First, the site looks polished and professional. Nice clean lines and a good choice of black for the background since black is very slimming. Good location for the phone number and search bar. These are very prominent. However, I would probably go with white for the phone number to make it stand out more. It looks a little fuzzy in gray. In terms of the menu choices at the top, I would move these to just above the dark gray and move the KIYONNA logo up to the top. Your eye tends to stop at the logo and you initially miss the menu choices at the top.
The dark gray to light gray sections delineate the functionality pretty well. The “Basket Content” button and “Checkout” button are probably not crucially important on the initial screen but are certainly nice to have. If it is expected that users will be utilizing either of these buttons on this screen, then you may want to do something to make the “Checkout” button stand out more. I would imagine that since this is a site to drive online sales that navigating people to the “Checkout” page is crucially important. The light gray navigation links to the rest of the collection (my assumption since this is just a mock-up) are well placed and intuitive.
The text at the bottom of the page does not make much sense. “Before placing an order” is non sequitur. Also, I think that the footer should not be the only link to customer service. Again, I imagine that customer service is going to be extremely important to this type of site, so this should be much more prominent, as in a “service” link in the main menu of options at the top. Also, the words come out a little fuzzy in gray. You may want to “highlight” certain text within this footer, like the phone number, by making it white. I have built similar sites to this and even with the phone number at the top and bottom of the page, people still complain that they cannot find the phone number. You may want to add a “contact” link to the main menu options at the top.
Overall, the font choices are appealing. There seems to be some inconsitency though in that most of the website is in all caps, but the menu at the top is in all lower-case. I realize that this was probably done to accentuate the other links and the pictures on the site, but it just seems inconsistent. I would probably change this to have standard first letter capitalization for the menu links.
On to page 2. Again, overall a very nice layout. Very simple customization for ordering and the “Add to Bag” button is well placed. The color chart is a nice feature but it’s placement seems a bit haphazard. Not exactly sure where else I would place it, but somewhere closer to the form input for color would be my guess. Perhaps right under, over or next to the color input. I would strongly recommend that once the “Add to Bag” button is clicked that it would throw the user to a screen where a “Checkout” button and a “Keep Shopping” button would be prominently placed. One item of note, it is easy to lose track of the price of the dress on this page. You see it initially, but as you delve into the page and look at everything, it is tough to find the price of the item again. Perhaps a repeat of the price below the “Add to Bag” button would be a way of solving this issue.
The “We also recommend…” section is very nice. However, I would probably not have these here, but instead have them whatever screen the “Add to Bag” button throws the user. See below for my suggestion for what to put here.
One thought would be to pop up a little window that keeps track of basket contents that is always on top and in an unobtrusive corner like the bottom left-hand corner of the page. Might be a nice feature. Also, I would make the Fit Chart a similar kind of deal in that it would not navigate the user away from the product purchase screen but pop up a new little window in a corner of the screen. I would think that the “Color Chart” should be handled in a similar manner to the “Fit Chart”, as in on the right-hand side of the Color form input would be a link for “Color Chart” just like “Fit Chart” that would pop up a little window with the color chart information.
One thing that strikes me overall about the web site is that on the site review page, you specifically mention “we can’t allow a woman to touch the fabric of our garments or try them on via our online store. Because of this, we strive to do everything possible to make up for these major things” This is fine lip-service, but I do not see anything on the site that tries to address these deficiencies. I would suggest that in the “We also recommend…” section that you instead replace this with more detailed pictures of the garment. Some nice close-ups of someone’s hand touching and feeling the fabric would be nice, especially if the fabric is semi-sheer (that way they know they need a slip or something) or some close-ups of the lace material to show the detail and feminine aspect of the dress.
Finally, one last random thought, I would strongly encourage you to offer the accessaries to the outfit shown like the necklace and shoes for sale as well. People are going to see an outfit and want THAT outfit. It would be nice to give them that option.
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Gregory J. Deckler
infonition
Ignite Your Business
http://www.infonition.com/
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