Online web analysis - recom ad agency

Long time since I did one of these and with so many different analytical aspects to consider sites with now, I thought I'd catch up with what offerings the FWA deemed worthy of site of the day.

Of everything I flicked through, this one (recom) caught my attention due to a unique selling point that is actually quite brilliant. 

Now you could just stick all your posters, postcards, billboards etc online in a catalogue style. Yawn. Who hasn't? Or you could organise everything by the color it uses, and not just broad colours as in red, blue, green, how about r354 g38 b11? Yes, they have.

The Structure Principle -

The unique aspect of the site, finding by colour, is navigated using the colour cube on the right handside, this is reasonably easy to pick up and proves a good idea rather than a gimmick. 

The main menu for other categories heads the page at the top, hidden away at first but then appears on roll over. Other random menu options are placed around the outer space of the screen. There seems to be a little inconsistency about the placement for this. 

The Simplicity Principle - 

With no instructions immediately, you sort of have to find out for yourself, but after a few tries on the colour cube it proves a really straight forward approach. The only downside I can forsee is if someone wanted a specific ad campaign, which they knew was in green, but then clicked on the wrong shade of green would prove frustrating. 

There are categories tucked away behind the main menu links, but these seem non intuitive compared to the colour cube, sort of a long laboured approach!

I would have to criticise the size of these menu items too. You find yourself having to squint. If you struggle to use a site, you'll often find people just won't struggle at all. They'll leave.

The feedback principle

The site being Flash based has a number of wipe on/fizzle on animations. The colour for such menu options mean they are noticeable, 

The loading bar is placed at the top of the screen on first load, this is found to be a new position and liked it. People with lower res screens may miss all this though. WIth the files being quite high quality it takes a second for two for them to load. In the mean time you are displayed scrambled TV screens. Again, an unknowing user may think it to be a fault. However, in terms of audience, you would probably expect a certain type user to be viewing such a site, somebody who is probably aware of visual arts, perhaps a little tech savvy, and so this shouldn't prove too much of a problem.

The re use principle

The layout is consistent throughout, along with the interactive features. The colour cube is always on the right, can always be swivelled etc. 

The animation used to enlarge the thumbnail images remains the same throughout, and ties in with the main menu, by using the same dust formation look. However this is only in the Portfolio section. 

 

Click through to the About Us section and you'll find a cover flow sort of design. Then on another section you are shown a slideshow of images. These are all valid and contemporary methods but does put a slight dampner when considering consistency.

The tolerance principle

As I mentioned before, the small text options may be off putting to some and with it being Flash, user accessibility isn't considered the top priority - no zoom function.

Furthermore, on the new section, it only gives access to three further news links and you are required to scroll down to view more, so one click means another one link for you to click.

This seems to a step back and is probably something that I would try to address. Once you then click on an item, it isn't obvious in how to return to the menu, even with options provided on the left hand side. 

Overall...

In all, I like this site for it's main selling point - the colour cube. It's unique, and actually works. When you click on a colour and then find that the work that appears is in such a shade it seems quite wow-ing.

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