Seems like a new TW website rolled out today on both desktop and mobile. Personally not a fan. Even more so I am not a fan of the "Live Chat" icon that can't be removed that also blocks all of the navigation options on the left hand side of the screen. Love you TW, but this is a huge step back for your website.
New TW Website? Unimpressed so far
- Thread starter scotto777
- Start date
FlamingCheeto
Hall of Fame
not new, have the same one as always here in California ISP matrix cyberdyne systems router
fundrazer
G.O.A.T.
I've been ranting about the trend in web design for years. Almost every ecommerce site looks the same. Mainly because they're trying to optimize for mobile. In some cases it's done pretty well, in others it's bad.
I think there's way too much white on some of the pages, and part of this is probably because it's almost impossible to tell where the "containers" for many of these page elements start and end. For me it makes things look like they start to blend together when there should be better separation of things. The side navigation menu needs to be better separated from the main content.
Who the heck changed the side navigation? I would almost 100% guarantee you that anybody shopping for shoes or clothing was scrolling down and clicking by the brand they want first and not what type of apparel they want to look out. Maybe y'all know better since you actually have the metrics, but I would at least check the most common paths that your visitors are taking when they get to the homepage. I know this is possible.
With that said though. I do think I like the navigation on mobile. Should probably be reogranized slightly, but it's intuitive enough.
I think there's way too much white on some of the pages, and part of this is probably because it's almost impossible to tell where the "containers" for many of these page elements start and end. For me it makes things look like they start to blend together when there should be better separation of things. The side navigation menu needs to be better separated from the main content.
Who the heck changed the side navigation? I would almost 100% guarantee you that anybody shopping for shoes or clothing was scrolling down and clicking by the brand they want first and not what type of apparel they want to look out. Maybe y'all know better since you actually have the metrics, but I would at least check the most common paths that your visitors are taking when they get to the homepage. I know this is possible.
With that said though. I do think I like the navigation on mobile. Should probably be reogranized slightly, but it's intuitive enough.
supermullet
Rookie
It looks like absolute crap. A huge step backwards.
beltsman
G.O.A.T.
Every time the web updates it gets worse. In the name of "simplicity" and flat design everything looks horrible and is harder to use. Terrible terrible terrible.
New site looks bad and is harder to navigate. Sigh.
puppybutts
Hall of Fame
For shoes, I shop by brand since I know which models are likely to fit my feet. Shoes are still organized by brand, I'm not sure what you're on about.
For apparel, I definitely appreciate they finally changed to type of apparel, not brand. Almost every major retailer site is organized like that and I"m certainly not shopping by brand for something like a pair of shorts.
puppybutts
Hall of Fame
My main issue with the site is they prioritize visuals over practicality. My guess is they felt they needed to modernize their site, since it looked kind of blog-posty and old. But the new site has way too big images and banners and white space, you have to scroll way more to get through the site. i could mouse scroll with the previous site, but am now using pgup/pgdn to navigate. Everything also seems kind of floaty....not enough visual structure or separation of elements.
I also miss having the small box for clearance shoes where you can filter by size right from the homepage, that was really quick and convenient.
I do like that they put all a brand's racquet lines right at the top though. it does look better overall, just prefer functionality > looks!
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milk of amnesia
Legend
I like the old design a lot better too. The new design looks really generic, which seems a strange choice. I think it would make better business sense not to look like every other site.
anarosevoli
Semi-Pro
Made for people without a computer, but can only help a little . When will they realize it's easier and faster to drive to the next shop instead of trying to do things with a phone that it's not capable of`?
joshuadearing
Rookie
Wow I cannot believe how bad the new site is; Using it for a few minutes it looks like it was hastily done for some reason.
1stVolley
Professional
Sorry TW, you dropped the ball on this one. The first error was unleashing a complete redesign without warning users. Practically every commonly used function has been moved around so we are forced to spend time relearning what we knew how to do without any hints. Second, much of the redesign was gratuitous--change for the sake of change, without improving usability or even appearance (e.g., the racket section). Third, some of the changes make usability worse (e.g., the racket demo section).
smalahove
Hall of Fame
It seems to me this change was made without involving users? If not, I find it strange that they didn't identify a preference for the smaller and clearly marked content boxes from the previous design (as seen still on TWE). Imo, the bigger content boxes and lack of borders make navigation through the various items harder and less enjoyable. The same goes for the choice to change the column use and width; the two-column use in the products sections was much easier to scan. And the strange thing is that this reverberates throughout most of the new design changes, from the main side menu to the contextual sub-menus.
Has the testing only been done on mobiles and large screen laptops and PCs?
Has the testing only been done on mobiles and large screen laptops and PCs?
longtimelurker
Professional
I have been loving the TW website since 2004-ish...... but this I must say is the worst design ever, it's not like once it sinks in people will adjust... I feel this is not good at all.
NastyWinners
Hall of Fame
Seems easy to navigate for me lol Not a fan of the style though, looks too similar to the other competitors.
nyc
Hall of Fame
Clearly optimized for mobile and it works/looks great on iOS. A few things need to be adjusted here and there but it's pretty close.
Unfortunately it doesn't translate that well into desktop. All white containers are blending into each other, flattening visual hierarchy, thus making it hard to navigate efficiently.
No website is perfect after launch but it should probably be pretty telling when you compile data after a few days. I would expect a big bump in conversion on mobile, but please don't neglect the issues on desktop.
Unfortunately it doesn't translate that well into desktop. All white containers are blending into each other, flattening visual hierarchy, thus making it hard to navigate efficiently.
No website is perfect after launch but it should probably be pretty telling when you compile data after a few days. I would expect a big bump in conversion on mobile, but please don't neglect the issues on desktop.
!<-_->!
Hall of Fame
I think the site looks ok. The aesthetics are neither here nor there imo. I feel one major issue w/ the UI/UX is that it requires so many extra clicks to navigate to certain items. My understanding that it's rarely user friendly when additional clicks are required for navigation so I'm curious to hear the rationale behind that.
G8Pontiac09
New User
Not a fan of the redesign...hope they go back with the old. Anyone here remember "New Coke" and what a disaster that was? Sometimes the way it is is simply better....why change?
except the site used to be laid out like a 7-11 and now it’s an ikea
the page for grommets is atrocious
onehandbh
G.O.A.T.
TW sells gear for young surfers?
We actually showed it to our IT students last night when teaching user experience design. Made for a very interesting example of a misstep
sportmac
Hall of Fame
Yep. Notice that most places separate their mobile and desktop sites, from retailers to news... Amazon, BBC, Walmart, NY Times, the bay... They're not trying to force a round peg into a square hole. That whole "one site for all devices" was a bad idea years ago, and it still is. TW hired someone who didn't get the message.
We read left to right and that's the most logical way to set out your information. On a tablet, with less side-to-side real estate it can help to have things more top-to-bottom. However, when you've got a bigger monitor it's more of a nuisance and the excess white space at the sides is aesthetically very unpleasant (font size also seems bigger - every student in our class who wasn't on a tablet felt the need to zoom out). Also, I couldn't find the 'compare' function when I was looking at a racquet. If that has gone then they've reduced the functionality of the site, which is quite odd. Certainly, it is less intuitive and the overal look had a few people thinking they were either on a beta site or a scam site.
At the least, they gave us some good content for our class lol.
McLovin
Legend
I will give them credit for one thing: I like the shopping cart "slide in" and "slide out", as well as the "suggestions" in the cart. For example, I just went to order some Klip gut. I selected the 16g from the list, and when the cart slid out, it had additional gauges of Klip listed below. I was going to add a couple sets of 17g as well, but now I didn't have to go back through the whole system to do it. Just added it inline.
TopspintheTerrible
Hall of Fame
I liked the option on the old version to switch to desktop view.
longtimelurker
Professional
Tried it on android phone and also ipad .... still horrible, terrible really
steveq81
Rookie
This. If you want a perfect example of where the new design falls flat on its face, check out this area.
Instead of a useful, easy-to-read list under each brand, now we see the same large stock clip art pic listed by each item. The point of this is what? Scroll, scroll and scroll some more to find what you are looking for...
loosegroove
Hall of Fame
One stop shopping for groms and kooks.
G8Pontiac09
New User
Would love to know if they have any intentions of changing it back to the way it was? fingers crossed....please please please.....
1990's Graphite
Hall of Fame
Where is the string compare thing on the website (not TWU) that was fantastic, read a review, then add a string for comparison, man I used that so much !!!
Come on T-Dub listen to us loyal folk, this is no no no good !
Come on T-Dub listen to us loyal folk, this is no no no good !
AceyMan
Professional
So,
... the "updated" site is a UX train wreck.
Even the daggum fonts are ill-conceived.
Whoever designed the new pages must have given TW a fantastic <action_noun> or something because any half-a**ed web designer would laugh at it.
I were the Technology Chief with the power to make the call I would roll back.
It's that bad, and I suspect sales will soon reflect that truth.
#notkidding
... the "updated" site is a UX train wreck.
Even the daggum fonts are ill-conceived.
Whoever designed the new pages must have given TW a fantastic <action_noun> or something because any half-a**ed web designer would laugh at it.
I were the Technology Chief with the power to make the call I would roll back.
It's that bad, and I suspect sales will soon reflect that truth.
#notkidding
Even on a phone the desktop site was easier to navigate. Occasionally zooming in for product details is a lot better than all the scrolling and clicking just to find that product. If they’re going to stick with the current debacle, some sort of desktop option would be nice. One of TW’s growing international competitors recently shifted their site more toward TW’s old format. TW’s content is still much more developed but its presentation has taken a big hit.
Yes, the fonts are terrible. Among many other things.
sportmac
Hall of Fame
The ratings alone on the shoe and racquet review pages on the new site are an embarrassment.
I've been browsing TW Europe and coming back here and it's just night and day.
When I'm looking to buy something pretty sure it's not going to be from here. It's not like there's a lot of price difference between them so it all comes down to my user experience, not to what some nerd thinks is cool. That's what brought me here in the first place (back in the 80's and 90's used H. Sports for everything until I switched). I'm certainly not going to stay for this.
I've been browsing TW Europe and coming back here and it's just night and day.
When I'm looking to buy something pretty sure it's not going to be from here. It's not like there's a lot of price difference between them so it all comes down to my user experience, not to what some nerd thinks is cool. That's what brought me here in the first place (back in the 80's and 90's used H. Sports for everything until I switched). I'm certainly not going to stay for this.
