Please review my website concerning supply chain/e-business initiatives

Dave, this is the second time that you have put your site up for review here. You have yet to help us out with our critiques of other sites. So please help us out by reviewing 3 sites here.

From what I remember of the old site, I don't see too much difference. Here are some suggestions:

• Page Layout - the page layout is kind of wrong.
  Top of page - looks kind of clunky. You have a kind of logo over on the left, some non-clickable text in the middle, and a gray box on the right. I would move the logo to the center of the page (it wouldn't hurt to improve it a bit), get rid of the text in the middle except for maybe this "MBA content emphasizing supply chain issues", which I would place under the logo, move the box on the right somewhere else. Then I would make a better navbar DISCUSSION ° ADVICE ° RESEARCH ° SOLUTIONS ° NEWS, and move it under the logo and text.

  Other layout problems -
  That orange box must go.
  Page is too long.
  Too much content

• Colors - I think that you need some more color to jazz things up. The light gray for the tables is kind of drab.
• Little things - things like this kind of bug me Participate in the discussion forum because discussion forum should be link to the discussion forum.
  Why when you click on the logo it takes you elsewhere?
  Type "Control D" to book mark this site One must assume that everyone that comes to your site is an idiot. Just put some javascript so that it will bookmark the page for them.
• Discussion - to me it is hard to follow a discussion board like you have because there is no organization to it. Everything is just there. Consider something like V-bulletin which is what we use here.

Any way that is just a few of the things that I noticed. I still would ask for you to help us out here.

ISDN connection
13" monitor 800x600
IE 5.0

Have to agree about the orange box and all of the previous comments.

Also, stick with the same font family - you've got serif and sans-serif mixed in all over the place.

I also agree that the background does need more color.

I think you should have your logo expand across the top of the page with the description beneath (DISCUSSION ° ADVICE ° RESEARCH ° SOLUTIONS ° NEWS "MBA content emphasizing supply chain issues" ..) since nothing in the description is clickable anyway.

Deborah

Hi,

Check out http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000514.html for an eyetracking study of web users. This may help explain why the orange box just has to go. Users look first at text in the middle of the page just under the logo, then onto other areas. My guess is that you hope that the orange will lead the eye to that area? In effect people look away because of the lack of balance and need for white space.

Ditto previous comments re logo / heading. Way too much content on home page, but then it is an information portal. I didn't really understand what the site was about until I read the title for the home page (very clear and succint). And 'SCT' - took me a bit to work out SCT was short for Supply Chain Today (it is a Sunday!). Maybe you could emphasise the SCT by emphasising the letters in your logo. And why does the logo not link to home? Why have MBA in your byline - I only understood the MBA bit after reading 'About SCT' - then it became obvious. (I do know what MBA stands for but didn't see the significance of it on homepage or for portal). Your mission and goal statements on 'About SCT' are more important than the history of how you found the links.

Overall, page not balanced. Design needs to be cleaned up and more usable (a portal doesn't necessary need to look attractive, but needs to be very usable). Check out other usability sites for more info.

Good luck,

Annette