- Business, Commodity, Firmness & Delight -
For our first Content Management seminar, we have been asked study websites by using the Vitruvian Principles of business, commodity, firmness and delight. I have chosen to look at and compare two websites which I researched for my Thesis Project.
The first site, Horse & Hound, is the UK’s leading equestrian magazine brand, with a readership of 257,000 (according to IPC Media). Horse & Hound offers equestrian news, articles, an online community and ‘a vast range of classified adverts’ (Horse & Hound, 2010).
The second site, Adrian Blyth Specialist Cars, is a well established performance car business based in Surrey. They have been trading for over 25 years and sell a selection of used Lotus, Porsche, Mercedes and other sports and performance cars (Adrian Blyth, 2010).
Business
Horse & Hound seems to have three main revenue streams.
1) Private sellers can place adverts which feature both online and in the widely distributed magazine
2) Businesses may place trade adverts which feature online and in the magazine
3) Adverts can be purchased to feature on every page of the website. These banners are sold on a “cost per thousand” page views basis (Horse & Hound, 2010).
In contrast, Adrian Blyth Specialist Cars website does not appear to have any direct revenue streams. The site advertises performance cars for sale in order to attract customers to the garage. This is not necessarily a bad thing but there may be ways for Adrian Blyth Specialist Cars to create some revenue through the website; perhaps through utilising a service such as GoogleAds.
With regard to my thesis project (the re-design of Volo Sport Horses), I would like to consider inviting relevant businesses to place banner adverts on the site as Horse & Hound have done, but the main focus of the site will be to encourage potential clients to inquire about the horses, hopefully leading to an increase in sales.
Commodity
Horse & Hound's advert booking system
The greatest commodity of Horse & Hound’s online classifieds would have to be its advert booking facility. You do not have to sign up or become a member to place an ad, which would definitely be appealing to potential customers. One function that I like in particular: underneath an individual horse’s advert, there is the option to ‘tweet’ on Twitter or ‘like’ on Facebook. I feel this is a particularly clever way of promoting horses for sale on the most popular social networking sites. I would like to use social media in a similar way for my thesis project.
Horse & Hound also features a forum which has helped to create a strong online community. Users of the forum may be more likely to browse the advertised horses. At the moment I do not feel that a forum would be useful for Volo Sport Horses, but encouraging some form of user generated content may be something to consider.
The greatest commodity on the Adrian Blyth site is the variety of performance cars featured for sale. The cars are grouped together by make and linked to from the main navigation. The site may benefit from a search function on the homepage – this would limit the amount of links necessary in the main navigation and allow for easier expansion in the future. This site might also benefit from utilising some of the popular social networks – perhaps incorporating the facility to “like” a car on Facebook, such as Horse & Hound have done with their classified adverts.
Firmness
The Horse & Hound website is built with XHTML 1.0 Transitional, CSS and Javascript. The functionality of the website appears to be quite sound, but in terms of usability, several improvements could be made. The main navigation has been placed in a prominent position under the masthead, but the links are so small that they are barely noticeable. If you fail to notice the main navigation, your eye travels straight to a cluttered, three column layout full of news articles, links, search facilities, dynamic adverts, polls and anything else you can think of.
The ‘mini’ horse search facility on the Home Page is good, but on the Horses for Sale page there are hundreds of links down the left-hand side which I feel are potentially unnecessary and make the page look somewhat cluttered and confused. As with Horse Deals, Alexa rates Horse & Hound’s loading speed as very slow (3.393 seconds) which can be frustrating for users and damaging in terms of SEO.
The Adrian Blythe website has been created using XHTML 1.0 Transitional, CSS and Joomla! The classifieds section of the website is powered by EZ Autos 5.1.6, which is a motor vehicle listing component for Joomla! CMS. I am looking into using something similar to EZ Autos to allow Volo Sport Horses to upload their own new horses for sale.
The main navigation on the Adrian Blythe website has been created with CSS – it is easy to use however the information could have been presented in a more efficient way – perhaps a single “Cars for Sale” link leading on to further options or a simple search facility.
Delight
In general, the Horse & Hound website looks cluttered and disorganised. The dated design could do with a complete overhaul. Funnily enough, even though the main website inspires very little delight, the advert booking facility is a lot better. It looks as though it may have been a recent addition to the site because it is modern, clear, concise and very easy to use and understand.
In contrast I would like Volo Sport Horses to look modern, clean and clear with an effective colour scheme and appropriate, eye-catching imagery. I like the aesthetic of Georgie Spence‘s website, and Walber.dk.
The blue, monochromatic colour scheme of the Adrian Blythe website is inoffensive albeit a little uninspiring. Professional colours are appropriate for a business of this nature, but I can’t help thinking that a little more black, silver or “chrome” effect, along with some brighter accent colours might add a lot more interest to the design.
The dark blue Helvetica body copy is easy to read on the pale blue background but a little more contrast in font size and weight would be appropriate to set the headings apart from the body copy.