This review is of the website for Dragonfly Tea Company, a Phoenix Metro tea shop. It is not a review of the store or the products sold by this store. The site was viewed on an 11x12 inch monitor with a resolution set at 1366x768 px. The web browsers being used are Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 17.0.1. This review was completed on Thursday, January 10, 2013.
Aesthetics
General appearance
This is a simple, attractive site. The general appearance of the home page is identical in each of the browsers used.
Graphics and color
Graphics are few and mostly involve pictures of tea. The colors are beige, brown and shades of green. The text is green, black, and white.
Layout
The pages extend beyond the limits of the browser, which requires some scrolling in order to view the entire page. My monitor is pretty small, so someone with a larger monitor might not have this problem. The layout is fairly simple, with no major issues. One thing that I noticed was that the names of very various teas and other products do not fit inside their frames.
Typography
The typography tends to be highly variable as far as color and size is concerned. The font face is also inconsistent. Most of the site seems to be in Tahoma with headings in Times New Roman, but the terms of service page is in Calibri, (in Firefox, in Internet Explorer it is in in Verdana). The font size is also kind of small and does not seem to stand out very well against the background.
Usability
Navigation
The navigation is extremely simple, clear and easy to use. The only major issue seems to be the “Contact Us” page, which gets an “unsafe page,” alert when I click on it.
Contact information
The contact page gives me an “unsafe page” alert, but the story location and hours of operation also on the “About Us” page. Store location with a map can also be found on “click here for store location,” on the home page. There is no contact information in the footer.
Social Media
The Twitter and Facebook buttons on the upper right allow you to tweet or post about the store. There does not seem to be any links to the store’s Twitter account or Facebook page.
Relevant links
There are some product widgets on the front page, and a link a map of the store’s location. I am not sure why they have a little widget for “Free Shipping,” however.
There does not seem to be any major accessibility issues, aside from the terms of service page, which has a small font that is somewhat difficult for me to read.
Canonical
Is the name of the page in the title tag?
No, just the name of the company is in the title tag.
Is there contact information in footer as well as contact page?
No.
Is the copyright information in the footer?
Yes.
Does the logo link to the home page and is in the upper left corner?
Yes.
Does the page layout follow current web standards?
Except where otherwise noted, the page layout follows current web standards.
Assessment
Over all, this is a nice site that could use some slight adjustments. My only real pet peeve is that the FAQ is not really very detailed. It mostly covers information on Black, Green, and White teas, though other kinds of tea are sold by the store. (Having a separate FAQ page does not make a lot of sense, either. It would make more sense to have information about the kind of tea on the page with the tea in question.)
Comments