Miss Boo is back
By Kristoffer Bohmann, Bohmann Usability
Miss Boo is back. Boo.com has reopened as a vertical portal that reviews and recommends fashion wear products.
The site opens with a Flash intro that downloads slowly. Still, usability on the new site has been improved compared to the old design:
- URLs are now visible and remarkable simple. It is actually possible to bookmark and email URLs. Very nice!
- The homepage is more usable than before. Content is presented directly on the homepage (once it has downloaded :-) without opening any new browser windows. The old site opened several new windows and required country selection before entering the site.
- Browser window size has been optimized to a 800x600 display making usage more comfortable. Still, users need to browse a lot of pages to find the products they are looking for -- only six products are shown on product overview pages.
- Text sizes have become slightly larger. However, text sizes remain non-changeable making reading hard for users with reading disabilities.
Other usability problems remain: Download time is long everywhere. Clicking is extremely cumbersome as links are hidden. Searching for the next link seems to be an important part of the intended user experience (no kidding!).
Navigation support is shown as an attempt to help users understand where they are (e.g., shop:men:walk) - unfortunately it is neither obvious enough nor used consistently. Back-button does not work from homepage to the previous website.
Bottom-line: Boo.com no longer has the provocative/innovative Web design that helped make it famous (and contributed to its financial death).
Kristoffer Bohmann
