Interface Review of a Shopping Website
listening to: Okina Reiko - Tsuki no CURSE
wishes for: a high grade for this review? :D
mood:

Find a shopping website and seek the approval of your instructor to assess this site. Evaluate the website using the following considerations:

• Product Presentation


• User Interface


• Efficiency of navigation


• Color combination


• Media used


• Consistency, cohesiveness and effectiveness of icons, toolbars or other agents used


• Functionality - in terms of reliability and execution of tasks


• Sociological, Psychological considerations (base on usability principles) & Ethical considerations (optional)


• Technology used in the interface


• Quality of communication + Feedback mechanism available

The Shopping Site I have chosen is Domu-net. It is a BJD(Ball-jointed Doll) Online shopping site that provides not only the dolls, but accessories, add ons, maintenance and furniture as well. The target buyers for this site are doll lovers, BJD collectors and enthusiasts from all over the world, especially those who cannot afford to go to Japan and buy the dolls from Volks, Inc. themselves. That is what actually made Domu-net famous: It caters to customers around the world who would want to buy a Volks Full-choice System(FCS) doll, a customer-defined doll, from the type of head to the type of feet the doll would use. Domu-net does not only carry Volks dolls, but also other BJDs made from other companies like Custom House, Luts, Serendipity and HappyDoll. They require membership for those who wish to buy their products. Membership is free, but the dolls aren't ^^

Product Presentation
>> Domu-net has an organized way of presenting their products. They have separated them into groups: Doll bodies, Doll Accessories, Doll Furnitures, Doll Clothes, Doll Shoes and Doll Wigs. They also include their Featured Products, Figurines, New Items, and their most popular section, the Full Choice System for Volks dolls. Entering any of those groups would lead you to more choices, this time, by the maker or producer. After choosing which maker of the certain part you wish to see, Domu-net will display a picture of the product, list the product's name in bold letters, the code for the product, the type of product, if the product is still in stock, and the price. There will also be a button that the customer would press if he or she would like to purchase the said item. Purchasing items are only open for members. Membership, as mentioned before, is free of charge. When you purchase an item, you click on the "Add item to cart" button, and that takes you to a more detailed description of the item, eg: what colors the product comes in, what type of make it is, what company made the certain product, etc. For Domu-net's Volks FCS service, the site emails the customer for additional customization of their doll. Shipping and handling of dolls and products depend on how much the customer bought, what type of doll the customer bought, and which dollmaker the product came from. Domu-net's Volks FCS service takes five to six weeks of shipping.

User Interface
>> Efficiency of Navigation - For every page you visit, there will always be two menus/navigation bars. On the left will be the navigation bar for the products, and on the right will be more general navigation menus like the Help menus, Shop menus, FAQs, your Shopping Cart, and a link to Domu-net's Forums. These two navigation bars never disappears for every in-site link you click. In a way, it is very helpful since you can navigate to any part of the site any time you want to.
>> Color Combination - Domu-net's current color theme is brown-gold. The colors are not too dark or too bright. The colors are actually calming to the eyes.
>> Media used - Domu-net is actually graphic heavy. There are a lot of pictres in the site that have to load per page. The more pictures there are per page, the slower the time it takes to load the page, especially for 56kbps connections. The site also provides text descriptions of their products. For any customer, the pictures are worth the wait.
>> Consistency, cohesiveness and effectiveness of icons, toolbars or other agents used - As mentioned before, both navigation menus do not disappear from any part of the site (except the forums, but that loads on another window). Also, the colors, the fonts, etc. are consistent. Domu-net does not use that much fancy coding for their online shop, since i think their database might cause the whole site to go slower if they did.

Functionality - in terms of reliability and execution of tasks
>> It is actually very easy to go about Domu-net, if you don't mind waiting a while for the pictures to load in their product catalogue. Everything is already given to you, and if there are any questions, the FAQ can easily be accessed. Also, you can save your cart if you plan to buy your items at a later date. It helps you assess your budget. Items in your saved cart can be removed and/or updated any time.

Technology used in the interface
>> Domu-net uses Active Server Pages, aka ASP for their coding. It also seems that they have some java scripts included in the mix as well. They use a centralized database for their product catalogues that is accessed by most of the navigation links.

Quality of communication + Feedback mechanism available
>> For every order you make, Domu-net sends an email to the member to confirm their order. This is to ensure that the member indeed ordered the product. This system is also used in their FCS service, which lets the member explain further the type of doll they would want to receive. Domu-net also has the forums so that members can post technical questions about the site, clarifications on the FAQ, mailing guidelines, etc.