Amber Mac

Jeremy from Lockergnome (www.lockergnome.com) wrote to me a week or so ago and asked if I'd take a peek at Lockergnome.com. Since I haven't had a lot of time to do reviews on Call for Help, I think I'll start to do some on my blog.

So, let's take Lockergnome through a quick Web usability audit!

Content - Fantastic, and lots of it! One thing that I think is missing is more about the people behind Lockergnome. If you're going to go to the trouble of creating an extensive site, remember that the "About Us" page is always one of the most frequented - visitors need to know they can trust the information they read. Maybe you could put a link to "More About Lockergnome/Further Help" in the global nav since there is lots of great info in this section.

Navigation - needs some improvement; here are a few ideas to get started:

1. Increase size of global navigation at top of page, so it's obvious this is where visitors should go if they get lost (standardize and highlight the nav bar).

2. Add global navigation to bottom of page, so visitors can use it as a reference point when they scroll some of the longer pages.

3. In other words, the site could use a solid and consistent navigation bar - one that doesn't change and that is ALWAYS available...no matter where visitors are on the site.

4. Move Home nav link to top left, which is standard.

Links - don't need a lot of improvement; there are usable and clear links throughout all content areas. Good work!

Design - when folks refer to me as a designer, what they should say is that I'm an information designer vs. a graphic designer. In other words, I'm big on usable navigation and content - and I tend to think these things are more important than lots of fancy images and colours. On the Lockergnome design front, from an information design standpoint I think they need to re-jig their navigation. Also, from a pure design/brand style standpoint, I think it would be helpful to have a Lockergnome logo and tagline in the top-left corner - something that is consistent throughout the site and always links back to the homepage.

That's it for now! If anyone else wants a site reviewed, post a comment on my blog and I'll try to do a quick audit ;).

Adios!

-Amber

March 14th, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)