According to a new Online High Street Report from web usability consultancy Webcredible, M&S has been voted the most user-friendly website of all UK high street brands.
It is a surprise result for M&S as its site only came ninth on the list last year. Meanwhile, WHSmith came joint second, whilst John Lewis maintained its place of third on the rankings.
The criteria used to evaluate the websites includes browsing, navigation, the checkout process , searching and product display pages.
Despite widespread improvements, there are some basic areas where retailers need to do better on, the report found.
Areas that could be improved include using the same form for logging on and registering, allowing customers to alter the number of products displayed on a page and changing the colour of visited links.
See the article in full on BBC News
Friday, October 23, 2009
M&S website voted most user-friendly
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Cinnamon Creative in current issue of Design Week
This week, Design Week reports the story of Cinnamon Creative's exciting new brand identity for top London security firm, 1st Class Protection. Karen Cinnamon has developed the new logo, luxury 12pp brochure, stationery and website for the leading security firm. and is currently working on 1st Class Protection's direct mail campaign targeting high-end residents.
Read the full article here, and view a selection of the completed designs here.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Marks & Spencer: new site design
Over the last couple of months Cinnamon Creative has been working on designs for many of the pages of the completely revamped M&S website which launched today.
The main visual difference is the new widescreen '1024' format that allows M&S to create more vibrant landing pages.
The new site also aims to improve the complete customer experience. New features include catwalk videos, fabric swatches and a carousel image suite which brings the clothes to life. The new site also includes stock availability information when customers select their sizes.
Check out the new site here and media coverage of the work here.
New Look TV: what an innovative idea
I'm currently working on an e-comms project for fashion retailer, New Look, and whilst doing so, have learnt about their fabulous new interactive online channel: New Look TV. It's essentially fashion TV that’s styled by their customers.
The shows are a combination of fashion and entertainment that put the spotlight firmly on the creativity and personalities of New Look customers. Their excitement about fashion gives the content its energy and pace while the user generated element of the shows and the channel enable everyone – both staff and customers – to get involved.
What a brilliant idea! Check out the beautifully designed channel here, and a sample show below:
Monday, October 12, 2009
Robert Bradford - Recycled Toy Sculptures
I love these colourful dog sculptures, by Robert Bradford, made from discarded plastic items. The objects are mainly toys but there are also other colourful plastic bits and pieces, such as combs and buttons, brushes and parts of clothes pegs.
Recycling is not his primary concern, but each sculpture certainly keeps quite a few pieces from becoming landfill. Some of the sculptures contain pieces from up to 3,000 toys and sell for around £12,000.
From Cool Hunter
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Diet Coke vending machine that makes you look skinny
BRIEF: Get more people to purchase a Coca Cola Company product when they are in a small range of the vending machines.
SOLUTION: Wrap a mirror foil on the rounded multiplex area where usually Coca Cola has his own ad. Because of the rounded form of the vender the mirror changes the viewers perception and will see a thinner version of him - or herself.
From Cool Hunter
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Adobe Opens iPhone to Flash Developers
At Adobe MAX, the company's worldwide developer conference, Adobe today announced that Adobe Flash Professional CS5 will enable developers to create rich, interactive applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. A public beta of Flash Professional CS5 is expected to be available later this year. In a sneak peek, during the MAX keynote presentation, Adobe demonstrated how developers can utilize Flash Professional CS5 to export applications for the iPhone, leveraging the same source code used to deliver applications across desktops and devices for Flash Platform runtimes – Adobe AIR and Flash Player 10. The new functionality opens iPhone development to millions of designers and developers who currently use Adobe’s popular Flash authoring tools.
Adobe Flash Platform technologies open new opportunities for designers and developers by making it easy to target multiple operating systems and devices with the same application code base. In addition to helping developers deliver applications for the iPhone, Flash Professional CS5 is expected to include a new text engine for creative freedom and control with text, enhanced capabilities for team collaboration on projects, prebuilt code snippets for rapidly adding interactivity, as well as integration with Adobe Flash Builder for advanced ActionScript editing.
Naked People
Apparently, clothes are our second layer of skin. They disguise, reveal, or mirror our innermost being or help to hide it.
The people modeling on this website certainly believe that. It sounds crude but it's actually very well done.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Cheese or Font?
Do you love cheese? How about font types? Can you tell the difference between the two? Test your skills over here
Hosting a Party the Microsoft way...
Microsoft Windows 7 'how to host a launch party' webisode is just so unbelievably wrong yet strangely enthralling.
