The website I choose to proceed with was Spotmetering.com. The site belongs to a photographer by the name of Bahman Farzad. According to his 'About the author' page, Bahman Farzad is highly regarded and has obtained many qualifications and a variety of skill sets. It's a massive shame that a site like that belongs to an established author and photographer. The main purpose of the site is to sell the books that Bahman has written. Both books are situated around the subject of spot metering, a specialised area of photography.
Analysis of site
The site is absolutely awful. cluttered, unprofessional, inaccessible and depressing. The main objective should be to sell the author's book, however, this important aspect has been lost amongst an array of information, images, graphs and statistics. It was shocking to witness such a massive amount of content on a website. To put this into perspective, I copied all text from ONLY the homepage to see what the word count was. The word count for ONLY the homepage was just under 6000! Unfortunately, this pattern is seen throughout the whole site. The site is a total headache with complete disregard for the user experience.
The website abandons any form of hierarchy or accessibility to allow the website to be comfortable visited by all users. Consistency is non-existent with a collection of typefaces, colours and image sizes. I understand why the website is set up this way, I spent some time navigating through the maze of information and pages. It took me a while to understand what the website was offering at its core, so, instead of teasing the book by showing snippets of the books Bahman ends up injecting far too much information about the book within the website. It ends up becoming overcrowded and a mess. It hides the most essential pieces of information which are the most valuable elements which entice users to buy the book. Important call to action buttons are drowned out and overpowered amongst surrounding information. The site ends up not promoting Bahman's books but instead dumping a load of information in the hopes the user can digest it and essentially buy the book. If you think about it, the website has all the information the user would need about spot metering so what's the incentive for the user to buy the book?
How to fix the site
- Strip all unwanted and unnecessary information.
- Only use information that is deemed necessary for the sale of the book. Teaser content to ensure an incentive to buy the book.
- A clear user path to the books.
- Clear and fluid user journey to all areas of the site.
- Clear information hierarchy, demonstrating to the user what information is most important.
- Consistency with design elements (e.g typeface, colour)
- Minimal layout, ensure maximum visibility for the books.
- Responsive mobile site so all users can have a comfortable viewing experience no matter the device.
No comments:
Post a Comment