Word Of Sport Bookshop

Whereas I was not initially 100% keen on visual aesthetics of this site's design it does successfully communication a rather substantial amount of information very well, is easy to use and to navigate.

The Javascript side-panel works particularly well, and I especially like how effectively it degrades when Javascript is not available. Clearly a lot of work has been put into the latter.

Other little details lead me to understand why this is truly a great SG gallery piece, such as the JS dropdown advanced search feature, and (structurally) the way this form, and others, are laid out with the correct syntax; fieldsets, labels, and legends which only display when CSS is inactive.

Really great example of a good, solid website :)

I was just informed by Jon at gr0w, that the entire layout is fluid and resizes when the text resizes because he used EM's in the layout. How did I miss that!

This is the best example I've seen on that score. I'm sure there are others. Also his colleague Paul is responsible for the javascript functionality.

I would say that from just looking at the home page it is hard to identify what the primary use of this website is? The first thing my eye was drawn too was the big search box in the middle of the page. There is not one place within the first initial view of the website that speaks to what the website is other than tiny font under the logo that reads "The Sports Bookshop".

From an Accessibility standpoint the site is done pretty well. The scalability of the website is unique and I like how the website stays inline...for the most part.

I think it has some positive and negative points but overall it is well constructed and will benefit the customer, which is the most important part.

Thanks for the positive comments so far. This was definately a labour of love for us, and while there were some 'sticky' moments, overall it was an enjoyable experience.

To answer the above post, I really don't think that the site needs to say explicitly 'this is an online bookstore'. To be perfectly honset it should be very obvious to even the most casual visitor.

The search box is the most used part of the site (going by statistics). This was anticipated and so it was designed to be the most prominant and central function of the site from the get go. People generally just like to ask a question and get an answer, and that's what the search box represents.

Oh, and FYI Seth, your site menu and Work links don't work with Javascript disabled.

First impressions were not all that good because of the color and conservative layout, however some of the subtle features such as “Browse By Tag”, “Expert search” and “Hide Sidebar” really stand out for me though I don’t know if users would take note.

Usability was exceptional and I could not lose any page. Accessibility was good however zooming text size resulted in horizontal scrolling I was still impressed. My score: 8/10

Paul,

Our navigation is currently set up with Script.aculo.us which would mean that if JavaScript was disabled that it wouldn't work...we knew that going in. I don't have a problem with the search box and the design and scalability is a really nice feature but looking at the site I couldn't tell what it was there for. If I offended you then I apologize. I was giving my view and I am biased because I am a designer. If I look at a site I expect it to do certain things, but if a user looks at it they just want to know what it is not how it was programmed or put together. If someone goes to the website and knew what they were there for then I don't think you'll have a problem but a short paragraph of text on what the website is and why people should use it rather than Amazon or another big name is what I was speaking too.

Thanks for the FYI.