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There is a Greek radio producer, N. Komninos, whose shows are truly fascinating because of the great music he plays. By the time I ‘ve heard he was going to manage his own radio station I was excited. I can’t say the same about the website of the station which offers much less than it promises. The poor content is the main problem. There are also some more issues which make the whole experience even worse.
Design issues
Well I can see why there ‘s so much yellow everywhere. It’s part of the concept and I accept that. However, it is problematic when you stay at the page more than than a minute or so.
Navigating in this page is a problem too, not because of the shape or style of the icons but because you need to guess their meaning. So we have beautiful but not usable icons. What’s more important? You guess.
There is also this Flash thing. Actually, only the navigation system takes advantage of Flash capabilities. At the same time the website remains inaccessible, there are certain SEO issues, the website is difficult to be updated etc. So here it comes the usual question: did they really need Flash?
Content issues
All of the above could (?) be ignored if there was some content in this website. Because there isn’t. The only real info you can take is the program of the radio and the online radio link. Except for it affords only Windows users. I definitely don’t care about this silly ping pong game. If I wanted to play ping pong online, I would have visited a relevant, not a radio station, website.
In other words it is obvious that real content has been replaced by not important content. A wallpaper is a good gig, nothing more. There can’t be as important as the news of the radio station. Dj picks (a list of songs picked by each producer) could be shown beside each name at the program list. There is no reason to occupy a place of something more important in the menu.
All in all we come back to the same old thing: content is the king and without content there can’t be a king. Yes, the designer of the website approached it a way I wouldn’t. He could have done more (or less - it depends on the side of the coin you choose). However, people who thought and decided the content of this website made the real mistake. I wonder how often they visit it or how eager they are to visit it.
A book with no pages
The polished front page hides a book with no pages. I am pretty sure that if someone had made a simple usability test all of the previously mentioned problems would have been revealed. I can’t see why a user could stay there more than 30”.
It is not hard to think how easily this website could become more useful for its visitors. It ‘s a petty such a good radio station does not have a website it deserves, that’s all.
e-shop.gr is the most known electronic shop in Greece. Many friends use it and they are happy of the services it provides. However, I never used it.
Therefore I can’t judge its services, the security of transactions, the number and availability of products etc. I am sure the store is good since it has many loyal customers. As a designer I am very disappointed of what I see at this page so I don’t bother to follow a link.
Homepage is confusing
This is the homepage of the website. I can’t focus on anything. If something seems interesting is the blue banner. Unfortunately this is an advertisement so when I follow this link I am transferred somewhere else.
Another thing with the homepage is the alignment of the elements. Is there an alignment on the left? No. On the center of the page? No. Your eye is wandering but it is wasting.
If the designer of this layout wanted us to focus on the first product (the black computer) then he fails. I wish I could measure the number of the actual clicks on the product. I am sure this number is fewer than the intended one.
Respectively images of each product come with some text (center aligned) underneath them. With one exception: the text on the right of the first product (written with bold) is left aligned. This text aims to provide details about the product but it looks like it has been written for something else because it stays too far from the image.
Colors
The yellow, the black and the blue (for the links) is a good combination. The problem is the gray. I counted 9 different grays on the page! 9!
It looks like the designer of the website each time he needed to use a color he used a different gray. This is bad design.
Icons and labels
What ‘s happening here guys? These icons come from Windows 98 OS (or Windows 2000). There hundreds free icons to be used instead. By seeing these icons you tend to believe that this is an obsolete website.
Labels are written in Greek and English. This is a website only for Greeks. Why one should know English to save a page for example?
Typography
There are certain problems. The designer uses bold fonts for nearly everything!
Links are difficult to be discovered. There are blue links (gray on rollover), dark gray links (black on rollover), black links (gray on rollover) and black links (which remain black on rollover). You have to guess what is a link and what is simple text.
HTML
I didn’t expect to see such a website based on divs and CSS. Don’t ask why.
However, I never imagined I would see marginwidth or marginheight code. this is not irrelevant to the final result of course.
Conclusion
e-shop.gr is a good website, there is no question about that. There are many customers of it who would claim so. But I am afraid that the people behind it didn’t treat design things as markup, information design, typography etc. the way they should. It’s a pity for such an important website.
In other words it is obvious that real content has been replaced by not important content. A wallpaper is a good gig, nothing more. There can’t be as important as the news of the radio station. Dj picks (a list of songs picked by each producer) could be shown beside each name at the program list. There is no reason to occupy a place of something more important in the menu.
