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Gizmos, Inc. logoMarketing Web Site Critique

this page
content | structure | presentation | mechanics | general

panel themes
branding | advertising | personalizing
making accessible | community building

If you don't need to fill out this form for course credit, I'd still appreciate a thoughtful critique of any web site you choose. I'm very interested in your comments at the end about what this critique examines and about how the questions are phrased and ordered.

Your Name / Email (if you want a response or course credit)

Title of Site

URL http://

Publisher (company, host, sponsor, copyright holder)

Date (last revision or copyright)

The 1 to 5 scale used below is very subjective. The categories will probably not pertain equally well to all of your sites. Nor is one extreme or the other always desirable or possible. In other words, it's not always true that a low score is a "bad" score. Nor should every site have every feature.

Your comments in the white boxes are the most important.

The site should be selling something you could conceivably want if you had enough money or appropriate need. The site should have some way for you to buy or to take the next step toward buying. You should thoroughly explore the site over a period of several visits.

diamond bulletFirst visit, just look around. Pretend you are shopping.
diamond bulletNext couple of visits, look at every page. Click on every link, both to on-site pages and to other web sites.
diamond bulletBy the third or fourth visit, you should be familiar enough with the site to navigate easily.

Example | You are looking at one page and suddenly remember something you saw on another page during a previous visit. Could you confidently click there quickly? If so, you are becoming an expert user.

When you feel comfortable navigating, you are ready to fill out this form.

This form is very long. Please note: You should respond to the part for your marketing technique (see the schedule on the MBA 604 reports page) but not respond to the parts for the other three marketing techniques: branding | advertising | personalizing | making accessible | community building.

Thus, you want to sign up for a marketing technique before you fill out this form.

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- Content -

Marketing Effectiveness

What seem to be the sources of income at the site?

physical products

digital (downloadable) products

offline services

online services

3rd party advertising

Does the site have these features?

privacy policy

security explanation

"About us" company description / contact

online realtime help (text chat or IP telephony)

site search

site map

FAQ or other organized help files

banner ads for other companies / products

multiple media (video, animations, audio)

Did you see any objects you didn't know the name of? 
(examples: type of button; HTML tag; some geekspeak on an error message)
Please list or describe them in the box below.

audience

tries to do too much for too many

1

2

3

4

5

clearly defined audience and purpose

merchandising

catalogue

just a list of links

1

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3

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5

meaningful, explained, and well-organized links

just a list of thumbnails, names and prices, links to order page

1

2

3

4

5

effective attempts to sell by pointing out features and benefits; larger illustrations and more details only one click away

no off-site links

1

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3

4

5

so many off-site links that it's too easy to get distracted and leave

shopping cart

confusing; hard to check status

1

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5

easy to figure out and check status

check-out

too hard; feels risky

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4

5

easy and convenient; feels safe

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branding and partnering

no visual corporate identity

1

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3

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5

immediately recognizable, trustworthy logo

The pages exhibit a mishmash of visual styles.

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5

The pages exhibit a distinctive, appropriate, and immediately recognizable look-and-feel.

no visible partnering

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5

prominent and relevant links to partner sites

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advertising and promoting

no attempt to cross-sell or make we want to return

1

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3

4

5

immediately made itself part of my life

Irrelevent, distracting 3rd-party banner ads overwhelm the pages.

1

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5

I keep finding attractive, compelling links to other parts of the site.

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personalizing and customizing

I feel like I'm just another customer to this faceless company.

1

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5

Every time I visit, they find out a little more about me and in return make my shopping easier by guiding me.

I feel as though they would invade my privacy if I let them.

1

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4

5

I don't mind giving them what they ask for because I trust them.

The site looks the same every time I return.

1

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3

4

5

The site lets me customize what I see there.

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making accessible

Here, I want you to critique your marketing site according to checklist summarizing the accessibility standards at the W3C.

World Wide Web Consortium's Checkpoints for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. To learn more, try Making Web Content Accessible on Ricci Street's Port 80 Docks neighborhood.

How will you get that checklist to me?

The W3C provides plain text and .pdf versions. They are designed to be printed out, but that doesn't do us much good. Try this:

1) Go to the checklist at the W3C site with your browser.
2) Click the Edit with FrontPage button in your browser. That will bring up the checklist in FP. Then you can edit it.
3) Add the Y's and N's, that is, critique your marketing site for accessibility.
4) Send me the checklist you just edited. Do that by saving it to your desktop, zipping it, and attaching it to an email.

If you aren't sure what to do, please check with me first.

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community building

I feel as though I'm just another customer to this faceless company.

1

2

3

4

5

The site lets me easily contact other customers, even about complaints.

no attempt to build community

1

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3

4

5

unusual, unexpected, and effective attempts to build community

The forms are hard to fill out and ask for too much information without clear benefit to me.

1

2

3

4

5

The forms are easy and I don't mind giving the information in exchange for clear benefits.

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- Structure -

Usability

I get disoriented, even after several visits.

1

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3

4

5

I always know where I am.

Navigational aids are hard to find.

1

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3

4

5

Navigational aids are always within sight.

Navigational aids are confusing.

1

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3

4

5

Easy to choose, the navigational aids take me where I expect to go.

no site map

1

2

3

4

5

clear, helpful site map

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- Presentation -

Visual Appeal

attractive, slick

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5

ugly, crude

tip | Turn off the images in your browser to learn how much the site depends on its visuals. If it uses a style sheet, disable it, too. 

puzzling, unclear images

1

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5

attractive images at the service of content and appropriate to the audience

puzzling icons, unclear graphics, inappropriate typefaces, misspelled words

1

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4

5

attractive graphics at the service of user-friendly orientation and navigation

gratuitous wizbang

1

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5

integrated wizbang

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- Mechanics -

Technical Competence

In addition to viewing the site in both Microsoft's and Netscape's browser, you might want to open some of the site's pages in FrontPage and Netscape Composer to get a better idea about the mechanics. (IE 5 - click the Edit button; NN 4 - select Composer from the Communicator menu)

optimized for both browsers (looks good in one and identical in the other)

head contains a <script> tag or a <link> tag to an external script (such as .js or .pl)

head contains a <style> tag or a <link> tag to an external style sheet (.css)

requires horizontal scrolling at full laptop screen width

tables used to control horizontal spacing, ex: this table keep the check boxes in a separate column

fixed width attributes in the <table> tags, ex: <td width="50">

percentage width attributes in the <tables> tag, ex: <td width="50%">

lots of dead links

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5

no dead links

graphics don't load

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5

graphics load quickly

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General

What did you like best about the site?

What did you like least about the site?

Overall rating

Comments about the site. How webcentric is this company? How effective is their web presence? How usable is their site?

Comments about this form (I know, it's very long.)


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Ricci Green | Digital Wares | Gizmos, Inc.
CyberSea Inn | Port 80

modified: April 12, 2001
by Douglas Anderson
http://RicciStreet.net/gizmos/lab/marketingsitecrit.htm