RATING: 5/10
Coming in at Number 10 on the Hitwise Top 10 is Computer Market Online. For the regular customer with a high level of technical knowledge, this site is worth a look. The novice shopper should try elsewhere, however, as this site has a detailed search function and only provides a one-line description of search results. As a result, several testers found it hard to locate items through browsing, as there was not enough information given to assist them. You really need to know what you're looking for.
Hits
- Having the shopping basket always visible in the navigation frame was a bonus. Yet this feature still needs improving as insufficient detail of selected items were provided.
- Price! The prices on the site were great, but as most components require professional installation, this site is for boffins who build their own PCs.
- The site offers customers order tracking to keep updated on their delivery procedure.
Misses
- A very brief explanation of products is all that is provided.
- There is limited stock availability for listed products, as most gave a "zero" quantity.
Purchasing process
- Adding items to shopping cart is quite easy, yet it is unclear how to proceed to the checkout.
- Registered customers can skip re-entering their customer details.
- Handy options are available to "Quote" or "Buy Now".
- E-mail confirmation has little detail provided and order tracking is required to check the order's contents.
Members Benefits
- There is no mention of membership being available.
Search facility
- Very specific, which is great if you know what you want, but if you don't know what you want it appears the search function has problems with keywords.
- Descriptions of search results are very technical and no pictures are provided.
General Usability
- What strikes you immediately is the use of frames. Now this is normally OK, even recommended for the left-hand side navigation, however, there were also left to right scroll bars--testers found this just plain annoying.
- The font used is small and difficult to discern; in addition, the colours used served to compromise readability (for example, red on blue, white on blue, blue on blue).
- Having the shopping cart always visible helps, yet could be improved by containing a detailed list of items currently in the cart.
- Links to help guide and direct customers throughout the shopping process would help. This can be easily achieved by including a link to "proceed to the checkout".
- There is good consistency with the left-hand navigation bar being available on each page, and the drop down "quick navigation" menu appears to work well.
- The site does not comply with W3C accessibility guidelines.
8%
1%
