Website Design for My3rdLeg

Hi Elaine,

Good job so far, but you've still got a long way to go I'm afraid (in my opinion).

The #1 thing is that it doesn't look like an ecommerce website. At the moment it looks like a website which is giving users information and not in a good way. I don't even know that you have a product for sale until I look very closely.

The main age market for canes I expect will be quite high. You really need to look at the accessibility for this age group. I've not got time now to give you examples of different colours you should use, but I would recommend reading up on what colours are better for the 'silver surfers'.

There's going to be a lot of things I'm going to suggest, so don't take anything personally!

General

• Move the logo to the far left with a bit of left padding and make it clickable.
• Create a tagline to put underneath the logo. You need to sum up what the website does in 3-5 words. eg. 'The Custom Cane Shop' or 'We Sell Hand Carved Canes'. Anything to reinforce that it's a shop.
• Re-organise the main navigation. My suggestion would be:

Hand Painted Canes | Plastic Canes | Gallery | FAQ | About Us

• I would move the telephone number to the top right and have it in its own box.
• Because the design is unconventional for an ecommerce website, I would suggest making a box for the shopping cart instead of just a link and make it stand out! It will then give users an idea that they can buy something.
• I don't think you need to give as much real estate to the 'tell your friends' and 'find us on facebook' A couple of social media icons would do fine.
• You need more information in the footer. What about delivery times? Do they ship worldwide? How long will it take to be made? How can I pay? If you re-organise the footer as per my instructions, you will only have 'Contact Us' left and you could even remove that, so you'd have enough room.
• Add the accepted payment method logos. Visa, Mastercard etc. This will again reinforce that users can buy from the website. If the site's got SSL then mention it.

Home Page

• The image to the left. I didn't have a clue what it was! I thought it was a skeleton and that I was looking at a pain relief website or something similar. Have they got any other canes which look a bit more conventional? The crosses on the labels, a big no no. You want users to click on them, not think that it's out of bounds. If it's not self explanatory what you need to do, then you need to make it more clear. I would also move the image to the far right.
• I would increase the font size on the heading and have a capital letter on each of the words. I would also split the text into 2-3 paragraphs or even make bullet points with the main features.
• The buttons and order canes call to action is confusing. What am I ordering when I click the button? Wouldn't it be better if I could see what I was ordering before commiting to a strong call to action like that? I would also reduce the width and increase height of the call to action and make the text darker as it could be hard to read on a light background.
• The plastic canes aren't available yet. Maybe put a pre-order type button near it or give an expected date on when they'll be available. If it's not in the very near future, I would remove this button completely.
• The gallery button. You could include a row of 10 or so thumbnails with the heading 'Sample Of Our Work' or similar, that would also bring some more colour to the page.

• I'm still not sure what the ordering process is. Do you select what cane you want after you've commited to order? Maybe explain what the process is. eg.

  1. Choose Cane Material
  2. Customise Your Cane
  3. Make Your Payment

As I said, I'm not sure what the ordering process is, so I've not got a clue what the steps could be.

Content Page

• I would move the image to the right. Increase font size and capital letters on the heading.
• Not much else I can think of on this page.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to your second draft. Once I can see how the ordering process works I'll be able to give better advice.

Thanks,

Steve

Hi Elaine,

I believe you have done a great job and it's just a great piece of visuals, however, I think a few points can be fine tune:

• You have the grey gradient for supporting your navigation, however, I think if you keep the blue gradient only from top to bottom and use the link in white a off white color then the navigation part will be more unique and creative

• I think headings font can be increased a bit more and font case (upper case, lower case, sentence case) should be same, either be it sentence or anyone...

• "Order canes" is your call of action and I think it's a button, however, it's not evoking that feel and need some work here

• you have used the white line to separate your bottom section + footer link i.e. contact us, facebook etc... I believe colors of the icons and seperater seem too bright in comparison of the other colors and not appreciating the background and rest of the elements of the design... need a bit tweak here.

Hope this helps

Hi Elaine

Overall, I find your design striking if a little lacking in detail. Those areas have been covered fully by other posts.

The "elephant in the room" for me is: where is the headline? There's a huge vacant piece of real estate crying out for a carefully worded piece of copywriting brilliance.

Find the right words to both describe the unique attributes of the product and tell me why I should buy one. Your attractive, quirky design will then make more sense and give visitors a clear path to the checkout.

Hope this helps.