I am trying to come up with a page design for a food business with many products, several brands and at least three different markets
On this test page, which has been set up right now only for desktop I have
a left sidebar with buttons which scroll to different parts of the page
a central products area
a right sidebar for site navigation
a “call to action” bar across the top
I’m trying to keep a lot of things in the user’s face at the one time -
the type of products on this page (left sidebar); the products available on the whole site (right sidebar); call to action and this page’s products themselves.
I’d really welcome the forum’s feedback on whether it is too cluttered and confusing.
Is it better to have users click on a button to show a site menu or is it better to have it showing all the time as it is in the right sidebar.
Do I need the left sidebar? Would something like an Accordion stack be a good idea, so users click to reveal different products rather than clicking scroll to buttons or simply scrolling down the page?
Is the sticky call to action bar a distraction?
I know this is all a matter of opinion, but after all this is the forum for Foundry which derives power from simplicity.
I think it’s a bit overwhelming and cluttered. IMHO. I was working with an Attorney’s office that practiced so many different areas of law. Their previous web designer had everything in the user’s face as well. They were killing it on Google, but found that they received little to no customers through their website.
We suggested that they determine why the customer landed on the page and only show the relevant items to each customer. For instance your markets are “Food Service”, “Retailers” etc… Ask yourself are all these products and brands relevant for each of these customers. Then clean up the pages accordingly.
If all the products and brands are relevant, I think you need to sit down with a pencil and paper and design several different layouts to determine which one will work the best. You are certainly tasked with a huge UI “opportunity”. I’d love to see what you come up with.
Really appreciate the feedback.
It has made a lot clearer an issue I am having, not just with the web site, but with on-line marketing as well.
You have hit the nail on the head with the comment - “We suggested that they determine why the customer landed on the page and only show the relevant items to each customer. For instance your markets are “Food Service”, “Retailers” etc… Ask yourself are all these products and brands relevant for each of these customers. Then clean up the pages accordingly.”
There is a third category - “Hampers & Gifts” - to complicate the issue
Plus the fact that there is some overlap between customer groups.
I think maybe having a simple home page where the different customer categories can click their products of interest, to go to product pages relevant to them, could be the way to go
Is that what your Attorney’s office did?
Thanks again dropgates. I’ve started a re-work of the whole site, and of blogging and on-line newsletter marketing.
I was concerned about my whole approach - hence my original post - and your feeedback clarified the problem.
Can’t win them all.