Tuesday, 16 August 2011
The website that I have chosen to critique and give areas of improvement on would be a car leasing website.
Website Url: http://www.lingscars.com/ (caution, harmful to your eyes)
Company name: Lingscars
Purpose of the website and their audience
The purpose of the website is to advertise and promote to the public for car leasing and buying.
The audience is from the UK as seen from the site and basically its very big based as its mainly targeting at someone with a driver's license who is looking for a cheaper alternative than to owning a car.
Analysis & Critique of functions of the website
When I first entered the site, one word came to my mind "messy". I did not know where to look first or where to start with there were so much going on, gif images flashing all over the page. Firstly starting from the top, the banner itself is very untidy there are too many words on it and some redundant images overlapping it like traffic light and the rolling stone logo it should not block the the website url as it is difficult for customers to see. On to the purple section, there was a "live chat" that keep popping out of no where. It is supposely a chat box for you to communicate with the admin. A chat box should not be an irritant factor to add on to the customers easy viewership
As i browse through the website I am appalled at what I was looking at! Tonnes of images of the owner Ling. Ouch my eyes! Pictures of her in different awkward looking pose with the speech bubble and one picture of her on a rocket on a military tanker? I personally feel that it is irrelevant to a car leasing company and people might think that this website is a joke and its not professional. The colours and fonts used are not corporate enough and instead too loud and painful for the eyes. All the neon coloured text are not comfortable and pleasing to the eyes of readers.
The layout of the website is that it is too cramped up, every centimetre of the screen you're looking at there is almost no blank space. This might add discomfort to readers and customers and some of them might just leave the website when they its difficult for them to read. I feel that layout is very important as it plays a very huge part in ensuring that the website is neat, pleasing to the eyes, easy to read and understand and easy to get what you want.
On to the navigations of the site, It is somewhat clear however yellow fonts on the tab when clicked is abit kiddish and not easy to read. I think that the "Fun Stuff" tab should not be included as it is irrelevant and instead be replaced by "Contact" which is the most important and which is currently placed at the subtabs (right at the bottom). I think that the subtabs are related to the social media which is good and I find it interesting. However the tab "Play Quiz" is really totally out of the point, why would there be a quiz game in an online car leasing site. It is somewhat useless and pointless. Adding on to the horror factor, when i click on every tab, there is a picture of the proud owner aka Ling. Like I mentioned earlier, I really think that she should not put such pictures on the site as some people might think that it is a joke or they are not professional enough.
Ways and Suggestions of improving the website
The website could be more toned down in the sense, the colours used could be of lighter hues. And a standardization in fonts used. Ugly looking fonts and colours should be replaced with readable and colours that are pleasing to the eyes and easy to read. In addition, lesser gif image should be put into one page all at the same time as it might bring make the customer confused. The page should not be so cramped up with lots of images and text but instead, having some space in between each advertisement and price. The images of the owners and some pictures that are of non car leasing related should be taken down and more relevant images should be displayed so that the site looks, neat, clean and professional rather than kiddish, and unprofessional. Irrelevant tabs should be removed and replaced with things that are more important to the company. All these factors will improve the company's image and increase sales.
Imagined at 12:26