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Hi Ryan ~
Visually, this is a very strong template. Most of my comments are associated with the quest to make the concept more engaging to a visitor.
A few concepts:
Types of Visitors (from a psychological point of view):
ELM: Studies have proven that there are two types of visitors to websites. There are those interested in the 'elaborate details' - and make value judgements on the efficacy of the site the clarity and veracity of the site content and design. This social psychological model is aptly named the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) where attitudes about high-dollar purchase sites (e.g.: Jewelry Stores) are evaluated cognitively. When designing to satisfy the needs of ELM visitors, you need to ensure the site persuades factually as well as provides a emotional sensations -- that connects with the users expectations.
What works for ELM:
Opportunities to increase ELM engagement:
Leverage 'persuasive principles' to gain more focus and clarity. Please take five minutes to watch this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J85SUZFXNM) Dr. Susan Weinschenk's key point is, there are ways to speak to a human's subconscious mind -- and trigger a call to action, or engender trust. To this end the following article provides a few key definitions of persuasive principles that will enable you to modify your central landing page ad banner to "reach" the ELM type visitor.
Contrary to one of the other reviewers -- you may have used the correct color. From a psychological perspective red evokes strong emotions, associated with love, warmth, and comfort. Still considered an intense and angry color that creates feelings of excitement, intensity, sexuality. Best way to validate - is to usability test (www.verifyapp.com). I recommend the mood test http://verifyapp.com/tour/mood-test
HSM definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic-systematicmodelofinformationprocessing) - know as the heuristic systematic processing model, simply means, people who are more "superficial" in their intellectual and emotional engagement with the website. HSM type evaluate websites with a set of criteria (heuristics - rules of thumb checklist) to form a value judgement, and often times determines whether you reach them cognitively. They may not have the interest (or time) to read and explore. In as little as 3-5 seconds, they are evaluating on a much higher level "is this worth my time". Their decision framework may not ever utilize elaborate details. In fact - counter to ELM types - elaborate details may get in the way of HSM types getting to the central theme or value proposition of this online store. As you can imagine - design for HSM is humbling, and requires usability testing. Once again, I would recommend the 5 second memory test (also from Verifyapp: http://verifyapp.com/tour/memory-test)
Finally, I've uploaded a screenshot of Bluenile.com - which is a pretty well designed site in the same vertical.
I hope this review resonates with you...
Michael+
MagnoliasJewlery.jpg
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Make the header bigger and move this to the top
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Add more space to the top and bottom
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If this is your CTA try using a different color
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Ryan Bentin commented:yes I do need to come up with a highlighting color which would be used predominately here.
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These work well here, good job
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This back is to harsh, try a dark grey.
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If you're trying to get my attention with this image..it worked ;)
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Ryan Bentin commented:
Yes I figured this would be a perfect image here. Check out this tidd-bit Michael left me: http://mixsoph.blogspot.com/2008/11/gaze-is-feminist-theory-developed-to.html
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Is this "Home Collection" or 2 menu items accidentally squished together?
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Ryan Bentin commented:
it's one item. Thats odd that confuses you. Although I guess "home" being it could mean homepage, I see.
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Try shrinking your top navigation down to 5 items if possible
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Geert-Jan Brits commented:Not that 7 items is too much, but the items feel a bit non-uniform. It's perfectly possible the way you have it now, but perhaps moving 'about us' and 'blog' and maybe even 'contact' to the footer, would resonate better. Just a thought.. One other small thing (didn't warrent a review) be careful with oversaturating / overusing the color red.. There's a lot 'highlighted', which may lead to no highlights at all if you know what I mean. Otherwise great looking template!
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Need a highlighting location strategy
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Michael Rawlins commented:notice how the user knows where they are located in this experience because of the location highlighting strategy: http://patterntap.com/tap/pattern/11191210814bded264b8e26
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There may be an expectation for Search & a Shopping Cart...
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This may be more effective 'without' this current content approach for the primary banner. If you think about leveraging persuasion -- your content may be more effective by triggering an emotion ("Valentine's Day is coming -- have you bought that perfect gift yet?"). What you would be doing is speaking to the visitor on a subconscious level -- evoking emotions we are hardwired for (things seem more valuable as they become harder to acquire). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From Smashing Magazine Article: About Scarcity the norm: “If it’s running out, I want it.” This principle tells us that people are more likely to want something if they think it is available only for a limited time or if it is in short supply. Intriguingly, this isn’t just about the fear of missing out (a kind of reverse social proof). Scarcity actually makes stuff appear more valuable. For example, psychologists have shown that if you give people a chocolate biscuit from a jar, they rate the biscuit as more enjoyable if it comes from a jar with just 2 biscuits than from a jar with 10. Persuasion architects exploit this by revealing scarcity in the design of the interface. This could be an item of clothing that is running short in your size, theatre tickets that are running out, or invitations to a beta launch. They know that perceived scarcity will generate demand. http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2010/11/29/persuasion-triggers-in-web-design/#trigger5
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Ryan Bentin commented:
I would never use this phrase in an actual project website. I used it more as a filler. Great points, though.
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Excellent use of the "Male Gaze Theory" -- http://mixsoph.blogspot.com/2008/11/gaze-is-feminist-theory-developed-to.html
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Not certain whether prices and a call-to-action should be associated with these images.
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Ryan Bentin commented:
In theory, if you were to hover your mouse over one of these thumbnails you would get a blown up version with pricing info. :)
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Michael Rawlins commented:
ELM visitors = success HSM visitors = failure The trick here is to determine how many visitors enter into a given experience with a superficial mindset. My gut says (and research indicates) - people don't automatically engage unless you persuade them within the first 3-5 seconds. You may be missing an opportunity to pull them in - but hiding information (relying on a hover) to provide key cost information. This can be usability tested - to determine whether this is an issue. Verifyapp.com has a few tools that will enable you to see the results quickly. What's in it for you (or your client is) it's truly a return-on-investment because you don't need to build anything to get results from Verifyapp. com. Priceless!
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This content approach may set-up an expectation for a Search metaphor or a 'wizard' to interview the visitor to find the "perfect gift" If you don't meet those expectations -- you will diminish the trust level.
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Ryan Bentin commented:
Ah yes, very true! hmmm... "Meet our own online sales person." :)
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Hidden
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Needs to be more prominent -- visitors often look for a physical address and phone number as a credibility check, placed in a easy to see - "persistent' section of the site (perhaps the footer)
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Ryan Bentin commented:
Well, I figured it seemed to stand out right there acting like a end-of-page marker. I'll placing it in the footer or maybe even the header.
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Try to give at the menu more light, more focus. Navigation bar is extemely important for users but at the moment is not highlighted
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Have you considered the idea of a dropdown menu (useful specially when you search for something precise)? Another effect you can give to the menu is highlighting the section when you are in that section: for example home highlighted when you are at home
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Here it doesn't have sense, should be in the header
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Maybe you can have 2 sections: 1)Cart (Items) 2)My Account.
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Are these links? If yes 3 separate link or only 1? This can be improved to be more user-friendly
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Should be in a less sacrificed position.
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2 Ideas: 1) Write this all horizontally and continue the list of Jewelry / Gifts till the end 2) When you click it turns into a Google Map Widget
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the account access should be provided somewhere in a navigational section - not inside the main content area
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you should put some meaningful text somewhere in the layout of the startpage to be indexed in searchengines
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for me this looks kinda displaced ... but may depend on personal taste
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try to make it visually clear that these two belong together
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main navigation is too light - make it more obvious
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I think this needs to be more apparent that it's a slider via maybe a darker background?
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Let these go all the way to the right, as if coming from the frame of the page, also they are uneven.
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Scrap the dotted line and make the elements blocks; then, on hover, make them seem as big, responsive buttons at a darker red.
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I'd change the background on this, it needs to stand out and split the page in half.
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This screams of a color change; either a dark red or a light black?
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Let them touch the top of the footer, OR be at least level with the social icons on the right
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Love these
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Very nice
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If you have control over the logo, add a line between the first line and the second, or add reflection
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I would move the navigation down a little and move the "My Account" up into the very top right corner.
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Is "Home Collection" a thing, or is this the button to go to the home page?
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I bet these would look really good if they changed colour and expanded 20-30 pixels to the left as you moused over them.
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I'm not sure I understand the relationship of the items of these 6 items to the 5 dots below? Is this the second of 5 sets of 6 items? I don't think dots are the correct navigation here. You might be better off with a wrapping scroll box and arrows on the left and right sides.
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This is a great picture. Since people tend to mouse over and click on pictures of people, it might be a great way to grab some clicks if when a user scrolled over top of the jewelery, that a tiny hover tip (designed to match the site) showed the name and price of the piece and let you click on it to go to the item details page.
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I feel like, since these two columns are all part of the Jewelry header, that the dotted line should not be broken on the top border. Makes it feel like the second column is an orphaned list. Same goes for the "Gifts" columns
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The tagline feels a little awkward, "The Finest Quality that the new orleans area has to offer". Feels like the second half has one to many words at the start "The Finest Quality the new Orleans area has to offer" or "The Finest Quality You'll find in New Orleans" feels better to me.
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What is the signifigance of this logo mark and why does it not match the one in the site logo?
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I think that these navigation items need a break in the line below them instead of a solid line that runs all the way through. Also, I think that they should be a little bit larger, and I would like to see an "On" state for one of the links to get an idea for how you'll treat the navigation.
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Between the header text "Gifts" and each of the sub-section items below them. I'm not sure which of them (if any or all) are clickable. I haven't read Michael's review yet, but I can wager a guess that he pointed out "Affordance issues with these, but I could be wrong.
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This is the only place in the entire design where any colour other than the primary red or the background colour is used, and it provides a striking contrast. I'm not sure if this is on purpose or by accident, but the eye is immediately drawn here.
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I think each of these would work well as a call to action, but I think that three of them stacked up one above the other causes each of them to lose they power. At the very least, I think each of them could use an arrow after the text to help hint at the fact that they're clickable links.
It certainly does, Mike. The information you have provided here is most invaluable. As I was telling Simon, I eventually want to buckle down and dig deep to create an intricate and fully functional template from this concept. Your advice and advocacy has inspired me to do so.
Awesome links! I have a folder I keep on my desktop full of articles and information as such and almost every one I've seen that you've provided on this website is in there.
I am so incredibly eager to really sit down with this concept, taking heed to all you've said. Unfortunately I just don't have the time right now.
Again thank you for your time, Michael. Your perplexity of knowledge and insight never ceases to amaze and is always reminding of why I want to design for the web in the first place. I will go ahead and use verifyapp.com to test it out and I'll update you on the results.
Respectfully, Ryan
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!