Ferret Blog
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Written by
Tom CahalanFlash E-Commerce Websites
29th Sep, 2008 @ 12:37 pmFlash E-commerce websites
Running a website design company, I'd consider myself pretty Internet savvy. So there's not much more that annoys me on a website than not being able to understand how it works and being completely lost.Unfortunately this happened to me only today, when we were looking over a Flash based e-commerce website. Everything about it was remarkably clever. I could appreciate the work that would have went into the Flash development; I could take note of their desire to improve the Internet and their image software to easily see high-resolution images. But what I couldn't appreciate was just how difficult and unconventional their website actually was.
Nearly nothing made sense. Being a programmer I'm fully aware of how to bug test solutions and look for the right answer, yet this site baffled me. Not only could I not work out how to add to my basket, I couldn't work out how to browse any of the products, nor really whether it was selling anything or its aim was to sell anything.
A nice rule I heard many years ago which is still true to this day: what would Amazon do?- Would Amazon make you scroll sideways to see the rest of the products?
- Would Amazon not have a search feature?
- Would Amazon not show their main navigation system at all times
- Would Amazon fail to provide you with any copy for a product?
The last point is one worth mentioning, as a common problem that people do is by thinking that if they improve one issue incredibly well, then it will outbalance the other problem. In this case, I'm talking about product photography and copy, where having a great photo means you can get away with not writing anything about it. Wrong. But that's a discussion for another day.
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