Review Request: www.ipodx.co.uk

At first glance I'm rather uninspired by this design. The logo is nice, but the black and grey colour scheme is exteremly drab. It feels like a rainy day. The orange is a nice addition but I don't think it does enough to brighten up the layout.

Another problem is that there is too much text on the front page. Nobody is going to read that! Move your product promotions up to the top where people can see them.

Shopping around is nice and easy. I found a few little things - when I click on the coloured skins I get a list of colours to choose from, but they have funny names that I don't understand. What colour is sonic? I didn't see that little colour browser at the top.

When I add something to my cart I should see something more detailed than a message stating that I have added that to my cart. You could bring up additional product recomendations or go directly to the cart page instead. The latter would probably make the most sense, or you could do both!

Be careful about consistency in your text. I found an instance of IPod (s/b iPod) and you should also be consistent about your site name (iPodX, IpodX, ipodx etc.)

When I tried to add a second item to my cart it didn't show up at first - I had to reload the cart page to see it. On checkout, I am asked for my forename. I don't know what that is. Given the context I'm assuming it's first name but I've never seen the term forename used there. I guess that's more common in the UK. When I submit the checkkout form I am told that I have missed a required field but it doesn't highlight which one it is.

When I get to the paypal screen I'm seeing a different looking logo header. That should be corrected to match the main site.

Overall a nice job. Well done in terms of usability etc. Just a few minor things to fix up.

Thanks megan... I've been meaning to fix the paypal header for about a week now, I've just had soooooo many other things to do (like packing orders n stuff) that I havnt had chance. I agree about the product added page too, one of those things I've just not had time to do.

I never knew how hard ecommerce is, I've only ever previously designed the sites before and never had to worry about the ordering side of things! Boy did I get a shock!

I agree about the colours, it is a bit bland, but unfortunatly I've been trying to carry on the colour scheme of the apple store to help with brand association and what not.

BTW... Sonic is blue I think i might put the *real world* colour in brackets next to the names cos I get a lot of customer emails asking that exact question!