ZoomConcept Reviews
Critical Problem Busy
This seems very busy and could use quite a few improvements as far as spacing go.Summary:
I like some elements such as the background image and the colors, but this just looks like a wall of text at first glace. Maybe work on spacing and how you structure the content on the site and maybe decrease the size of the header.
-
Critical Problem Header Design
Header istoo plain and crowded. Needs better design and layout.background images
Don't care for background images.Positive Feature Content layout
Good layout on contentSummary:
Okay but needs overall design work.
Minor Problem Reduce space taken up at margins
The imagery at the margins of the page are interesting but not at the expense of the content.The text is difficult to read and too close together, try adding a greater distance between the lines to increase readability Serious Problem The dark blue is a good choice, professional and bold. The box design with shadow is also a good starting point. The plain divider lines can really lend themselves to a clean simple clean layout if enough white space is allowed Critical Problem "In this issue" looks text heavy and dry. How about a slideshow of images illustrating each feature in the issue, with a single large headline at a time? Positive Feature The layout isn't bad but I think could be improved. The left hand column seems to be mostly a list apart from the first two boxes. Given the focus on the issue content and the lack of space it might be an idea to go for a three horizontal row design. Where the first block is the masthead with the highlighted features in. The second with editor's note and feature competition (fantasy league) and then the issue content able to spread full width. Summary:
Main issue is improving readability through increasing spacing of text and reducing space taken up by imagery at margins.
(The note icons are messed up on site today, so apologies if they have not displayed accurately!)
Minor Problem Blend the background
You can't actually see this in the screenshot, but looking at the live link you really need to blend this background - there is a really hard apparent line on the left.Hello, Windows 98
Microsoft called and they want their generic colour scheme back.Serious Problem Too recognizable of an image.
This is the 2012 Olympic torch correct? Unless the content in this issue is particularly about the Olympics, I wouldn't use something so specifically related to the Olympics. A more generic "sport" image would work better.Critical Problem Confusing - looks like navigation.
As these words are so abrupt and separate, not reading as a cohesive title, I thought these must be links to read about the separate topics. Consider either writing a better headline that is more obviously a unit or using a font that looks less like something that would be navigation - Arial is too generic. Also, it really is just a terrible title - what about European Sport Business Newswire? At least that's proper english.Way too much text
I think part of this is the spacing issues people mentioned, as it really does look like a wall of text, but there is just way too much on one page. Consider paginating your content, and/or widening the format. Why so thin?Summary:
What really bothers me about this overall is how dated it feels - both in terms of the colour scheme, the underlined links, the narrow page size. Why redesign if your new design looks old? Also, to be honest, in terms of increasing open rates and click through on newsletters, from what I know of online newsletters these tend to be abysmal even when they are much more attractive - in fact, what generally draws the best open rates are plain text newsletters. Why even do a newsletter at this point, it's 2011. You should have encouraged the client to make a blog that people can subscribe to via RSS feed.
Summary:
I try to reply to all your questions, hope this can help.
I quote "Mostly concerned with usability and the positive or negative impression it leaves.": It seems to full of text and I don't know where to start, i mean that it's so full of content disposed one after one that I think there is too much things to read and I don't care really attention on the topics.
Presentation, arrangement and layout of content. The layout is clear and also the titles are visible, but the problem is in what is inside these sections.
Use of imagery in body and background. The image of the body could be better but it's not a real problem (I don't understand really good what the background refers to), in the body try to compensate the heavy text with more images, bigger images and make them more attractive;
Overall style, use of colour, font styles, font sizes. Colours and font are ok, if you use the right images you can put more colour at the page and it will be more readable
Do you think that the amount of image content is a problem for HTML email open rates?