Site Design, Evironmentalism, and Bikes

I’ve been meaning to mention Masuelli Bikes for a few days now. They struck a happy nerve with me. They combined three subjects that I care deeply about: web site design, environmentalism, and bikes. Unfortunately, further examination of the site left me rather less impressed, as we will see.

First, the bikes. Masuelli builds their bikes out of bamboo. Yes, bamboo. It’s an incredibly strong building material; light, flexible, and responsive. I would love to ride one. I can only dream of owning one. The bikes are attractive and unique, always a plus. Making bikes out of bamboo is a great way to promote environmentalism and sustainability. While one might quibble about how much of a difference the bikes themselves actually make, I’m more interested in the message it sends. There are many ways to create more sustainable and environmentally friendly products. All that lacks is imagination and the drive to get good ideas into production. Massuelli achieves that goal in a way that is original and inspiring.

Now on to site design. Visually, the site is stunning, and the layout is simple and effective while avoiding flashy effects and moving images that distract one from the more important content. Upon entrance, one is greeted to an attractive image with an inspiring tag line: “I want to help save our planet, I want to feel healthy, I want to have fun, But above all, I want to be unique…” Click on any of the menu links—unconventionally placed at the bottom—and the whole image slides up to become a site banner, while the requested content appears below. Very nifty. The site logo appears on the right, which again defies convention. This time, however, I found that it breaks the accustomed tactic of clicking on a logo at top left or top center in order to get back to the “start page.” A friend of mine was similarly confused. I think a focus group study might be instructive there.

Masuelli's Store in Internet Explorer 7

From a usability perspective, the site is more miss than hit. It works great in modern browsers such as Firefox 3.5, Opera 10, Internet Explorer 8, and Google Chrome so long as javascript is enabled and Flash is installed. However, the site’s online store and gallery both use PhotoBucket, which requires a recent version of Flash. Requiring Flash simply to show images is not necessary. Requiring a recent version of flash is doubly unnecessary. Default installations of Internet Explorer 6 and 7 come with an outdated version of Flash that do not work with PhotoBucket. I get flashing grey image boxes instead of actual images. It’s quite annoying and well, not good.

The news only gets worse when using Lynx, a text only browser I use to approximate how the site might appear to people who must use non-graphical browsers such as screen readers. The site looks good at first blush, but since it requires javascript to operate the menu, Lynx is unable to navigate to any portion of the site other than the front page. This is a major usability and accessibility fail. Now, one might reasonably argue that the site’s intended audience are affluent (based on the cost of the bikes) and healthy. They are cyclists, after all, and can be expected to have at least passable eyesight. But I don’t think that’s a given. Perhaps some elderly grandmother wants to purchase a unique gift for her grandchild. Or a blind spouse for her sighted partner. Masuelli could lose out on a couple sales that way. At $1300.00 dollars per sale, that’s significant. As it stands, such a person does not even have an option to contact Masuelli.

A better way to design the site would include working links to actual html pages for each of the menu items. If a user does not have javascript enabled, or is using a browser that doesn’t have javascript at all, they will still be able to use the site. This is a very simple and obvious solution. Neglecting that shows a lack of attention to detail from the site’s designer, not to mention a lack of respect for a minority of the site’s users. That is, frankly, inexcusable.  Ditching PhtotoBucket and just hosting the images locally would ensure that everyone who can see will be able to view them, regardless of any difficulties they may have with external services such as PhotoBucket.

Overall, I’d have to give the site a C+ if I were grading it. While the design really is arrestingly fresh and will be useful to the vast majority of its users, it fails on the accessibility and usability fronts when it could easily accommodate both.

Via: Urban Velo

Tags: Accessibility, Bikes, Environmentalism, Usability, Web Design