ZoomConcept Reviews
Minor Problem on http://www.act-cw.com 1 This seems out of place. The rollover affect is cool but i'm not sure what I am suppose to do here. On the live site it's not clickable so it seems to not serve any real purpose. If its for informational purposes only i would suggest moving it down into the white area by 10px or so. 2 I would add more padding in this box. Also get rid of the background again and stick with just the fade, the circuit board makes it difficult to read. 3 move the bullets up by maybe 5px so the are not so close to the footer, possible bring the title down a bit too. Serious Problem on http://www.act-cw.com 1 The circuit board background make the design very busy. I would get rid of it all together and stick with just the fade. 2 This paragraph font should be bigger with a little more spacing. Where as the header is easy to read this begins to hurt the eyes. Positive Feature on http://www.act-cw.com 1 I like the blue fade. Very easy to read and follow on my screen. 2 If conversion is your goal this is perfect. Pops out & states what you want them to do as a user, nice job. 3 Contact info in the header, easy to read and identify on the live site. Perfect placement for this info. Summary:
First thing is first, I took a look at the page itself using these specs: safari and a mac at 1980 screen rez.
The only problem I noticed was the roll over affect on Capabilities and Articles is off. The font doesn't render correctly.
I also notice that a number of the problems I see here are fixed there, so I won't point those ones out here.
Minor Problem Search input and button need to be in one line Critical Problem Text over image is not ok. Image have that white lines that distract attention, so text is not so readable. New Idea The logos below search will look greater in the footer Minor Problem Too many things competing for attention
A critical problem with this site is that there are too many things competing for attention. It's not clear what the user should look at first. I'd start off by de cluttering this design. I know that certification logos are important, but do they really need to be at the top? The search button also needs to be toned down as it draws too much attention.Serious Problem Clash of Styles
There seems to be 4 different colour schemes on this site: -Blue for content -Gloss Red for navigation -Flat Red for links -Gloss yellow for quotes There's also pink, green and purple circuit board icons for other links! The result is that the site seems very confused and unprofessional. Pick one colour scheme to add a greater sense of unity.Positive Feature Good imagery
The circuit board imagery is eye catching. However, it does conflict a bit with the body text. Consider splitting the page into a 2 column grid with the image on the right hand 3rd column side and the text in the left 2 columns.Summary:
In your description, you say the site "requires a bit more visual affects" . I think that is the main problem. There are too many effects which result in a cluttered chaotic design that is difficult to follow.
The imagery on the site is good, so I would consider stripping away some of the effects and building on the strong points such as the images.
Minor Problem Make the Contact Us page inviting
If your a goal is to get a contact through the site, put an attractive picture of an "operator" wearing a headset on the contact us page. It's a simple and dumb concept, but people like to look at attractive people, and it gives the impression that "operators are standing by."Javascript animation not working fully
The JavaScript (I'm assuming) that changes the red highlights over the "PCB Services" "Quick Quotes" and "Why Buy From Us" sections doesn't fully work. When I hover over the second or third option, the first option "PCB Services" does not "un-highlight." If you're going to use this type of visual indicator, it needs to work consistently. If you can't make the "PCB Services" part un-highlight when the other sections are highlighted, just scrap the animation completely. As it is, it only makes the site look less professional.Request-For-Quote page needs privacy policy
The Privacy Policy link is buried at the bottom of the page. It needs to be prominent in the RFQ page. People don't like to give up their email address without some guarantee it won't be used for SPAM. Also, the BIGGEST problem is the Privacy Policy page is blank. You MUST write a privacy policy if you want web conversions.Serious Problem Contact us form email should be clickable
This is a simple idea, but could be a problem. The email address on the contact us page should be clickable. Turn the email address listed into an anchor with: href="mailto:you@youraddress.com" It's very simple to do and many modern browsers will correctly take the visitor to their default email client, as well as offer "right-click" options to "copy email address" to the clipboard. Make emailing the company as easy as possible.Critical Problem Spelling, grammatical errors
I visited the "Drilling" page and found this: "Have a full understand drilling and all it's associated technologies and methods." This is terrible grammar. Hire a professional copywriter or editor to go over ALL the grammar and spelling on the site. You're going to lose many costumers by having poorly written pages. This line should be: "Have a full understanding of drilling and all its associated technologies and methods." The word "it's" is a conjunction of "it is" and is not grammatically correct. The correct word is "its." Also, "understand" needs to be "understanding." Looking at another page, I immediately see MANY more grammar problems. You MUST fix ALL these to make the site more readable and more professional.Top-level navigation leads to nearly empty pages
When I click on "Support" I am taken to a nearly blank page with a tiny paragraph which leads me no where and provides little information related to "support." This is really bad design. If I happen to look at the left-side navigation menu, I can see that under "support" there are five other sub-menus, many of which have more sub-menus. NONE of this is clear from the main "Support" page. I'm not a fan of sub-menus under more sub-menus, but if you have a lot of information to get to the visitor, you've got to make it EASY for them to find it. When the visitor clicks on "Support," that page should have the five sub-menu choices CLEARLY listed so I know what to click on next. This is a serious problem because the top of your site promotes your "24/7/365" LIVE support, but the Support page itself has NOTHING written about that. The Resources top-level navigation has the same problem - it leads to a nearly empty page which does not clearly lead the visitor somewhere.Top email link does not work
No need to explain here - your top email link to order@act-cw.com doesn't do anything... the href is set to "#" You MUST make this a mailto: href.Serious problem with IE7
I checked your site for cross-browser compatibility, and it seems to perform well in FireFox, Chrome and Safari, but something is seriously wrong with Internet Explorer 7. There is a small layout problem with the ISO, UL and other logos at the top of the page, and the lists at the bottom of the page show different list icons next to the items for some reason - some items have circles, others have arrows. This only takes place in IE7. However, the biggest problem is that the site (I don't know why) completely bogs down in IE7. Simply scrolling the page in IE7 sends my CPU usage for IE7 up to 50% and the page takes several seconds to scroll. This is a SERIOUS problem as most Internet users are in IE. Even the top-level menus take a second or two to "highlight" in IE7. I also tried IE8 but the site is OK there, so this problem is specific to IE7. IE7 is something like 20% of Internet users, so it's up to you if you want to make the site work well with it. This was tested in a Windows XP system (completely up-to-date) with updated versions of IE 7 and enough processor power and memory to make rendering websites fast.RoHS-Compliant-Pb-Free-Lead-Free page links
You have links to pdf files on this page - one does not work at all and BOTH open in the same page. This is a big problem. NEVER take your visitors away from your site - open these links in a new tab or window using target="_blank" in the anchor tag.Printed-Circuit-Class-of-Service-IPC pdf links
Like the other pdf files you link, the IPC link on this page opens in the same window. Don't do that. Open the pdf in a new window or tab with target="_blank".Summary:
You've got a long way to go with this website. You've got a good start and lots of content, but it is difficult to find, the user is not properly guided around on the page and the navigation top-level menu clashes with the left-side menu. Also - too many top-level navigation pages are blank and don't clearly show that there are sub-navigation choices. As it is, you should either scrap the top-level navigation menu or scrap the left-side one. They are redundant, and the choices in the top-level nav menu lead to some nearly blank pages. There are numerous grammatical problems which should be corrected by a professional copywriter or editor. This is a problem and makes the site seem unprofessional.
Overall, it seems like you focused on jamming the site full of information with not enough thought on how the user FINDS the info. Try your site out as a user who knows nothing about the company. Think like an over-worked, busy and rushed engineer or tech manager and try to navigate the website. You'll find it is difficult to find the info you want, and the site is frustrating and confusing at best. Most visitors will give a website 2 or 3 seconds of their time, and if it is confusing or frustrating, they're going to bounce.
You've got a decent start, but not enough thought has been put into how a visitor actually experiences the site and whether or not they are properly encouraged to trust the company with their money. You must direct the user to your conversion form, and that form must have a privacy policy or "no spam" guarantee.
With a lot of work, this site could be much better.
Good luck!
