Project #4: Group Site Redesign FINAL

THE FINAL LAYOUT of williamsonoma.com
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Iphone

+

=

funny.

On The Late Show with Conan O'Brien last night, they had a skit about the different uses of the iphone...such as:

• electric shaver
• bottle opener
• blow dryer
• book mark
• cheese grater
• portable shower
• thermometer
• mace
• tread mill
• side burns
• pan flute

and...a really hard to use phone.

Turbo Tax

I was watching the news this morning and there was a brief article on turbo tax (regarding the conversation we had in the last class); the news reporter said that people who filed their taxes online with turbo tax weren't able to get their taxes in on time due to the servers for turbo tax being "swamped." The people won't get fined for their late taxes but is this a usability issue? I think yes.

Project #4: Group Site Redesign Updated Update

For the bakeware page I found "grounded images" for the bundt page, cookie sheet page, and loaf pan page. I also rearranged everything alphabetically, BUT kept the "new arrivals" first; though it starts with an "N," I feel like when reading a list, people will start at the beginning, reading the most important things first...which would be new arrivals.



For the Bundt pan page, i rearranged everything alphabetically as well, keeping the "new" items first again...but i was thinking of putting them alphabetically as well, disregarding the "new" infront of the word beehive bundt cake. I guess i'll just have to collaborate with my team!

Project #4: Usability Test

Test-ee: Gary Brandenburg

Upon testing our polished pdf, Gary had good things to say...until it came to the "sign in" page, which has you sign in as a new customer or an old customer, enabling you save payment information for possible future purchases.
Gary thought that going through the purchase process and then being confronted with the "sign in" page made him feel like he had jumped out of the check out process. Following the "sign in" page was the shipping and billing information page, which had the steps of the final checkout process highlighted on the upper right hand corner, Gary asked why the sign in page wasn't be part of the process...good question. And considering if you were a new or an old customer, wouldn't the number of steps change?
Also, the fact that during the checkout/sign in process, Gary noted that when he's purchasing online, he likes to feel assured during the process, like as if he were in a store, talking to a real person, purchasing something. Instead of having "sign in" for the page title, have "welcome!" and "thank you" to help create an "online face" as Gary put it.

For once I'm happy I picked someone with computer experience, because he was able to verbally describe what he felt and questioned, as opposed to "this right here, it's weird."

Thanks for your help Gary!

Project #4: Group Site Redesign Update

As a group, we decided to have a backdrop of an extremely light gray in the boxes that contain text, and in my case, that accompany an "button." Also, on the bakeware page, I added space at the bottom (between the content of the page and the footer) to allow the page to stay the same length from bakeware to bundt pan.

Bakeware UPDATE



Bundt Pans UPDATE

Project #4: Group Site Redesign

THE OBJECTIVE:

In a group, redesign a website through a series of 10+ pages.

THE GROUP:

Project Manager: Jesse
Art Director/Designer: Evan
Programmer: Dave
Research: Sarah
Usability Tester: Cory

THE WEBSITE:

willimassonoma.com



THE SITE/PAGE ANALYSIS REPORT:

Investigate a market niche and product. Put together demographic data and formulate a design plan for this product/service.

THE DESIGN PHASE:

The initial design phase will involve the creation of a site content map, construction of a page design grid, and final page design in it’s fully fleshed out form.

My homework was to redesign the Bakeware page and the Bundt page on the Williams Sonoma website, and here's what I came up with:



Bakeware page ORIGINAL


Project Plan:

• Have consistent page titles throughout the site
• Organize the product images to eliminate scrolling
• Control the images and have a consistent grid layout

Bakeware page REDESIGN



Using Evan's homepage layout, I grided out pictures/links in a way that eliminated scrolling and kept a consistent flow from column to column. For the pictures that I used for the links to other pages, I eliminated the "floating image" by inserting images of the links that were photographed in a setting. I had to take screenshots from random locations througthout the williams sonoma site to find images that were of relevance to the link; I still came up short a couple images so I had to go on other websites like macys.com to find more "none floating pictures." I made the title bigger, but minimized the opacity to 75%, creating less of a competition between the title of the page and the site ID. All of the text that names the link (i.e. "new arrivals") were also opacified, because it just seemed to be easier on my eyes.




Bundt page ORIGINAL



Project Plan:

• Control the images and have a consistent grid layout
• Increase page title
  

Bundt page REDESIGN



For the bundt page, I followed the process of what I did for the bakeware page, but I ran into problems finding "none floating pictures" of the products. So I had to use what I had, and I just took screenshots of the "floating pictures." But when I did so, I noticed that with the use of the grid, it helped anchor and organize the "floating pictures."



4.3.07 Group Consensus:

I need to change the typeface of the title and the text, change the color of the title, and change the size of the text. Also, I will be re-doing the pictures on the Bakware page, because Jesse and I both agreed that the none "floating pictures" used in the Bundt page may create a more of an organized appeal and be less chaotic.