Hello,
I must start out by saying that I do not think there is much to
improve and you have an excellent website. Throughout this review I
will mostly be focusing on the things that could need fixing/could use
improving instead of saying how great everything is. The website,
except for a few minor things is ready to go live in my opinion.
I am sure that I have visited most, if not all pages of your website.
I found that the usability and functionality was superb. Navigation is
easy to understand and every page is just a click or two away. The
color scheme, graphics and layout are attractive. The website
certainly has a professional look and I can see no reason why it will
not be a success.
One thing I would change can be seen here:
http://www.headphones.com/headphones/home_and_office/home_and_office.html
Make it so the product name “Sennheiser EH 2200” for example also link
to more information about the product.
One improvement that could be made (or future feature) is making the
resizing of Text Possible. When in Internet Explorer I click on View,
text size, and attempt to change the text size, it only resized the
header for some reason.
Buyer Appeal: I am not sure if you wanted me to do such things as
price check, but I did some comparisons and your prices are indeed
very competitive, especially if you take shipping and your terms into
account. I would like to see a simple page though that lists all the
products, their model number by such things as price, brand and
popularity. I am the type of person who does not like shopping by
category, but instead usually make a maximum spending amount and go
from there. A page with all your products would be an excellent
addition.
Spelling and Grammar: I can see that your website has already been
proofread, probably a few times over. There are a few things
outstanding (listed below), but it is mostly a matter of style (see
more about this below).
On: http://www.headphones.com/headphones/center/center.html it should
read “At Headphones.com,” not “At Headsets.com.”
At the bottom of this page:
http://www.headphones.com/headphones/center/center.html
There is a link that is supposed to take the user to the top of the
page (http://www.headphones.com/headphones/center/center.html#top ).
The .gif file is not to be found anywhere on the server:
http://www.headphones.com/img/pho/backtotop.gif
http://hs.zappos.com/img/pho/backtotop.gif
In this section I will list broken links:
This link: http://www.headphones.com/headphones/home_and_office/cart.html
on every product page links to a dead end. One page where this occurs
is here: http://www.headphones.com/headphones/home_and_office/koss_td80.html
Other pages such as this one:
http://www.headphones.com/headphones/contact/contact.html use
http://hs.zappos.com/img/pho/backtotop.gif
On that note, you might want to change the default page here:
http://hs.zappos.com/ to hide how to access your Site Management and
Personal Account Management.
On: http://www.headphones.com/headphones/contact/feeback.html the link
“Online Chat” actually links to Site Map.
Here: http://www.headphones.com/headphones/center/ it gives a listing
of all the files in this directory. This is not usually a good idea
and you should be sure to close up all of these with a default
index.html page or restrict access. Here is another:
http://www.headphones.com/headphones/
http://www.headphones.com/headphones/cordless/ cordless.html should be
changed to index.html etc.
Here is a chain of events that results in an a dead link:
http://www.headphones.com/headphones/professional/koss_pro4aa.html
Click on “Add to Cart.” Click “Continue Shopping.” This results in a
dead link on the headsets.com domain. The same thing happens under
“Home Office” and other sections.
At the bottom of the page, “Customer Center” and “Our Guarantee” link
to the same page. Either merge or make these pages different (probably
a good idea to merge.)
In this section I want to talk a bit about the style of writing used
on the website. I find that it is a tad wordy, complicated and perhaps
not direct enough. (I tend to write like this myself, but on a website
where you are trying to sell things, it is better to keep things
simple for the customer.)
On this page: http://www.headphones.com/headphones/company/letter.html
“As for customer service, that's how we enjoy ourselves.” I do not
understand what this sentence means. If you are saying that you enjoy
being the best in customer service, it might be better to clear this
up better.
Same page:
“This thinking guides our actions all day, and we strive to achieve
this every time we communicate with a customer.”
I find that many of the sentences throughout the site are lengthy and
perhaps a bit too wordy. To make it easier to read, consider changing
sentences like this into shorter ones. Also be a bit more direct and
specific. This sentence could be changed to “This thinking guides our
actions all day, every day. We strive to achieve the best in customer
satisfaction every time we communicate with our customers.”
Here: “
On this page: http://www.headphones.com/headphones/center/center.html
“Should you ever be unable to resolve a problem immediately and to
your satisfaction, email our presidents hotline for a fast
resolution.” Again this sentence is a bit more complicated than it
could/should be. I would change this to: Should you be unable to
resolve a problem to your satisfaction, simply email our President’s
Hotline for a fast resolution. It should include the apostrophe
because it is the President’s Hotline.
“Sometimes you may find a special deal from someone else with a few
dollars difference - usually these prices are from a company that
doesn't have phones answered by live helpful Customer Service
Personnel - or is missing some other element of the high service we
offer. If you make a purchase from us and find within 30 days that
it's on special somewhere else and you'd rather buy it from them,
we'll accept a return with a full refund and send you a gift for your
trouble.” I would change this to: If you find a deal somewhere else
with a lower price, let us know within 30 days for a complete refund
plus a gift for your troubles. You could move customer service to a
new category in your “service commitment.”
Other things that came up:
http://www.headphones.com/headphones/specials/staffpicks.html I do not
like the use of all caps myself, but it is not the end of the world.
It might be a good idea to use the proper combination of
upper/lowercase. I am one of the people who thinks that the equivalent
of all caps is SHOUTING… (and when selling headphones you do might not
want the customer to be thinking of bad sounds).
If the products are listed by price, there are a few inconsistencies:
http://www.headphones.com/headphones/professional/professional.html
(is one example).
On: http://www.headphones.com/ the “Home” button in the top navigation
is gone. It might be a good idea to keep it there just for a nicer
look and to keep consistency.
When going to a wrong page:
http://www.headphones.com/headphones/contact/dcontact.html a form
comes up that allows the customer to contact you. I would suggest that
you use forms to allow the customer to contact you as well from here:
http://www.headphones.com/headphones/contact/contact.html as it is
often more convenient for many people. When I am surfing away from my
home PC and wanted to contact you, I cannot usually click on an email
address to get in contact with you. I also think the “Give Us Your
Feedback” page should be merged with the Contact.html page to make it
simpler.
I noticed that it was possible to drastically slow down your website
(or at least the search feature) by searching for a super long string.
It might be a good idea to restrict the length of text someone can
fill into the search (and various other forms) to limit someone
abusing this and possibly bringing down certain sections of your
website. After submitting a ton of text I was able to find a directory
/site4/users/headphones/ is a section of this, and it also apparently
saved the search the a file called “dead.letter”. It might actually be
possible for someone to fill up your server doing this. I have learned
in the past that it is always a good idea to not let people submit
unlimited characters in a form.
Some tooltip texts (text that comes up when people hover over a
graphic) are missing on some of the graphics. Some people rely on
these to navigate through websites, especially visually impaired
users. While most of the graphics have tooltip text, there are some
that are missing it:
On: http://www.headsets.com/cgi-bin/cart/addcart.cgi
Missing on “Empty,” “Checkout,” “Continue Shopping,” “Update.”
On: http://www.headphones.com/
Slight error in the spelling of “Buyer’s Guide” in the tooltip text.
Shows as Buyers Guide.
On: http://www.headphones.com/headphones/home_and_office/koss_td80.html
(and every product page like this)
Missing tooltip text on “Add to Cart.”
On: every page but one example is: http://www.headphones.com/ there is
no tooltip text for the Go button on search.
On: http://www.headphones.com/headphones/company/company.html (and
other pages like this) the Back To Top gif needs tooltip text.
On: http://www.headphones.com/headphones/contact/feeback.html submit
needs tooltip text.
I must say that I was not impressed with the following:
http://www.headphones.com/headphones/center/privacy.html The part
about you selling your list after someone does business with you and
there being no way to remove oneself from this list is puzzling. Is
there no way to have a checkbox or method to remove oneself from such
a list? Even if you sell the name of someone who doesn’t want you to,
receiving mail or emails from a third party company might actually
turn them away from the third party company, or worse they might turn
away from you if they weren’t clear on this policy. Amazon.com does
not sell its customer information “Information about our customers is
an important part of our business, and we are not in the business of
selling it to others.” Source:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/468496/104-0281160-7333555
I don’t think a business transfer is quite the same as selling a list
to another company, so you might want to take a look at this. Some
people do not mind that you give other companies their address, but if
certain privacy website were to put you on a “Privacy blacklist,” it
might affect you somehow. Perhaps a simple checkmark when the customer
sends you feedback could be used to track which customers do not want
you to pass on your name to other companies. Of course, this isn’t
what you asked in your question and this is more a personal opinion
than anything else.
In conclusion, I think you have a great website and that it is ready
to go. I have focused mostly on negative things, but many of them are
opinions and few are critically important I hope this was the type of
review that you were looking for. I congratulate you on an excellent
website and wish you the best in its launch. Hopefully you will get to
the first listing in Google for “Head Phones” and for “Headphones.”
If you need any clarifications, let me know and I will get back to you
as soon as possible.
tisme-ga |
Clarification of Answer by
tisme-ga
on
16 Jan 2003 20:03 PST
Review of http://www.conferencers.com
I must say that this is an impressive website. Visually simple yet
stunning, easy to navigate and truly looks professional.
I have two recommendations for your home page. I have uploaded an
image to show what I mean… this image will be online for only 30 days
so you should save it to your computer(s) as soon as possible:
http://www.lucidmatrix.com/uploads/tisme1.JPG
GRAPHIC NUMBER 1) On your homepage the numbers (prices) at the bottom
were slightly confusing to me, as I did not know what they meant. You
have the descriptions to the far Left, but I think it would be best if
you put the descriptions right next to the answers to make it easier
to understand.
GRAPHIC NUMBER 2) There seems to be a big space for no reason and it
is hiding the bottom of your page. I recommend that you close up this
space to make it easier to see the bottom navigation. I like this much
better: http://www.conferencers.com/conferencers/polycom_faq.html
(less space between).
TOOLTIP TEXT
Tooltip Text on the graphics would help visually disabled people to
navigate through the website, and also people using text only browsers
(with slow connections) etc. You decide if this is a priority, but it
might be a good idea.
Spelling/Grammar Errors:
Page: http://www.conferencers.com/
At the bottom there is a discrepancy as to what words are capitalized.
“Large Conference Room” is in all caps, but “Single office or home” is
not. I suggest changing this to “Single Office or Home”. I also
suggest you format the number of people it is for like this: (For 1-2
people), (For 3-5 people), (Up to 10 people), (Up to 20 people). You
could also make it bold to separate it from the first description.
Page: http://www.conferencers.com/conferencers/why_conferencers.html
Spelling Mistake: travelling should be traveling
Grammar Correction: While others book conference calls, or airline
(get rid of the comma after calls)
Page: http://www.conferencers.com/conferencers/polycom_faq.html
Spelling Mistake: audioconferencing should be two words: audio
conferencing
CONFUSING:
http://www.conferencers.com/conferencers/polycom_faq.html
I expected this page to be Frequently Asked Questions about your
company etc. After clicking it though, it reads like an advertisement
would straight from the manufacturer. Perhaps getting rid of the
trademark and registered symbols would make it look more personal. It
might be a good idea to also provide answers for question such as “Who
is conferencers.com?” and then say who you are etc. Questions about
the security of your website, customer service, 60day guarantee and 12
month guarantee etc. I realize that this information might be
available in other places on your website, but I feel that a FAQ
should cover these, or you can change the link name to something like:
Product Frequently Asked Questions.
PAGE: http://www.conferencers.com/conferencers/polycom_soundstation_premier.html
Your website mentions that the Polycom is available in Charcoal Mist
(under Color) yet there is no picture to show this. Also what color
does the expandable one come in? Even if just one color, it should say
or show a picture.
It would be nice to see a page with ALL of your products and ALL of
your prices. Someone who has already done research on the products and
just wants prices (accessory prices too) would benefit from this.
Special Order Code: On the checkout page, there is “EH” filled into
the special order code.. with no explanation for what this means.
TO BE FIXED:
You should prevent directory listing of your directories such as this
one:
http://www.conferencers.com/conferencers/
Putting an index.html page in here or forbidding access for listing
would be a good idea. People can see such things as to when pages were
last updated, and sometimes get into areas that they shouldn’t be.
Even if there is nothing to hide, it is a not a good idea to let
people list all html files and graphics in a directory. If I were in
the process of purchasing a product from your website and found the
above page and the /voucher directory it would cost you $25. I
understand that the offer might be valid but if I would have purchased
anyway, why take the risk. It would also delay my order by a
considerable time because I would be waiting for the voucher to arrive
by mail.
The following also need to be closed up:
http://www.conferencers.com/img/cf/p/
http://www.conferencers.com/img/cf/ (and all directories here)
Also ensure that you have a secure password for the /admin directory…
since it is easy to find you need to have a great password to avoid
security problems in the future.
When running Internet Explorer 6.0 at default settings your website
fails the default privacy policy and shows a negative Privacy Report
at the bottom. To fix this you have to make privacy policies for your
website. Internet Explorer 6 automatically blocks cookies from
headsets.com/cgi-bin/track.cgi which might not be good from your side,
but also it might scare off the odd customer who is afraid to order
because of the scary icon that shows up at the bottom.
This page: http://www.conferencers.com/conferencers/about_returns.html
is something good but is too hidden!! I recommend you link it to the
bottom on the 60day Money Back Guarantee graphic… (and again to the
text of the “60 Day Money Back Guarantee” at the bottom. It is too
difficult to have to click “About Us” and then “Returns and Exchanges”
to find this information. Someone might look at the graphics below and
think… yeah right.. what are the details?! I think it is important to
link this to the graphics at the bottom the homepage and the statement
“Our products are covered by a 60 Day ..”
Likewise you should include a copyright notice on the bottom of every
page, perhaps right under the email address info@headsets.com. By the
way you might want to change that to info@conferencers.com (and
forward it to headsets).
I think you need a page that explains that credit card payments are
encrypted etc. and about security of internet transactions. Not
everyone understand how security works, and people might be scared off
by seeing the little lock at the bottom that is unlocked. When
clicking on “View Cart” Netscape 7.0 says that the information is not
encrypted. People would expect a shopping cart to be encrypted and it
is not until after pressing “Checkout” (with another warning) that
the lock appears and netscape 7.0 notifies the user that the page is
secure. Providing a page explaining this and that your page is secure
might save you a few customers who are concerned. (If you take phone
credit card orders that will surely make other people happy as well).
In closing, I notice you appear to have registered conferencer.com but
are not using it. Even if this page just redirected to
conferencers.com it would help you in case a customer refers someone
else and they forget to put in the ‘s’, or someone is trying to find
their way back to your website. Congratulations on having the top
listing for both ‘polycom conferencer’ and ‘polycom conferencers’ on
Google (advertised and non-advertised). I was also impressed that you
had an advertisement on Google searching for ‘Polycom’.
I must say that there is nothing wrong with this website and want to
wish you the best in the future! I am also familiar with the Polycom
Soundstation and it really is a great product.
I hope this review has met your requirements. Thank you for your
generous tip. If you need any further reviews done on these two
website or want me to take a look at some of the changes you have made
regarding changes made that I suggested, let me know here in a
clarification and I will take a look at them again.
tisme-ga
|
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