[thelist] win yourself some Amazon vouchers

Tue Sep 25 12:03:15 CDT 2001

Well, being a Vividence panelist, who goes to a bunch of site and critiques the
crap out of them for Amazon vouchers, I'll give it a whirl ;-) Plus, I have some
time on my hands before lunch, and I just bought a new house--I need home repair
books :) I'm going to write as I go through the process.

Not knowing what the site is about, and just looking at the home page and
navigation, I'd guess the site sells hard drives, computers and memory..(?) So I
suppose I am going to look for a memory slot for my old Micron Client Pro. My
first try is to click on the memory part of the front page image--nada, so I go
to "products". Hmm, okay, an unsorted list of *all* products carried. Not what I
am looking for--see if there is something under the "Tools" like a memory
configurator or something...nope. If I were looking for memory, I'd leave now
(because I'm not sure what kind of memory it takes ;-)

Try a 40gig hard drive for my biz puter..okay, after clicking on products, I
know see the "Hard Drives" and "Memory" on the side--you might want to make some
text links to that on the product listing page--I totally missed it first on my
first search for memory. Ok, click on "Drives", then "30 and over", IDE, 3.5".
Prices are not in my currency--think I remember seeing a currency converter in
the Tools area, but you might want to see if you could do a javascript converter
that opens a new window. I would have probably either left or found a currency
converter on another site if I was very interested in a product. Hm, what if I
am looking for a Maxtor drive? I don't see any brands in the product
listing..clicking on the item number gives me that info, but it would be nice to
have it on the first page. Maybe even sort those out into different brands you
can click on from the side nav if you have enough products to warrant it.

I took the 36147H8 61GB IDE 3.5" 5,400RPM Manufacturer: Maxtor drive and used
your currency tool to find out how much it would be for a USof A'er--however, I
had to leave the product page. Maybe  have a link that will pop up the currency
converter in a new window.

Also, when I clicked the "back" button to go back to the detail page of the
Maxtor drive, I ended up back at the main products page. I needed to go through
the whole process again to get back to the products I wanted. I don't know if
this is fixable with your setup..

K, found my product again, being a savvy net user, I opened up your tools page
in a new window myself--which, when I clicked the currency converter link,
opened a new window by itself--now I have two windows, close mine, use yours.
Umm, okay--being one who does not deal with other countries currencies much, it
would be best if you listed just the currency you use on your site as "convert
from", saving the customer from having to pick it, just list yours, erase the
rest..I think that's a UK pound <blush> so I'll use that. K, so I get 233.779
USD. Allrightie, I'll take it--go back to my product window, stuck it in the
basket, and clicked the checkout button.

Filled out the form, appreciated the tick box for billing is same as shipping,
and clicked continue. Hm, I get a message:

"As you are not a UK customer, we need to calculate the cost of shipping for
your order. Since this process is not currently automated, please complete the
short form below and we'll contact you as soon as possible to complete your
order. This will only take a few minutes if you contact us during UK office
hours.

Alternatively, you may call us on +44 (0)1706 360000 to complete your order."

with a reference number. I don't know how important it is for the store to have
non-UK customers, so I will leave it at that, but I would put a notice somewhere
that non-UK must call to complete an order. I would've liked to have known that
before I went to all the trouble of going through the order process--but at
least you told me before I completed the order (wouldn't have done in a test
situation ;-) It's annoying, but it does kind of prompt the user to finish the
order after having to go through it all. In a serious situation, I may have gone
through with the order only if I found a *really* good deal at your
site--otherwise I would move on. On this page, there is no way to get back to
your site unless I hit the back button a few times, or edit the url.

I've figured out you don't sell computers. I think the "Options" and computer
image on the front page steered me that way. I tried to go back and look at the
front page again, but clicking your logo took me away from that site to another
one. I don't see a link that brings me back to the front page of the store--I'd
do something about that. Add a text link to "Home" at the bottom of all the left
nav menus.

The rest of the site:

It's good that you have a form for people who don't know which components go
intot heir computer, but something automatic would be better. I wouldn't use the
form, I'd go someplace else with my gnat-like attention span and "get it now"
attitude..:)

"Our Needs" doesn't work for me as wording for this area. I wouldn't have
guessed that you're looking to buy certain products by that wording. Um, hm, the
space is somewhat small for "We Buy Components" or something, but you get the
idea.

On your Fun Stuff, I needed to update my player, and I didn't feel like shutting
down the browser and going back to complete that right now.

Help page on first glance looks great, the Ask Anna feature is comforting, but
I'm not sure she could help me make a purchase. I'd get rid of Anna, and make
the eye-catching image the "Chat Live" feature. Or at least make it more
apparent there is live chat.

That's about it :) The site looks nice, loads fast enough for me on a cable
connection, and I feel comfortable enough with the looks of the site that I
would buy from there. I didn't get any errors or see anything amiss with the
images, layout, etc...IE 5.5, Win 98, 800x600 rez full screen.

Hope that helps!
Gina

|-----Original Message-----
|From: thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org
|[mailto:thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org]On Behalf Of ALBIE ATTIAS
|Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 10:27 AM
|To: Monkeyjunkies (E-mail); Evolt Mailing List (E-mail)
|Subject: [thelist] win yourself some Amazon vouchers
|
|
|Hi guys
|
|
|Okay here's the deal. I'm about to go live with my company's web site but
|before I do so, I'd like to carry out some final user testing and canvas
|some opinions regarding the site's layout, appearance, functionality etc
|etc. Now since I realise that we're all busy people with far better things
|to do, I have some Amazon vouchers to give away as rewards for people
|responding with the most useful and informative feedback.
|
|
|the sort of feedback I'm looking for: any comments regarding display,
|accessibility, download times, functionality issues, browser related info,
|screenshots, usability comments.
|
|feedback I don't wanna hear: "I don't like the colours", "I got a JavaScript
|error" (be specific), "page looks sort of funny"... you get the gist...
|
|
|home page URL:  http://www.accurum.net/estores/eurosimm.nsf/master
|
|
|
|Thank you and good luck!
|
|
|Regards
|Albie Attias
|IT Manager
|Eurosimm specialise in Memory, Hard Drives, Options & Solutions for Major
|Branded Systems
|Compaq / IBM / HP / Toshiba / Western Digital / Maxtor / Fujitsu / Hitachi /
|Seagate / Quantum
|E-Mail:albie at eurosimm.com
|Web: http://www.eurosimm.com
|Tel : +44 (0) 1706 360000
|Fax : +44 (0) 1706 620000
|AOL IM : AAEUROSIMM
|
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