BW Online | January 22, 2001 | A More Exceptional OneInAMillion

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JANUARY 22, 2001

WEB SITE MAKEOVER
By Joan O'C. Hamilton

A More Exceptional OneInAMillion
A few tweaks to this collectible timepiece site could highlight its already considerable charms

e.biz Contents for Jan. 22, 2001 issue

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Thousands of small businesses have found new opportunities on the Internet that haven't been affected in the slightest by the current dot-com meltdown. Rather, businesses that once operated through limited distribution or sales channels suddenly found they could reach out to new and different kinds of customers economically and efficiently. Understandably, many were hesitant to spend too much money up front. However, judging from a long list of sites readers have submitted to us, some outfits are now finding that the early, simple sites they constructed need to be polished, expanded, or sometimes completely overhauled to take advantage of customers' increased sophistication with e-commerce -- or to overcome some design shortcomings.

Web Makeovers has chosen a Covina (Calif.) collectible timepiece business called OneInAMillion.com for this month's makeover. Over a decade ago, sisters Jill Hotvet and Celeste Nameth were designing their own watches when a sales rep for gift shops told them about the growing popularity of Mary Engelbreit designs on calendars, mugs, and other gift items. The sisters contacted the Mary Engelbreit company and obtained permission to license Engelbreit's brightly colored, humorous illustrations for use on watches and clocks. Later, they added a slew of other popular cartoon and illustrated characters, such as children's book heroes Curious George and Madeline.

NO-FRILLS APPROACH. Their business sold these items wholesale to book and gift shops, and their primary sales medium was a printed catalog. But about a year and a half ago, they realized that an e-tailing site might offer them some brand-new direct-to-consumer sales opportunities -- as well as create efficiencies in their existing wholesale business.

Hotvet designed the layout herself and hired a local Web-design firm to make it come to life. OneInAMillion.com allows consumers to order timepieces from the company directly, and it also allows the company's wholesale customers to access online ordering and pricing. Hotvet says company revenues are in the $1 million to $3 million range annually, and the site design reflects a warm and friendly, but no-frills, approach.

The good news is that our panelists, Scott Weiss of New York's Usable Products and Joseph Sawtell of New Vision Web Productions near Boston, both agreed this site has some good things going for it. A slick, high-tech look would not be appropriate for the product line, nor is there a need to add lots of complex content or graphic elements. The familiarity of the licensed images goes a long way in terms of graphic appeal, so a simple format for the rest of the design is definitely in order.

"OneInAMillion uses animation in a fun, engaging way -- without being annoying. The site has Curious George jumping onto the homepage. Once George jumps, he stays. Animation should be used with restraint and never repeat forever," says Weiss. Another plus for this site is one that an astonishing number of small-business sites forget: making crystal clear on the homepage exactly what the business is. "Visitors to OneInAMillion.com know what the site is about immediately: shopping for and buying logo watches.'The place to find your favorite artists and images on collectible timepieces' is splashed clearly across the middle of the homepage," notes Weiss.

Both Weiss and Sawtell had some ideas, outlined below, for tweaks that could sharpen up this existing design without hurting what Weiss describes as its "homemade" look. He explains: "Whether or not its proprietor made it is immaterial. The site has wit and charm."

WEB CATALOGS. However, the site has a couple of drawbacks our designers feel are significant, which have more to do with usability than with graphic design. Hotvet herself notes that the site's lack of a secure shopping-cart technology to aid purchase and checkout is a drawback. "If you're trying to provide customers with a method of buying products online, and not taking security and convenience into consideration, many lost sales will result. In many cases, customers view their security and privacy as more important than anything else, including the design of the Web site," believes Sawtell.

Another element the panelists kept in mind was that Hotvet would eventually like to turn her catalog for wholesalers into an online-only presentation. "Catalogs are very expensive to make and maintain and send," she explains.

Weiss and Sawtell offer some basic critiques of the site, plus some advice for moving forward. First, Weiss offers us a walk through the site with some specific commentary. Then, Sawtell rolls up his designer sleeves and shows us a brand-new homepage with annotations to explain the changes. As always, we remind our readers that our designers have graciously volunteered to help us bring to life common Web-design challenges in these makeovers. When clients hire them to create, update, or remake sites, their professional services would be far more in-depth and comprehensive than the illustrations they provide here for demonstration purposes.

Critique Let's start with Scott Weiss' walk around the site:
We evaluated the Web site at 800x600 resolution, with the browser window maximized in Internet Explorer 5 on a Pentium III running Windows 98 Second Edition.

One In A Million Title Bar

The title bar should have the name of the site. On OneInAMillion.com, the title bar has some promotional text about a product. While this promotion may interest some site visitors, it will prevent others who minimize the window and look for it on their Windows task bar from seeing the name.

Product links should have consistent formatting whether rolled over or not.

The left navigation of the site has a cute rollover feature that highlights the active link. However, the feature not only changes the link color but also the capitalization and thus the size of the link. Single-line links stretch to two lines, pushing the other links down the page. This change is disturbing: Links should never move from under the mouse pointer. Changing the face of the adjacent watch to match the corresponding link, in this case "Mary Engelbreit," would improve the site's design.

	The site has a handy search feature on the homepage. However, the feature is located all the way at the bottom of the page. The best-designed Web sites position their search features at the top of the page with the other main navigation links.
	Everything that looks clickable should be clickable. On this page, Curious George (center) looks incredibly clickable, but he isn't.
	On every successful B2C (business-to-consumer) retail site, clicking something reveals more information about it and gives the site visitor an opportunity to purchase. On this site, clicking some items results in a larger image, but the resulting page lacks any additional description or buying opportunity.
	In fact, the only way to purchase a product from OneInAMillion.com is to scroll down many screens to find the "Order Here" link. Most visitors will go somewhere else, but for the few who do come to this site...
	The adjacent order form comes up. Not only is it long but the visitor needs to remember just which watch she wants to purchase. Adding to that annoyance is the fact that the site does not even calculate the tax automatically. Entering "CA" in the state field of the form's delivery-address section should automatically calculate the tax (the form clearly states that the visitor should add "8.25% Sales Tax if Delivered in CA").

Now, for a new look for the homepage prepared by Joseph Sawtell, with commentary below explaining the changes:

New One In A Million page on NewVision's site.

Showing images for products such as "watch straps" makes the products easy to find, and more intriguing.
The product categories are displayed in an easy-to-view directory setting, with small images, textual links, and a brief description of the contents. For the descriptions, we used a more friendly and inviting voice tone. We used cascading style sheets for the link rollovers as opposed to using Java. By using CSS we increase the download speed and ensure compatibility with browsers that do not support Java or those that disable Java.
We made electronic shopping convenient by adding a "shopping cart/checkout" image at the top of the page. Consumers can modify the contents of their shopping cart or checkout with their credit card, simply by clicking on the image.
We clearly displayed the toll-free 800 number at the top of the page, rather than burying it somewhere in the site, or at the bottom of the page, where it may never be seen. There are many consumers who would rather call the 800 number to place their order than use the online ordering capabilities. This number should be at the top of every page.
We made navigation easy to understand by adding page links at the top of the page. These links will always remain in the same spot on every page. The links will change to a solid color when that particular page is being viewed. In subpages, the layout will remain the same. The logo will remain, the shopping cart image will remain, the links at the top of the page will remain, the phone number will remain, and the customer service image/link will remain.
The "customer service" link was added. This makes it very easy to understand where to go for assistance and get answers to questions. Inside the "customer service" page there should be shipping information, warranty information, ordering information, the return policy, and a frequently asked questions page.

As for the next phase of OneInAMillion.com's development, moving away from print catalogs to online-only presentations for both resellers and retailers, Sawtell is optimistic that such a transition will be effective and profitable. The site should create a password-protected area where resellers can begin. "After registering online, the retail/resellers would receive a username and password that gives them access to the retail/resellers area. The retail/resellers area would provide the reseller with wholesale price information and also allow resellers to order their stock online. The main Web store (non-password-protected) would be where Web customers would browse and place their orders.

"Further, it would be wise to set up an affiliate program, that allows anyone with a Web site to resell the products without buying stock, simply by adding a banner to their Web site that links to the main Web store. By doing this, OneInAMillion's exposure would grow faster, and [it would] sell more products."

Hotvet says she has been a bit overwhelmed with the shopping-cart options on the market and eager to find something economical that doesn't require lots of additional in-house labor to manage. Sawtell urges her to look at three different kinds of options: "The best shopping-cart system I've seen is done through CyberCash. However, the most economical cart is through CustomCart (www.customcart.com). It's just $29 a month. An option with no setup and no monthly fees is Verza (www.verza.com). But they take 4.9% plus 99 cents per transaction. OneInAMillion would have the ability to accept all major credit cards from virtually every country. She would also be enabled to accept checks electronically."

Scott Weiss believes converting from a print to a Web catalog can be valuable, but should be approached with some caution: "I feel that catalogs are great user interfaces and that Web sites that echo catalogs usually do a poor job. Catalogs have terrific indexes, clear color photos with pricing and options information, and are easy to flip through. They're also very portable -- and it's easy to tear out a page to show it to a friend."

He does believe all these goals can be accomplished on the Web if you follow these steps:

Include a product index, sorted the same way as in a print catalog. Make sure to hyperlink everything.
Include the color photos with descriptions, and link the photo to a larger image with direct purchase options and more information about the product -- not just a bigger picture.
Include an "e-mail this page to a friend" option so that it's possible to share the product information with someone else easily.
On the homepage, make it clear what the site is about. If there are two distinct audiences, have direct links for each audience, and password-protect the reseller pricing information. It's O.K. to feature products on the homepage, but always include retail pricing -- and make it clear that it's retail pricing.

Editor's note: As always, we alert our readers that the reviews and makeover suggestions presented in these projects aim to address common problems seen across the Web. We focus on specific challenges and offer only illustrative examples of how to approach solutions, not working site changes. Were a company to retain these experts for a true site makeover, the designers would spend considerably more time evaluating and often reorganizing the site's entire information architecture to make it look and work better now -- and to be scalable for the future. If you feel your site's design is keeping your enterprise from living up to its potential, drop us a line at webdesign@businessweek.com and we'll take a look and consider you for a future makeover.

Our panelists:

SCOTT WEISS, principal of Usable Products Co., is an "information architect." Scott is one of the foremost experts on Web usability, and his design work is found on more than 90% of computer desktops worldwide, including elements of both Macintosh and Windows. Scott leads the Wireless Roundtable, an ad hoc group focused on usability guidelines for the wireless platform, teaches for the MFA program at Parsons' School of Digital Design, and co-chairs the New York New Media Assn.'s Special Interest Group on Design. Usable Products (www.usableproducts.com) specializes in usability testing and information architecture for Web sites, software, hardware, and wireless applications. Usable Products started with the Web in 1996 in New York City. Its clients include Intel, General Electric, CNBC.com, Charles Schwab, Agency.Com, Razorfish, answerthink, Audible Inc., and SonicNet.

For the past four years, JOSEPH SAWTELL has been intensely involved in the Web development industry, and currently operates NewVision Web Productions near Boston. He provides his clients with superior Web development services and hopes to pave the way for the new generation of Web development.