AscenderFonts.com Type Style Page

Hi Gediminas,

I really like the clear design which brings fonts (merchandise) to the front. User experience part of this site is one of the best I've recently seen. Nevertheless few remarks :)

1. (left menu) Menu highlight technique (black fold) is too strong and looks more like a category header than a menu item. This is a big usability issue because users will not be able to grasp the menu/page hierarchy and will be confused. It's probably confusing also because this technique has been usually used for marking section/headers not for marking menu items. I would suggest using the smaller version of it (just like in specific language listing) which looks more like a nice folded arrow.

2. (left menu) Section titles (Fonts by, Font lists, resources) could be stronger. This will help user to understand hierarchy of this quite busy left menu.

3. (left menu) Underlines under each last menu item help in quick recognition of the next section. You have it in Resources (line under Articles) but sadly not in other places.

4. (left menu) Seals could go below the Support as they break the logic of the menu. I understand that this was probably a marketing decision to have them above the fold but nevertheless usability suffers because hierarchy of the menu is broken.

5. Page name is a must. It's not enough to have a menu link highlighted on the left. New users have to understand where they are without thinking. H1 with page name (Fonts by Type Style) should be at the top in the same way you have it on Fonts by Type Foundry page. This page name should also help with the next point.

6. Type style can be confusing for the new and inexperienced users. I for a few seconds thought that those were the actual fonts not the main categories :) Maybe adding a table header would help, or smaller style written underneath, or improved View button (see below)

7. View Fonts button is pushing on the usability 'proximity rule'. Essence of this button is exact with the click on the big Style category (Display, Script) on the left and means View all fonts in this category. I would seriously reconsider moving it to the left, under big category name. It should reinforce message that this is a category not an actual font (for idiots like me) :)

8. Less text in Pro & Picture styles descriptions would be better as people don't read on-line and some of this text looks like unnecessary happy talk and instructions to me.

9. Is there a way to show all 8 type styles above the fold? It would be much better from user experience point of view (sense of scale)

10. Do you want to cater to inexperienced designers? They would like to see examples of subcategories as much as the categories. For example I (design rookie) would like to see all 8 styles above the fold and then all subcategories presented in the same graphical manner on the next page. It's so much easier to understand what Scrip>exotic types look like if I could see an example.

11. Massive and eye catching Checkout button is not needed from the start. It distracts a lot. It looks more important than Search. I'm a strong believer in that things should be given to users when they might need them (not earlier or later). There is no need for this huge button when the cart is empty.

12. The same applies to cart section on the homepage. I would strongly suggest putting login inputs (very needed on the homepage) there instead of this cart. Of course as long as there is nothing in the cart.

13. Add to Cart breaks the shopping flow by taking user straight away to the cart content. The 'up-sale' oriented process should keep user on the same page because he might add another product to the cart. Very visible confirmation of adding a product to the cart will be needed though.

14. (cart) Continue shopping link has an error and zeroes the My cart amounts in the header of a font listing I was previously.

15. (cart) Fonts (products) listed in the cart should be show in their style. I want to see what I'm buying and I don't know those fonts by their funny names. Right now I would have to click on each font name before the purchase just to double check if I have the right ones.

16. (important feature) Add to favourites/lightbox/bookmarks would be a great help for all users as they are browsing through all the fonts and need a tool to mark the interesting ones. This way they can show their initial choices to other team members and don't have to copy & paste tens of links or write down the font names.

17. (font listing) Sample Abc is too quick on mouse over. It should have a fracture of a second delay so the huge drop-down block menu doesn't show by accident and confuse the user.

I haven't looked on the other pages but I presume there would be also a few usability and user experience issues there.

I hope this helps.

Cheers!

Michael

(user experience designer & strategist)

In terms of user experience, this is on first glance a fantastically designed section. Overall it works very well and the clear links make it easy to quickly drill down to the font needed. I think the broad idea of how it works functions well although I did have a few difficulties which I shall try to broadly outline below:

The six main sub sections

Separating out the fonts into Display, Script, Sans and Serif above the fold and Pro and picture below is perfect.

My only issue on this is that the main large images show fonts which aren't kerned correctly which for a typography site, is not great. The loose spacing between the 'a' and the 'n' in sans compared to the tighter 'S' and 'a' really jars for me. The same goes for the kerning on the Serif. The script and the Display are less jarring but could be improved.

Display

This is where the actual functionality starts to fail since a lot of the fonts listed under the various sub headings in Display are not actually Display fonts. I think you've used display as a generic term for anything which doesn't fit into the other sub-headings which isn't technically what a display font is. Dafont uses the term 'fancy' as the category into which retro, stencil, western etc all fit under which seems a technically more correct term even if it doesn't sound quite as good.

Script

Overall this works well athough there are some fonts listed which are questionable as script fonts. Enviro Font for example. If the goal is to help customers narrow down their type selection more quickly then maybe making the font selections under each heading smaller may help.

Serif

Overall this again works really well. However, the heading of Clarendon did confuse me as Clarendon to me personally is a font and not a sub-section of slab serif font styles. I ended up looking up Clarendon on google in case I was mistaken and had inadvertently missed something. Here is what I found: Definition

I think slab serif is sufficient to include Clarendon under.

Sans

I was particularly intrigued by the square sans sub-heading and again the sub-headings mostly work well although there are some questionable choices to put such as Bannock Brae Gothic under the square heading. If the idea is to very broadly categorize fonts to help people browse then this functions very well but if it's to make finding a font as quick and easy as possible then the fonts definitely need to be narrowed down for each section.

Pro

It would be nice to be able to drill down into these fonts more quickly say into Sans, Serif, Display etc.

Picture

These work very well and I like the ability to sort by popularity.

For further feedback on the design I've added notes to the images. If you require any further information or clarification please don't hesitate to contact me. I hope these comments help a little.

The information listed makes it very hard to review this concpet from a marketing perspective.

It would be more useful to see the home page and then a few pages with different type styles and/or the form used at checkout.

If the first page shown is the home page then it is very cluttered with the type styles in your face. If not, it would help to see the actual home page without the type called out.

From a marketing point-of-view, I would make the search area larger...like Google does on their home page and list the Resources at the bottom of the fold.

Most users are going to be pressed for time and will want to go to your site, pick what they need, pay, download and be done.

If you want to also turn this into a user friendly site, you could display a form that makes it easy for the buyer to check the language, foundry, type, etc. and then retain that along with their other information such as name, etc. and when they return provide the form already completed with the name, etc. info. making it easy for them to make a repeat purchase.

For sale fonts, you might consider adding some flash and have the sale fonts along with their price scroll across the top of the webiste as the main focal point.

The site should be all about ease of use for the designers to whom it is targeted. The KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle applies here to this audience.