• Joel Glovier

    Joel Glovier

    Rank: 1 Elite

    3701

    • Design: 3
    • Purpose: 3
    • Originality: 2
    • Engagement: 3
    0 Votes
    The layout

    Posted on Aug 29, 2010 at 2:55 PM

    Mike your design is not bad. But honestly I think you should reconsider the layout. It feels a little cluttered, just because it has so much content squeezed into this 960 area. At least if you are set on this layout, consider an elastic width layout (so users with wider screen size aren't stuck to having all the content still within the 960 container; see amazon.com for reference).

    I know that e-commerce sites like this present a very unique design challenge, and I commend you for what you have got so far. As for strengths I think it is pretty easy to understand how to navigate the site. Products are pretty clearly explained.

    One criticism about how you've got the products listed on your homepage is that you should definitely have the product title as an h2 or h3 and styled with bold font weight so it stands out. Even consider using a different color. Users are used to seeing the product title to click on as bold, not to mention the SEO benefits of using a heading element for them.

    And speaking of the actual markup, I noticed your CMS produces table based markup, so -1 for that. That may just be a restriction of the CMS you have to use, but I don't know so I'm pointing it out. Even most major modern CMS have the ability to do non-table based markup.