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At first look I see that the site does not appear to have an interface design that entirely supports the purpose of the site. I'm assuming that since they do not sell the jeans on their site their goals would be as follows (not in order of priority):
*To reinforce the Levi's branding
*To showcase the product
*To help consumers locate where they might find Levi's
Based on an overview of the site I assume the primary users are young hip consumers.
The secondary audience would appear to be music fans, most likely in the same demographic who come to the site to look at the "levi's music.com" section which features artists that levi's sponsors. (I guess liking Christina Aguilera might make you want to wear levi's.)
In my opinion, the site navigation is confusing, featuring both a row of icons with javascript rollovers that describe each icon and a pull down menu in the same frame. This frame appears at the bottom of each page of the site...except in the music portion of the site which I think is designed in flash. The pull down menu provides a quick way to get to each of the sections featured by the icons, as well as to other areas of the site.
Also, just as an aside, the browsing portion of the site is frustrating, as the images take a really long time to load (and I have DSL).
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1. Navigation is confusing and located at the bottom of each page.
2. The rollover on the icons displays text to explain them, and in doing so, either covers up other icons, or changes the size of the whole icon bar, depending on which browser you're using.
3. Large area of real estate on home page switches between two images. This is very irritating and continues to do so even when interaction causes smaller windows to open so there is always this motion in the backround...very distracting. Why have a large, slow loading image take up the most prominent part of the page?
A new navigation bar has been made to the left of the screen with text to describe the function or purpose of each icon. This text is static and does not appear in the old rollover fashion. Also, the pull down menu has been added to the upper left portion of the screen to be more easily accesible.
The large area of real estate that was previously devoted to a large non-linked photo has been replaced by this new navigation scheme. The logo has also been made larger and the red levi's logo color has been used more on the page to help reinforce the branding. The featured text "Are you ready for the future?" which leads to a flash movie (a commercial of sorts for a new style of Levi's being introduced) has been placed more prominently near the logo. I assumed since this was at the top of the old site that it was Levi's intention for you to click on this link for sure and the new location is the second read on the page.
I've also rearranged the order of the content to the right of the navigation. It seemed like the best option was to get rid of the big reloading photo and display each of them smaller. Besides eliminating the long load time and irritating reloading motion, this also provided a convenient placing for a duplicate link to the men's and women's sections of the site. I also placed the 'what's hot for summer' nearer to the top of the page and closer to the navigation to avoid having this cut off by smaller browser windows. It is intended that the description text remain a rollover here. I think perhaps the redesign is not as 'elegant' as the actual levi's site but it gains an ease of navigation that is crucial to a positive user experience that I believe does not exist now.
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