, i'd slow it down just a bit as i couldn't read all the copy the first time.

as i think out loud - i say, run just one movie - on deja blue. and then stop the movie. end on a final frame. when someone licks to another page on your website, and back to the front page, a new movie would be good if you had it in stock. it's not necessary, but i believe you have another one - so that's an opportunity to tell another story with your movie.

otherwise, everything is clear on the page, and you did a great job with the colors. very vibrant - i like the tone.

once you navigation away from the index (front) page to other pages, it's a different look and feel. the different pages look dis-jointed. i think that's where your work like. you need a template that is the same for all the inside pages. you can customize the sections with different colors (as top navigation or perhaps different items to highlight in right hand column, should you create one), but i think the key issue is to have a comparable look and feel on each section of your website.

you've done great work on the index page and it needs to carry through to the inside pages consistently.

to your "Colors & Special Effects" page, i suggest a brief opening paragraph. it takes me a few moments to realize aura, leda, and faria are types of colors or treatments. I'd like to know right away and i think you can do it in a few brief sentences at the top.

i think you should elimiate the "Bayer Links" in the left hand column. i got disoriented - i wanted to stay on the fantasia site, and didn't think to initially go to the top navigation.

if your goal is to send people to other bayer sites, you will achive that, but i don't think that's your goal. also, i really wanted to get back to fantasia.

that's my two cents.
 
Posted by: KathySmithFilms* Accepted Answer
9/22/2006 7:19 PM (CST)
Hello Scoobie,

I just saw your site for the first time. Here's my glance survey.

My first impression is that you manufacture plastic spoons
in various colors. So, I went into the "news" section & suggest the tag:

"Color Your World With Fantasia" most communicated to me then wanting to find out what you do color besides spoons. I discovered a lot!!!! "From foodware, to audio systems, to furniture, to CD/DVDs, Fantasia colors are being used in a variety of applications." Maybe add a slide show of the pictures of all colors & products brought to the world by your innovation & engineering expertise. I would PR more about the fact that your company designs color on any possibility of most objects in the world.

Solve a Puzzling Project (link or use their idea of color/artwork)
http://www.cryptex.org/ Positioning with Ron Howard is stellar. Although legally even if it was a buy-out that was a hit movie so make it better known than just against a black background.

The left panel that navigated to Bayer Global, etc. just lost me from the colorful world to ???? I felt I pushed the wrong button & it reminded me of when I was a kid and took Bayer's chewables. It broke the flow & lost me. The corporate suits need to have a separate bar on top called links & that's all.

Back to the front page of your site. Hot topics section the letters all overlap & I can't read it.

Bottom line, pictures say a thousand words, use less significance and more pictures or larger & less pix and you have a very professional site.

Lastly, take of H2 link of who made this or let them be on the suits link. I don't mean to be harsh but...take your own credit for the cool job you are doing. I know I wasn't involved before so if I'm out of line on this 2 cents it's not intended to do anything but help expand your site.

Kathy
 
Posted by: darcy.moen Accepted Answer
9/23/2006 1:42 AM (CST)
check your server stats. what is the screen resolution of most of your visitors? Of 250 hosted clients, the majority of screens I see today are 1024....you still have a left justfied site with a big band of empty white down the right side. Nothing says out of touch like catering to old screens. Sorry, it knocks your presentation dow big time.

DM

CLN
 
Posted by: margec Accepted Answer
9/23/2006 10:42 AM (CST)
It looks very good. I'm on a fast connection, but there was just a brief second before the movie started, quite acceptable to me. The navigation looks very well thought out. A couple of minor points:

- on the home page, I like the site to be very clear about what it does. The tagline is pretty good, but it wouldn't hurt to have a short sentence somewhere that says: The plastics industry's most complete source for adding color and special effects to plastic parts. The spoon doesn't bother me; you also show a strawberry and I don't wonder if you make strawberries. Also the spoon is explained reasonably one click away, if I'm really curious about it. I bet people in the industry can guess why you use a spoon.

Also, some of the big type items in the right column "quicklinks" graphics are links and some aren't. I'd like to see consistency with that treatment. No apparent reason that the text "hot topics" couldn't also link to that content, even if it is redundant.

- On the literature page, it wasn't obvious to me what I should do after I check the download box. I had to scroll down a good ways to find that I needed to give my personal info before getting any of the literature. I'd like to see a brief explanation at the top (why it benefits me to give you my info...).

- On the contact us page, I would like to see text indicating the company's location and an alternative to the html form. Sometimes in real life, html forms don't work at all, sometimes you don't hear back, sometimes you want something different than what they'll get you. The company must have a phone number that will get answered by a person, and I also want to know physically where you are.

- The handling of the Bayer corporate and other associated entity links is interesting and I'm sure it's the product of a lot of discussion, but as an outsider, I'd be happy to find those links either on the home page (where they are not) or on the "About Fantasia" page. I wouldn't expect to find them on every page except the home page. Doesn't seem like a huge problem, but it's just odd.

- Clicking the H2 link displays a rather bureacratic message explaining that this link takes me outside Bayer's jurisdiction, but then I don't go anywhere.

Congratulations on a great project. I'm a content and architecture specialist with a lot of web consulting experience and I do see a lot of drab and poorly thought out sites; it's nice to look at a good one!

Marge
 
Posted by: Frank Hurtte Accepted Answer
9/23/2006 12:18 PM (CST)
i liked the site. Unlike Darcy I am not bothered by the white stripe.
I would think about the people you are trying to attract. As i reviewed your site i wasnt sure who that would be.
Materials managers, design engineers, purchasing departments, etc.... I would think about that for your next redesign.
 
Posted by: Deremiah *CPE Accepted Answer
9/24/2006 9:38 AM (CST)
Hi Skoobie99,

YOUR DESIGN IS FUNCTIONAL & THAT'S GOOD...
The website design is nice as it relates to the structure of the concept. It seemed that I moved through the site real well withouth any problems. occassionally I had to scroll down a little to see some of the images that were cut in half at the bottom of my screen but even this was not a distraction. Your collection for contact information was basic and to the point without a lot of unnecessary fields. Often times it seems people are trying to capture more information than they should be asking for in the beginning of an online relationship. I've found the least the better but in your case you seem to have a very targeted site and your viewers coming to the site are looking for what you are providing.

SUBCONSCIOUSLY WE DO NOTICE HOW THINGS MOVE...
The graphic on the main screen has excellent colors but toward the end it seems the transitions between words and images (the movement) seems to speed up at times and it could be a little more fluid like running water from a stream. But this is so minor most people might not even notice it but that's my artist eye and maybe I'm being a little more critical than needed. I'll take a look at it again later on and maybe the conceptual concept with colors will stimulate my understanding so that I can express better what it is. I like flash designs but most people don't realize how the movement of images needs to work in harmony with the words. It's like being a good film producer...knowing when too speed up and slow down a movie is extremely important because on the subconscious level you may lose your audience.

GREAT WEB DESIGN-EXCELLENT ON CONSISTENCY!!...
Overall you've got a great site. Keep up the good work!
Remember our only real problem in life is our failure to be "MORE Creative" than we’ve ever been. If you “Invent” your opportunity YOU WILL most definitely create your future. You can email me right now if you need my help. Thanks for letting me share my expert ideas with you! Is there anything else I can do for you?

Your Servant, Deremiah, *CPE (Customer Passion Evangelist)
 
Posted by: skoobie99 Author Response
9/25/2006 7:24 AM (CST)
Hi all,
I was out-of-base over the weekend and was very happy to see all the responses this am. Thanks for the great feedback so far.

To Amy's comments - there are three flash movies on the intro page - they alternate so visitors will not see the same movie every time.

Yes, I feel the points about page-feel discontinuity are correct - we last worked on the home page and now we need to work on the other pages to make it all feel more connected.

To Marge's comments - if you click on the 'Get in touch' link on the home page it takes you to a contacts page which shows the three key contact people around the world and their locations (addresses)+phone+e-mail addresses in the US, Europe and Asia - not sure what page you were looking at.

As far as the links to other Bayer sites, that's part of the corporate guidelines I have to comply with - not much I can change about that (I have tried).

I want to collect as much as possible to take to my website folks, so please keep the comments coming.

John
 
Posted by: margec Accepted Answer
9/25/2006 8:06 AM (CST)
>if you click on the 'Get in touch' link on the home page

Oh, interesting. I had found that "get in touch" page after I sent my earlier note. But the page I found first is the "contact" page in the top menu, with search and sitemap. These links are on every page ("persistent"). So you've got two different contact pages: the "contact us" page with only an html form and the "get in touch" page with the sales contact info.

So just now I've gone back, curious about where I even saw that "get in touch" button. (Yes, it's large and on the home page, but I was looking for something in the regular navigation); after bouncing around a bit I found it on the "Design literature" page; when I clicked on it, I went to ... the "Contact us" page (with only an html form). Also, the button for the "get in touch" page is not on every page.

So: if the "get in touch" page is the one you want people to find, I'd link to it from the "contact" item on the persistent navigation (by persistent, I mean menu picks that are in a predictable location on every page). But what I'd really want is to combine the content of these two pages, so you'd have one single page with both the textual contact info and the html form. Then you could link to it as "Contact Us" as well as "get in touch," as needed. Whatever you call it, it should be on every page in a predictable location, and the menu text should appear on the page itself, so you know you got what you clicked.

This is probably more than anyone wants to know about the contacts pages! But I'd think you'd want to at least make the linking consistent.
Good luck,
Marge
 
Posted by: skoobie99 Author Response
9/25/2006 4:49 PM (CST)
Thanks for the explanation Marge - definitely worth pointing out to the website folks.

Any more comments from the all the people out there?
The question will stay open for a couple more days, so you still have a chance to sound-off.

John
 
Posted by: Jade Accepted Answer
9/26/2006 1:45 PM (CST)
I think I would switch the fields at the top of your page and have "About Fantasia" or an "About us" link first. I clicked the color and special effects link and was a little over my head. I needed to learn more about what you do, rather than the specifics of how you do it first.

Love all of the "applications". I think this page is clean and clear which is the most important thing.

I think I might highlight the "glow in the dark" product line on the home page in the "news" box you have on the home page. It's definitely newsworthy and will grab plenty of visitors to click to your news page, where you can have links to other PR options.

Speaking of PR, do you need to have a place fore media folk to click on your homepage? On that note, do you need to have your home page contain links by audience type? For example, Click here if you are a .... (Media person, restaurant owner, supplier, manufacturer etc). It might make sense although I"m not sure who you are directing to your sight most often.

Would it make sense to swap the position of the logos on your home page as Bayer is the company while Fantasia is the brand? Just a thought.

That's what I have for now. I'll continue to revisit and see what I come up with.
 
Posted by: skoobie99 Author Response
9/26/2006 1:57 PM (CST)
Thanks for the comments Jade.

The Fantasia technologies website is pretty much a standalone, which is why the focus is on the brand - not on Bayer.

Definitely a good idea to add the 'About Us' link for casual visitors, though we feel our customers know us pretty well, as well as our capabilities.
The visitors to this site are mostly Engineers and Design professionals, as well as Educators/Students, not getting much in the way of Journalists/Press, which is the way we want it - there are other channels for the Press folks.

Keep the feedback coming!
John
 
Posted by: MANSING Accepted Answer
9/29/2006 5:20 AM (CST)
Hi John,

I like your website. As an engineer, what I need is product and quality description with price and sales details. What I want to suggest is every field come with different requirements but every thing comes to quality and price.

If you use high resolution and check your competitors website use will get all the answers. It takes less time to down load movie on front page. Rest is very nice!

Best of luck..

Regards,

M Bhor
 
Posted by: skoobie99 Author Response
9/29/2006 10:51 AM (CST)
Thanks all for the candid feedback.

I'll be closing the question down and will take your suggestions to my internal web experts.

John
 


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