Amy, first and foremost great job! I can feel where you all are going
with this, and it looks great considering where the site has come from! (rotating
globe anyone?)
I do have some critiques, and please take these in stride. I don't
think the overall site can agree what it exactly is presenting let alone
representing.
The first thing that stands out to me is the Klipsch Logo; love the stark
contrast of black and white. However it’s just a square block sitting alone in
the corner surrounded by a huge sheet of white. It clashes too much
though I do prefer the background color over the old sites. The white
background opens the site up making it fresh and inviting to users. The
solitary black logo box though is awkward and breaks up the flow of the header
as a consistent element of the site. (That and the outer edges of the ellipse have been shaved off) It appears to disjointed as a unified design
element, which just happens to be my next point.
The new layout is fresh and simple; winner! Reminds me much of the
Dell.com layout which I happen to enjoy; simplistic yet informative.
Header issues aside, the body of the page suffers a bit of an identity crisis
as well. There is no uniform concept in marketing and color; it’s so random!
For instance the large middle container or “body container 12” has different
competing visual elements; i.e. too many independent branding schemes. First
there is the black white image from and old advertisement with a rotating flash
advertisement containing either white space or random “Vista green-blue hues”
(which I personally despise).
In addition are the “home categories” which continue the aforementioned
trend of singular independence. If there were simple headers above each of the
images instead of the images with randomly placed text announcing where they lead
to, more consistency would exist. As of now my eyes jump all over the
place reading the site.
Needless to say the main page is announcing too many things all at the same
time.
I love the reconfigured product pages; an example where uniform design works.
What I don’t like in navigating to the pages is the long list of underlined
links on the left; they are more noticeable than before now that everything is on
a white background.
Don’t get me wrong, I love what you and the team have done with the site. It
feels much more inviting and open than before. I particularly love the
new individual section page header images; gives the site more personality
which the design previous lacked. The site showcases great design
consistencies and really bad ones too.
The site is coming closer to what some consider a web 2.0 layout.
Bravo on the social networking links in the footer! You ought to
highlight those instead of making them an afterthought addition.
-Joe