Week Three: Aesthetics, Design & Branding - Part 1

Introduction

I chose to evaluate Swagelok and http://www.richsoil.com/raising-chickens.jsp. I feel that website like Apple and Ford have enough traffic to their site and resources to know what works and what does not for their website. Plus, smaller website with smaller budgets are easier to pick apart like these two. I will start with the first company website, Swagelok. 

Whats Wrong

From an aesthetic point of view, the page looks very bland and straight forward. The bold blue colors give the website a 1990's feel to it and does not really have that modern look that most website have today. Bold colors that do not match or compliment each other scream 'tacky' and make the visitor uninterested and holds their attention a little less. 

What they could do to improve this is to stick with a more appeasing color scheme that compliments their logo better. Additionally, they need to do research on what colors are going to keep the readers attention a little more and allow them to dwell on the page for longer. 

All of the sub tabs and selections for this website look exactly the same and does not allow the customer to differentiate between the pages. I understand that this company probably took the more practical and simple approach to presenting information to readers, however it does not grab me or force me to look or understand their company. Additionally, there are too many sub tabs that a customer has to click through to get more information. 

My suggestion would be to make each page look unique and to present as much information (in condensed and simple form) as possible. Also, they could make the website a little more interactive when people select things to read. 

Lastly, their brand is just plain boring. I do not know what the brand means or how it equates to fuel and conductor parts. Perhaps I am just not interested in this type of company or industry, but they offer a lot of very complicated and interesting parts that they could improve their presentation on. 

My suggestion would be to come up with a logo that is something more than just the name "swagelok" and to give the website a little more of a theme. 

Whats Right

Baring the tackiness of the website, their information is very straight forward. Good websites can inform the visitor of what they do in a concise format. They've done this very well and I think that a customer who is interested in this type of vendor can get all the information they need very quickly. If it wasn't presented in such a bland format, it would actually be worth looking at and learning about. 

Another thing they do right is present options for the browser easily to find. The sub tabs and options are very apparent and help guide the customer to exactly what they want to know. Its minimalistic, which is a trend among several website lately, and it appeals to people who want to find exactly what they want and move on. 

Design - It simple, but it sucks

Like I mentioned in my comments before, the website design is straight forward and simple, but feels very tacky and has a AOL feeling about it that makes me not want to read anything on the site. They obviously went after the basics and made sure the website works well and presents information correctly, it just doesn't encourage someone to look around or appeals to the eye at all. 

Aesthetics - No effort in this area whatsoever

This company is not concerned about their online presence or appealing to those customers through a website. It has the basics, says the basics, and thats it. My guess is that this is an older company that already has a clientele base set up and receives recommendations for business through personal contact. This is more or less a flyer that people can go to if they want a little extra information. So, no effort was put into the aesthetics of the site at all because they do not deem it as important for their business. 

Logo - Again, no effort

The logo is simply their name in a different font. The logo name does not also really equate to what the products or industry is either. Essentially, not a lot of thought or effort was put into design or presentation of their company. 

In Conclusion

My overall view of this website is that is it not put together to appeal to a large audience. This website would appeal to someone older or in more of a different mind frame than me. They just present the information as blandly as possible, almost making a simple website just because they had to, but put no more effort into it other than updating the blog on a semi consistent basis. Its boring and doesn't make me even want to look at it.