So, how does the new Woolies site look, feel and work?

From the very first glance of the homepage, there is a sense of disappointment and lost opportunity. It looks, to be blunt, pants. As much as red is their primary colour, the use of red on the site is dismal and quite depressing. There aren’t any other colours that really stand out, apart from the bright green and blues that sit atop the tabs on product pages, which don’t really blend in.

Besides the use of colours, space isn’t used well either. The homepage is dominated by a Flash section detailing the three different stores rather than promotions or price cuts; the same of which can be said of the category pages which also appear uninspired and even confusing. In fact, the big picture of a family titled ‘XBox’ on the consoles page actually lead to XBox accessories, not the console itself.

The navigation has friendly dropdown menus but they take a moment to appear which can be irritating, particularly when the anchor title appears before the menu itself and even obscures them.

The product pages are dreary in design but the information provided is quite good. Interestingly enough, the popup that appears when you add a product to your basket is unedited open source library AJAX/Javascript code because the site I’m currently redeveloping has the exact same pop-up (which I’ve redesigned because personally I think it’s a bit rubbish).

Switching sites just confuses you further. For a start, the checkout isn’t shared throughout the sites so you either have to buy your product or empty your basket before visiting another section of Woolies, which is even more bizarre considering you buy your X-Box in a different part of the site to the X-Box games. I like the funky Pick ‘n’ Mix site but again, different checkout, different product pages and so on.

Never mind that this is the resurrection of a well known and well loved family brand, this new Woolworths site has to compete with the likes of Amazon and Play.com and quite frankly Woolworths have gone into battle with a wooden sword. It’s a big shame because the new site was supposed to revive the brand aswell as provide a cover story for how a big high street brand that saw it’s demise during the recession was brought back thanks to the power of online marketing. I think with their current website, this isn’t going to happen.