Summary of Jam Session:
In this session, we did 4 critiques. Dylan Uzan – Wooden Watches. Nicole Carr – Mala Beads + Jewelry. Grant Dunn – First Responders. Kendra Hill – Clothing.
Critiques:
Critique 1
0:02:40 – Critique number 1 is for Dylan Uzan, https://thewoodempire.com/. Wooden Watches.
Homepage: Change the contrast of the logo as it blends with the background image. Remove Blog from navigation, typically you only want your money-making links within the top-level navigation. The homepage lacks any unique value propositions, why would your visitors want to buy from you? There is a false bottom that needs to be corrected. Reduce the size of the homepage banner. The homepage is only to build trust and clear navigation, you shouldn’t try to sell too much on this page. Also, remove the newsletter option on the homepage, instead use the footer hack that gives your visitors a discount for signing up. Move the reviews section to be below the products but above the footer.
Collection Page: Too much spacing currently. There needs to be relevant filters for visitors who would like to refine their choice. Head over to your biggest competitors and see what filters they are using. Also, add some sort by features.
Product Page: The title, price, and variants should all be left-aligned. Product thumbnails shouldn’t open separately. Each product image should offer a different perspective of the product, there are too many images of the same perspective. Tanner offers some insight regarding the custom engraving options. Break all the text up with product tabs.
Cart: Remove all the navigation links from the cart. All you should have is the logo. Make all the links standard blue color, this is prototypical. The cart should automatically update, your visitors shouldn’t have to update the cart themselves.
Checkout: The breadcrumb text color on pages to come, need to be visible. Greyscale the icons on the right-hand side so they do not take the hierarchy from the checkout button.
Critique 2
0:40:20 – Critique number 2 is for Nicole Carr, https://lovetinydevotions.com/. Mala Beads + Jewelry.
Homepage: Reduce the size of the countdown timer within the header. The contrast between grey text and white background reduces readability, darken the text color. Text cut off on the homepage banner. Need to rework the UVP’s. Need to go through different browsers and devices to test the layout as there will be some discrepancies. Remove the button effects. Change New Arrivals to Most Popular, first-time visitors will be more interested in what your most popular products are, rather than what’s new.
Collection Page: Filters should be down the left-hand side and automatically displayed. Sort by can be right-aligned, as that is prototypical. The collection page is for visitors to be able to quickly find what they are looking for and get to the product page.
Product Page: Change the review star color to match Amazon. Reviews should how many reviews and the rating in numbers. The UVP’s are very hard to read because there are too many and squashed together. The product description font color needs to be black.
Cart: Value proposition icons are too hard to read, and they are also taking too much attention away from the proceed to checkout buttons. Remove reviews from cart, recent tests have shown that the simpler the cart is, the better.
Checkout: Remove Google Pay. Add your company logo and support details within the header section. The CTA buttons need to all be the same color.
Critique 3
1:17:05 – Critique number 3 is for Grant Dunn, https://thinlineanthem.com/. First Responders
Homepage: Popup shouldn’t show on page load, exit-intent only. The red banner appears as an error message, consider changing the color. Add a title before the reviews so they aren’t clashing with product lists. Collections should be located above the best selling products.
Product Page: Add review app function below the product title. Tanner gives some advice on fine-tuning the Giving Back value proposition. Change the background of the reviews to white for readability. The team shares their thoughts on the upsell offer that Grant is currently running and how it could hurt your business.
Cart Page: Tanner advises swapping over to the Ajax cart. Disable the review slider. Remove the 5% off your order code! UVP’s are too small and blurred to read.
Checkout: The pages that are yet to be reached need to represent a lighter color to indicate that they have not reached that page yet. Aleks shows a great example of a Checkout.
Critique 4
2:04:45 – Critique number 4 is for Kendra Hill, https://www.piratebunnyboutique.com/. Clothing Store.
Homepage: The contrast of colors makes the text very hard to read. Remove Home navigation, your logo is your home button. Change the verbiage on the reviews. Have 3 images wide on desktop, 2 on mobile for featured products.
Product Page: Huge paradox of choice offering too many variants, Tanner breaks this down! Add To Cart button color needs to be a more vibrant color that sticks out. Remove the payment icons under the ATC and replace these with UVP icons. Product images need to be the same height and width, if they are different sizes it will cause the page to jump up and down.
Cart: Remove credit card payment icons. Add View Cart link on the right and the Continue Shopping link on the left.
Checkout: Logo is much too small and there are no support details. Button color needs to be changed to be a more vibrant, happy color.
Noteworthy Topics:
1:58:50 – Tanner speaks on Emotional Intelligence