The Clicks and Clunks of Web design.

Your generic e-store. Three columns. Menu on the left. Content in the middle. Ads on the right.

It couldn't get any duller.

Unless your goal is for customers to fall asleep while shopping, there's no reason to succumb to this hum-drum design. There are alternatives to the three-column rule. But in your attempt to blow design out don't lose sight of your objective: selling products to the customer. If you're going to go alternative think CUSTOMER first before you even begin thinking about design.


  • Keep navigation and flow of site simple while not standard. Never include an element solely because it looks cool. That means no excessive unnecessary use of Flash.
  • Think about your audience. Will they be shocked by an alternative site? Some shoppers don't like change. Some like the comfort of a standard three-column site. Will your audience be willing to accept anything that's new and different?
  • Does the alternative nature of your design compliment your product? In some cases it's completely inappropriate like the Barneys New York example below.
  • Is the new alternative site design an improvement for your product? Does it just look cool, or does it really enhance your product?


Sketchers-- CLICK
Instead of following the lead of other retailers, this gen-X shoe store paid attention to their shoppers. Unlike other customers, shoe shoppers know what category of shoe they want, like boots, sandals, or sneakers, but not the exact one they want. Therefore, shoe shoppers NEED to browse. And you can do that at Skechers. Scan through the pictures on the right, the shoe and its related information appears on the left. Click to see different colors. Click to see a larger image. Click to buy. The audience is alternative. The design is alternative. But the process is simple.

Barneys-- CLUNK
Walk into this online store and you'll be blown away by the cool animations and roll over graphics. Wait a few moments and that fascination will soon turn into frustration. Quickly you'll realize that even though there's a department for every category, you can't actually SHOP in those departments. In fact, there are no products to be SEEN let alone PURCHASE. To PURCHASE products, you're supposed to bypass the obvious places, like each department, and go straight to the section "SHOP Barneys." But once you're there, another surprise. The store's not even open. No products. No ecommerce. When did alternative shopping mean NO shopping?