4 Cartier, Harry Winston, Tiffany, & Safety

Cartier

http://www.cartier.com/

The bad: Clearly from get go the automatic audio(1) and video flash(2) intro is a nightmare for slow computers, but at the same time if they’re selling such high priced jewelry for example a $32,000 bracelet they probably don’t care about poor people with a 10 year old computer lol! The animated navigation(3) is so fancy it’s almost useless because you can get lost easily.

The good: Through the navigation is too complex, it’s a double edged sword; the perk is that the whole Cartier website’s index(1) is on one page, and it appears that you stay on one page the whole time you browse their products. Some would argue that all that flash animation that kills the load time makes the site looks pretty(2), (the age old controversy of flash vs. html), I would disagree and call far too unnecessary for the tradeoff.  The overall fancy look of the website probably makes their customers feel rich(3).

Harry Winston

http://www.harrywinston.com/

The bad: The first time your computer goes to the site it takes a while to load(1) and seems slows down computer initially, and I don’t see a lot animations and graphics that would account for bad load times - long story short, if you going to hurt the load time better be a good reason for it. Just like Tiffany’s (below), the overall appearance of the website is boring, too plain because there’s too much white(2). Again on the plain-Jane appearance, Harry Winston doesn’t have any animations or dynamic pictures that I can see of, and some of the product pictures have a black background which looks crappy on the white page background. Another web design error is the lack of submenus or rather lack of explanation(3), for example “The Incredible” section, you have to click the link to get any sense of idea of what it’s about.

The good: Though the links needs to be labeled better the site’s overall navigation is good, you don’t have to look for links(1). Refreshing, instead of using buttons like most traditional eCommerce sites Harry Winston just uses links throughout the checkout process(2) to look cleaner. The good news about being too plain is that the site is not too cluttered(3) like its competitor Cartier.

Tiffany

http://www.tiffany.com/

The bad: Overall Tiffany’s site seems bland(1), it needs more sparkle considering what they’re selling, especially the home page(2). They forgot the readers when they decided the color scheme, the contrast between the text and background isn’t enough(3), it just hurts the eyes, especially the white text and blue background.

The good: I do very much like the way they show their product details, most eCommerce sites have a grid of their products with details of the products underneath the pictures. If there’s a lot of products on one page customers might get confused of which is which. The way Tiffany’s has the mouse over detail pop up there’s no confusion as well as it saves space and the zoom on mouse over is a nice touch(1). The only thing they could’ve improved upon with that feature is if the users could see a slide show of different angles of the product on mouse over. With the topics across the top, dropdown hover over submenus, and mouse over font color highlight(2) their website’s navigation overall is easy to use and clean looking(3).

It's beginning to bother me a lot that our assignments involve having a picture of ourselves, email address, and first and last name, and describe ourselves paragraph were anyone can see it - that doesn't seem safe at all. I've been stalked before, and it was really scary, it doesn't take much information for someone to find more information to stalk you. How do you feel, classmates, about this?

(all images are screenshots)