ARTM2210 Intro to Web Design

Just another Intro to… site

Monthly Review 1 – Superherostuff.com

I hate crowds and long days of traveling from store to store searching endlessly for something, especially during the holidays. Online shopping has become my primary way of purchasing items for myself or for gifts. Also, because I would consider myself a nerd, it makes it easier to find apparel and other items of my favorite pop-culture subjects.

One of my favorite places is superherostuff.com. It has apparel and merchandise for superheroes, star wars, and other sci-fi or pop culture franchises. I never gave much thought to the layout of the site before reading a bit of “Don’t Make Me Think.” My initial thought of the site is that it’s a mixed bag.

I can see how initially it might be overwhelming with the colors and images of all the superheroes at the top. However, the site does a good job of categorizing based on merchandise type or franchise. If you are a shopper looking for a gift, the categorization makes it easy to browse based on merchandise type, or if you are looking for someone’s favorite hero, looking at all the merchandise with that hero on it. The most confusing aspect might be whether or not you understand that the images of the superheroes at the top actually link to all the merchandise with that particular hero. Once you click on a hero, you come to a page that lists all the merchandise types, or you can scroll to see the most popular items or all the merchandise. On this page is also navigation on the left that allows you to categorize based on merchandise type, and a drop down to choose other heroes.

At the top of all the pages is a search bar that does a really good job helping a user understand that merchandise is categorized by type or franchise. As soon as you type the first letter, it begins trying to figure out what you are looking for. It drops down a menu matching your search that shows product categories, hero or villain, popular searches that match, and products that match your search. As you type more letters, it refines its results. The other nice thing is the thumbnails in the search menu drop down. If it’s a character you’re searching for, it shows a thumbnail that you can click on. It also shows thumbnails of products that may match your search, that you can click to navigate to the appropriate page.

Ultimately, when you get past how busy the home page looks, the links and categories help you narrow your search in any way you need to find the product you may be looking for.

 

-Chris Mielo