| Loads well on 600x800 screen. Good load time. Free shipping on all orders
is prominently displayed. Toll-free number is also very visible under the logo.
Nice Buttons. Clear icons and clean look however, logo is
simply text and does not express anything about the business. Home page is a bit
disorganized/crowded at the top. The first paragraph would do well to be re-written to
flow in a more intuitive manner. "New Featured Product" feels slightly out of
place. Category tree loads slightly in from the edge of the page whereas the header goes
all the way across. Not sure if it is intended as a design feature- it almost feels like a
mistake. Search box is well placed and very useful for a site like this where searches
would be for specific products/artists. Categories are clear and easy to find.
Clicked on Webring Network and was taken to a page with
three webrings and a promotion for the affiliate program. This is semi-related to the page
topic so it did not cause too much confusion, however underneath there was a list of
products with reduced prices. It was completely unclear as to what relevance this had to
the page and whether those reduced prices were for a specific group, or available to
everyone.
Account page has a brief privacy statement at the bottom -
good location for anyone thinking of signing up. Also has clear instructions at the top to
walk customers through the process.
The Radio Network page is a nice content addition and there
is a nice tie in with the "shop with ----" feature for each host.
Search page is configured to bring up full information on
product matches. For me this was too much information and I was turned off. The thought of
having to sort through multiple pages of full product descriptions was too much for me.
Most customers familiar with what they are looking for will only need a list of titles
(with or without images) in order to sort through which ones they may be interested in.
Product list took a very long time to load and was
overwhelming in scope. One very nice feature is that it is sorted into sections, and there
is a link to each. The colors clashed a bit, and there was no alternating lines to help
break up the monotony.
The top of some category pages becomes too crowded with the
back link, the free shipping image and the Sub-category links. This area should be given a
little more space. Also there is yet another search box on some categories which is
unnecessary and could lead the customer to think that the search will be run on that
category only. I would remove this. On some category pages there is a complete list of
products underneath the links to the subcategories. It is a bit confusing and does not
have a clean feel. I would simply put the links to the sub-categories and give customers a
list of products under those only. Clicking on the Popular Vocalists brought up a nicely
arranged page with a variation on the traditional "add one to basket" and
"buy one now" buttons. Instead there was "add one to basket" (at which
point the customer will be taken to the basket and given the option of check out or
continue shopping) and more info (which takes the customer to the product page).
The newsletter sign up is a nice addition, but the link to
the newsletter shows it to be more of a "special deals" section rather than a
newsletter. Some content should be added or it should be renamed.
The privacy policy, contact info, and return policy were
all "hidden" under the 'about BostonPete' link at the bottom. Clicking on the
logo also brought it up. It is not an intuitive place for customers to look for this
information. The 'help/faq' page also contained the info on returns, but it was not
prominently placed and it contained no info on privacy. The 'about bostonpete.com' link is
misspelled.
Was forced to create a test account in order to access the
shopping cart- login "testaccount" can be deleted. Good use of upsale products
during checkout. Was defaulted on the option of 'expedited shipping' for $4.80. There was
the option of "Free shipping" but it has to be selected. This was initially
confusing to me since Free Shipping has been promoted throughout the site. Nice use of
additional information gathering before order completion. Clear instructions on how to
enter the payment information.
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