Evan Phillips
Newegg.com
Being a student who is aspiring to be in the Graphic Design field, technology is a major importance. Staying up to date with upcoming programs and gadgets is a necessity. Newegg is a site that has the best of both those worlds. They are a technically savvy website with all kinds of the latest gizmos you could want.
Upon entering the site you will notice the basics. The search bar is located neatly at the top and center of the page, making it easy at first glance to be able to search right away what it is you’re looking for. The design of the site is set up in three major vertical paths. The first path down the left most side of the site is where you’ll find all the major categories the site has to offer. For example computer hardware, PC’s & Laptop’s and Electronics are the first three categories in this list to name a few. The second and third vertical paths is where you’ll find all the sites deals, along with the top rated and top viewed items recently added to the site now on sale.
The product I decided I would be purchasing would be a new TV. From the home page I went over to my first vertical column and dragged the mouse over Electronics. This in turn extended a box from the word Electronics, which neatly had all the different assortment of Electronics I might want to purchase. Televisions was the first option so I clicked it which took me to a similar page such as the home page, but this time along the left side were different types of TV’s I might want to purchase. I clicked on the LED TV button which took me to the page for all the LED TV’s the site had to offer. After rifling through a barrage of sizes, resolution choices and price along the left side of the page I came across the TV for me.
Adding the TV to my shopping cart was as simple as clicking a big bright orange button that said “Add To Cart”. The screen following this was a suggestive one of things I might need for my TV. Such as a wall mount, power cord or even a satellite antenna just in case I planned to take my TV onto an RV. I found this very help because if I hadn’t seen those items I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about them. Also on this same page was an extended warranty you could purchase for one to four years of the TV’s life that covered anything happening to it. This was another thing that otherwise would have just passed over my head without any thought.
Directly underneath the warranty section is “View Shopping Cart” button, clicking it takes you to your shopping cart for checkout. On the checkout page they go as far to provide you with a shipping cost calculator. I found this extremely helpful because clearly not everyone is from the same place on earth, so someone who lives closer to Newegg’s shipping head-quarters is clearly going to pay less then someone who lives maybe half way around the world. Past this you are either required to pay through “PayPal” or create an account through Newegg’s site. This was by far the worst thing the site did. Who wants to go through a whole checkout process then have to create an account? Not me. Although once you have done so you are clearly to put your payment method in and you’ll see your item in the shipping parameters you have chosen.
Newegg being a strictly Electronics based website was in my opinion not bad to navigate through. It wasn’t like going on Amazon and buying a book that for sure, but I would rather them be stricter and have more steps so you know exactly what you’re paying for. Now having said that I do feel the site could bring the steps down though a lot more. They could compact more specifics into drop boxes therefore not having so much visual clutter for the mind to wonder around the page so much. All and all the page is visual pleasing with subtle color pages on more important features, which in turn leads your mind where it needs to go before you think about it.