Bumping and rubbing is part of racing and NASCAR has proven themselves to win both on the track and online. NASCAR.com website rating is 98 per Hubspot.com. It is a difficult to critique near perfection but I did find a few areas on their website that could be improved. The website is very busy and crowded, unless you are familiar with the racing culture, the user could be overwhelmed and exit the website before they dig deeper into the content. My first recommendation would be to de-clutter the homepage. The homepage is the user's first impression and they cannot view the entire page without scrolling down.
Sponsors advertisements, surveys, and YouTube links danced in front of my eyes and focusing on one area of the website took dedication. NASCAR.com's homepage is difficult to navigate and the objective is hard to determine. Roberts(2008) states, " there must be a coherent structure to the content of the site, usually one that is hierarchical in nature. This enables visitors to move around the site in a manner that fits each person 's individual need to merely examine summary information or to drill deeper into the site in search of detailed information about a specific topic"(p.256). My second recommendation would be to take away or move the images to appropriate tabs. There are too many active links and small images that are not well represented because they are lost among larger content. NASCAR should restructure the homepage and move these images and links to appropriate pages to better serve their purpose. My third recommendation would be create seamless navigation. Currently, if you click on the shop tab a new web page opens up. This page takes time to load and potentially a loss of viewership. Also, if you want to go back to the homepage, another web page opens up. Opening up all these tabs slows down my computer. NASCAR.com has a lot to offer but I feel their valued added services are lost by cramming all the content onto the homepage.
Every webmaster should begin with this question: what do customers or web visitors want to do when the land on our site? Then they might ask, what do we want them to do when they get there? What's the purpose?
ReplyDeleteNext, am I a new visitor or a regular viewer? If analysis shows that visitors are regulars and come back often, the annoying brand-building gimmicks are not required and may even upset a true fan. That is why it is important to know who is coming to the site and what do they want to do as a result of the visit.