Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

The flashing banner is too distracting to my eyes.

I found the categories menu confusing, since it's both a menu and a category display for multiple items. Simplify it.

In your "Discover your sexy side" paragraph, make the words "sexy shoes" (etc.) active links to the things you're writing about. It'll make it much quicker to find items.

For your website, I find the 3 column format too confusing.

Remove the "SafeBuy" and "PayPal" logos from your home page. Sure, place them on your shopping basket page.

Why the need to sign in?

Make search more prominent.

What's the benefit to someone signing up for your newsletter?

I find the black background with reverse lettering to be very hard to read, and I agree that the flashing banner is distracting, not helpful.

Hi, Sales

General impression of your website is – disturbing.

What I like.
I kind of like the structure. Three columns will suit you well. You have unfolding menu on the left, center column for product display, and a right column for all other technical things to place there. When we are dealing with store, it’s reasonable to have horizontal and then vertical menu. Search block on top, distinct product info page. Login section on the home page, shopping basket info, and promo items block - you did your home work. But man, you did it all sloppy.

What I dislike. A long list. Suggestions will follow.
- Even though you chosen a good 3 column layout, you are not using your real estate very effectively. There are 5 products shown on the Home Page, I only see 3 of them on the screen without scrolling. And I don’t see the promo item at all. Instead of using this valuable top of the home page real estate to display your products and hot deals, you are giving your customer absolutely clueless chunk of copy, which is damn hardly readable being magenta on black.
- Since we started talking colors, let’s continue about them. It’s perhaps, the most horrible design mistake to choose magenta as a background. My eyes started hurting immediately, and no matter what page of your site I go, it’s always this creepy flashing header written in unreadable font, and hot pink menu on the left. They haunt me! Pink and black do look very nice together in as two main colors of the lingerie garment! But you don’t put your website on a pretty girl! You make is read it! And, to tell you the truth, it’s as horrible as it could be. Pink on black is UNREADABLE! How many successful online stores have you seen that use black and magenta as main backgrounds? I don’t think you find many if any. You absolutely HAVE TO change your color scheme.
- A brief word about flashing header: GOTTA GO! Bad font too, looks very lame.
- I praised your menus, but not the way you used that combination of horizontal and vertical. You know, looking more and more at your website, it seems to me that before you made it you have never seen any online stores before. In your horizontal menu you may not have any “Home page Contact My Account Contact information Customer information Subscribe to newsletter”. There should be main sections of your catalog. I see, you have a lot of them in the vertical menu, then group some items and create 5-7 solid sections and then unfold them in the vertical menu.
- Now, about hat “Bauhaus” font in the headers. Seriously, are you kidding? NO ONE will try to read this. Especially “Delivered next working day if ordered by 2pm, dependent on UK stock” in Bauhaus? That is extremely unprofessional to use this font for the copy of such importance.
- Catalog page looks like many too bright spots to find where we are and what to do next. It makes usability of your store very low.
What to do. Suggestions.
- Go to any top selling stores (try zappos.com) and study good practices. Then get back to your site and use your real estate wisely. Put login block up top, along with all promo blocks. If your signature offer is Next Day Delivery – put it as slogan on top of the page above or right under the header (store name) horizontally.
- Invert the color scheme. Use white as background, and black and hot pink as accent colors. If I were you, since the black is accent color, I would make the text very dark gray to let it stand out. I believe elements like black lace with pink accents (bows and rhinestones) will perfectly decorate the store look, it will immediately say that we are in the intimate apparel store instead of using black and hot pink as main background colors, which makes it look more like a house of a hooker with bad taste. I strongly recommend using very thin and light vertical column dividers and horizontal row dividers of gray pr pink, cause now all info blends together and it’s hard to distinguish where everything starts and ends. It’s one big hot pink mess now.
- Group your catalog sections and create 5-7 solid sections, use them in horizontal menu, and then unfold them in the vertical menu. “Home page Contact My Account Contact information Customer information Subscribe to newsletter” will perfectly live on the bottom of the page.
- Wisely choose clearly readable fonts. I would actually recommend you to test your page usability wise, and you will immediately see with your own eyes, how hard it will be for you to gain customers and keep them, and how easily you will lose them.
Start is good. I am sure if you do what we suggest, you will have a great store with great future.

Whatever happens,
Good Luck!
Natasha Chernyavskaya
Artographica
Los Angeles, CA