Online Store

Website reviewed: "Ebay Australia" http://www.ebay.com.au/

• Ebay is an overall easy site to use, whether you are a first-time user or an online-shopping junkie.
• The site has a very simple standard layout – the colourful, iconic logo is positioned on the top left-hand side – its bright colours immediately catch your eye, which effectively highlights two hyperlinks directly to the right with which you can sign in or register. It is good to know that if you are a newbie, you don’t have to look much further than the logo to find the most important part of the site.
• On the right, still in the “header” area there is a menu that allows you to choose whether you are buying, selling, takes you to your account and offers you help. This isn’t incredibly clear though when taking into consideration the rest of the page, which at first glance seems to be cluttered with information, moving adds and images – all which catch your attention.
• At the top of the content is a search bar and a drop-down menu that immediately allows the user to search for what they want. This is very important for people who know what they want and don’t want to waste time navigating around the rest of the site. It provides a shortcut for such people, as well as for people who are comfortable with the site.
• On the homepage is more or less everything you need – a place to search, sign in, sign up, adds, deals, links to the community, links to get help and search categories, which are listed on the bottom left-hand side and are all hyperlinks to other pages. This allows both new and old users with all the information that they need about the site. The only problem here is that nothing things seem very busy and cluttered which doesn’t do much for the site from a design point of view. It is also interesting to note that many of the content boxes in the page aren’t always aligned and that the negative space around these containers are sometimes also un-even. However, each section has a clear heading which helps to order the information and allows users to find their way around instantly.
• Navigation around the site is very easy and there are many options. However, navigating back to the homepage from a ‘search’ page can take a while to figure out – the link back is quite small and is rather hidden between the rest of the content.
• Overall, the site is very easy to use, whether you are new to it or whether you are experienced. It is a great site for its purpose – an online store, but the design is very lacking. It is very plain and simple – nothing about it screams good design, but it is practical. This is not the kind of site that should necessarily have bright, bold colours, but perhaps a better design overall would have helped to diminish the site’s “busy” atmosphere. There seems to just be an absolute overload of information.