MouseSports Web Site Review

They have: 7 posts

Joined: Feb 2007

Greatings Reviewers,

I am a student currently enrolled in an Internet Application Programmer program of study. My group of three students put together an e-commerse web site for one of our courses. Part of our course marks come from getting our site critiqued.

Our site involves the online purchasing of a gaming mouse. Any sort of critique or suggestion would be very appreciated. He were instructed to create a very limitted e-commerse site. Due to these limits you will be promted with many "under construction" alert boxes while navigating the site.

I guess the question is whether or not the site is appealing and simple enough to use that people willing to purchase the product can do so without conflict.

http://acadunix.algonquincollege.com/~fili0049/mousesports/

Cheers;
MouseSports Team

JeevesBond's picture

He has: 3,956 posts

Joined: Jun 2002

First impressions were quite good, tried it in Opera 9.10 (my weapon of choice Smiling ) and Firefox 2, both on Linux. There seems to be a small graphical glitch on the main menu (horizontal). Things aren't lining-up quite correctly.

Your code validates: good! It does seem they've been teaching you the right things on that course as I can't see any tables used for layouts in there. Smiling

The photo pop-ins are a little gimmicky, I've seen this effect around before. It's not something I like as most users will be expecting the images to be opened in a new page, also this relies upon JavaScript, not always the best solution when it doesn't strictly need to be used. In this case the layout made me expect the large image in the sidebar to change whenever I rolled-over (or clicked) one of the smaller images. Not saying that's something you should do, it's what I expected from the way the images are laid-out.

The layout is functional, if all you're ever going to sell is that one mouse then this site is fit for purpose. Not sure how you'd lay things out if you were to sell more than one product though!

a Padded Cell our articles site!

They have: 7 posts

Joined: Feb 2007

Thanks for review, JeevesBond!

In defense of JavaScript image previews. The thing about this feature is that it's truly unobtrusive. Meaning that if the user has JavaScript disabled, he/she will still be able to view the images just fine.

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

It's not unobtrusive when users find it annoying. Then it is obtrusive Smiling I find it annoying. I was shopping for a new laptop last week and encountered some similar (but better) implimentations. The fade out and the next/previous working like that is strange. It would be good as a demo for a class project if you programmed it all yourself though Smiling

The design of this site is quite good. I find it believeable as a professional eCommerce site. I like that the site has a strong selling point and a specific audience (gaming mice, not just mice in general). I dont' mind the mouse in the logo but it would be cooler to tie it into the game concept. Something with more of a sense of movement would be good.

The product description here is very well written and descriptive. I think the price should be located after the body text. I mentioned this in another review - for some reason I keep looking for the price after the text and to the right side. That might be just me though.

The big "buy this" button seems a little unintuitive for some reason. The graphic stands out from the rest of the design, but maybe a little too much. People could assume that's an ad and visually ignore it. "Buy now" is a more commonly used term.

You all should really lose those javascript alerts for pages that aren't working. Just remove the link for right now if it's a concept.

He has: 11 posts

Joined: Feb 2007

I don't see why there is all the hoopla and downing of javascript. Anyways, I think it looks great. The only eyesore to me was your "buy this" button.

aka Rohan's picture

He has: 200 posts

Joined: Feb 2006

Is it supposed to say 'Batter Charge Indicator' instead of Battery on the photos? If so, it still looks like a typo and could be construed that way. Also it might be an idea to have the 'prev' and 'next' buttons permanently shown as the only-appear-when-hovered-near can be a little confusing.

The general look and feel of the site is nice. It's got a good sleek look to it which fits with the whole gaming concept.

I'm really not sure about that logo though. It doesn't really look like a computer mouse or a mouse mouse. Megan's suggestion is a good one... the site itself has a gaming feel to it so maybe the logo should too. At least make it look more like a mouse and not a partially deflated balloon Sticking out tongue

I agree with Megan about the position of the price too. It's natural to expect the price in the bottom right of the description and from my web usage this does tend to be the de-facto standard. Also having it in the parenthesis implies to me a more of a RRP than the actual price. Kind of a [(RRP £150) You pay £99.99] situation. I'm seeing this and then looking further down for the 'real' price.

The 'Buy This' button is ok but could do with being smaller certainly. And as Megan say's 'Buy Now' is better wording.

So yeah the overall look is great. What I've pointed out are only fairly minor points. Good Work! Laughing out loud

(No table layouts and validating code is always going to win Jeeves over lol. Hey Jeeves... Frontpage forever! Sticking out tongue)

They have: 12 posts

Joined: Sep 2006

color are nice but you should need put more images there images are very attractivee the visitor
thanks

They have: 6 posts

Joined: Mar 2007

Hi,
I like the colors and the simplicity of the site but I do think the sidebar is way to wide, it should be half of what it is (and the thumbnails could be presented in 2 lines and not all in one line and it will look fine)

As a user I don't really like the fact that I should close each pic I open (and the X is only at the bottom of the pic and you don't really see it at first) - I would prefer if I can press another pic or just on the main page and the pic will close automatically

Good luck Smiling

They have: 25 posts

Joined: Jan 2004

Personally, I loved visiting this website. Nice graphics, excellent layout and use of color. Excellent work Smiling

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