Design & Publishing . / . WEB . / . Critique . / .9803 Site Review: Design, Inc.

Here's another situation where reading the type, boiling the visual gulp to its essence, and asking questions about the message would have greatly improved this visual entry window. What do YOU think this site is all about? This client's first inclination was to literally put the store front on the page. Yet when the viewer is suddenly presented with the page they read: "Decades get a look decades." Decades is all about high-fashion, vintage, designer clothing. We had to struggle with the visual signals and ask what message the designers wanted to send? Okay, cool... it's a website about getting a look through this store window, right? No? Perhaps about store window display? You see, we don't know. The visual is very different from others we've reviewed. Where some are strongly pointed the reader, this one is sort of non-committal... ambiguous. ? Are the mannequins important? No? ? The lettering on the glass? No? ? How many readers will stick around to figure it out? In this scenario, the photo has got to be a killer to succeed... which this one isn't. It's simply a clear-cut case of client vanity -- actually obscuring the message of the site. In fact there's nothing here that compels the reader into the content well. Only the four buttons in the second screen. Will we make it to the second screen? Entering the "Designers" section (at left) we are met with a painfully long page which goes on and on and on. Should these individuals be broken up into their own pages? Wouldn't they even be easier to update, move and modify? Ask: What do we want the reader to do? Then ask: What's the most important thing on the page? Continues...

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