Website research for Rolex

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Website research for Rolex
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Dvein.com

• Guide to tool
• The left side wheel is an interactive (clickable
  and drag able) photo gallery.
• The center text is a list that is partly
  obscured, it becomes visible as you mouse over
  it. This also causes the wheel to react and move
  to the photos related to that project to come to
  the fore.
• On a mouse over a single image will push its
  self out slightly to allow you to veiw it.
• Clicking the image will bring the whole family of
  images to the front, so all the photos in that
  set.
• Clicking an image at this point will bring up a
  shadowbox of the image (which is oddly slow to
  load)

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Dvein.com Comments

• Pros
• Interactive
• Non standard
• Definite wow possibility
• Would fit the current Rolex site in terms of rich
  interactive and movies.
• Could be used in a faceted selection as a
  additional feature. As the user selects traits
  of the different facets the wheel could remove
  those who didnt match the new criteria.

• Cons
• The precise controls are not explained, leaving
  the user to play with it to figure it out
• The partly hidden list prevents a user from
  seeing a whole list of clients although this
  would not really be applicable to Rolex, it still
  bugs me.
• Can be touchy when trying to select a single
  image
• When a single image is clicked on it brings up
  the whole family, and doesnt focus on the image
  clicked it starts in the middle of the family of
  photos.
• The shadowbox feature is quite slow to load.
• Will react to mouse over's even when its not in
  the current window. Not sure if thats a con or
  not, but seems odd enough to document.

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Nike.com/jumpman23/xx3/

• This micro site off Nike is certainly
  interesting, its a full screen flash
  walkthrough. The user has to hold down the mouse
  button and use the traveling menu to go left,
  right, forward and back.
• The controls are somewhat difficult to use, but
  it does give a strong feeling of being in a dark
  room with odd wall paper
• The doors in the room lead into subsections of
  the site that host all the content, you start off
  in a room with four doors.
• At the very top of the screen there is a menu
  that pulls down on mouse over that has all the
  items listed there (in case you couldnt find it
  I suppose)
• The 5th image is the nike store which uses
  faceted navigation on both the dropdown menu as
  well as on the left nav bar side.

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Nike.com/jumpman23/xx3/

• Pros
• Extremely interactive and non standard
  navigation. Users have to walk around the room.
  (could be a Rolex display room, or even a mock up
  of some part of the real Rolex area?)
• Movies play inline and are fairly seamless
• A hidden menu at the top allows for less savvy,
  or the more impatient to get to the content
  quicker
• Doesnt feel like a website, more like a game?

• Cons
• Troublesome controls, you keep getting turned
  when you didnt want to, or your moving too
  quickly.
• Very dark, was this done to hide low quality
  background, and in turn is this a limitation of
  what Flash can do without bogging down a machine?
• While Im not a developer this doesnt really
  look that simple to produce, might be too much.

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Etsy.com

• Etsy has a strong facet navigation component (see
  image 5) that works the categories to allow users
  to find the specific type of items they are
  looking for.
• The world allows you to zoom in and look were
  different products are from and to select via
  that.
• The connection area allows you to view a users
  favorites, and then see other users who have also
  favorite the item, and their items and so on and
  so forth.
• The globe is quite like Google earth (which was
  not included because how closely related the
  interactions are on the two globes.) in terms of
  how it functions.

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Ajijohn.com

• This site has an interesting interface, the
  images of the bowls can be dragged around the
  site, and double clicking on them will bring them
  to the center and expand them.

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Ajijohn.com

• Pros
• The interface encourages the user to play around
  and arrange the pictures however they like.
• Users are used to double clicking, while they
  might not know to at the start its something
  that they can relate to the desktop.

• Cons
• The interface is clunky and not clear at the
  beginning.
• Poorly implemented, can lag or even freeze if too
  much is asked of it.

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Burstlabs.com

• Burstlabs has created a music selector based on
  keywords or tags.
• Users can select the tags (or facets) of the
  music they want and the selection is narrowed
  down.
• Users can continue to drill down to quite
  specific, while at any time being able to play
  the music while continuing to narrow down the
  field.

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Burstlabs.com

• Pros
• Interactive, flash driven
• Allows users to select the facets of the music
  they want to listen to
• Personal
• Clear breadcrumb trail of what they have selected

• Cons
• Not clear the dots are music at first
• Some of the tags/facets names are unclear or
  subjective.
• Music is short, although decent quality.
• Application to Rolex might be hard, shares some
  of the same ideas as the Dvein from earlier,
  although less graphical.

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Tiffany.ca

• Tiffanys while featuring a expensive line up
  uses a simple faceted selector. Each selection
  narrows the field for the item being looked for.
  On roll over the images become large in their
  boxes.

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Tiffany.ca

• Pros
• The faceted navigation allows you to select the
  design, type, material, gems, and other aspects
  of your item.
• The pictures of the items are easy to identify
  and enlarge inside their own box without opening
  new windows.
• Its easy to reset the different facets that have
  been selected, to returned one or all of them to
  the default of all.

• Cons
• The different options for the facets are hidden
  in drop down menus
• You cant view the items of two facets at the
  same time with the drop down approach.
• The images only enlarge inside their box, its
  not clear how to get a full window size view,
  (clicking on the item only brings it to a sale
  area, not a full view).

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Supporting Sites

• The following sites have some aspects that fit
  the requirements, but are not sufficient on their
  own to warrant a placement above.

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mgmgrand.com

• The interactive Flash movie
• Once the movie is entered (Enter Maximum Vegas)
  the user gets a small knob control that controls
  the clip.
• Each of the sections can be stopped to get more
  details on it.
• Movie adds a great deal of value to the site

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Mgmgrand.com Comments

• Pros
• Slick movie with a decent control knob
• Each section can be paused for more details, such
  as Dining provides a list of different places to
  eat from fine dining to star bucks.
• Easy to either let the movie play through or take
  control
• Knob expands for easier control, is quite clear
  what each section is about

• Cons
• Control isnt too precise
• Moving from different sections can also
  accidently select a section to stop on.
• Very linear, might not be adaptable to Rolex
  needs.
• Charm wears off after a few view, doesnt seem
  practical for a common interaction, a few times
  sure, after that it gets old.

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Nickad.com

• The most important feature of this site is the
  sense of discovery as well as the opportunity for
  users to explore and feel a sense of achievement
  on learning how to work the website.
• Nickad is a mix of very unusual and a normal
  menu. As you can see to the left his site is the
  deep red color and there is no menu or
  navigation.
• To access the navigation you have to hold down
  the mouse. (I discovered this by clicking, which
  brings up the menu (images 2-3) for a second
  before disappearing.
• The menu appears and the different sub sections
  can be selected

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Nickad.com

• Pros
• The lack of navigation causes the user to
  explore, and to click, which in turn brings up
  the menu. The discovery factor is interesting
• Interactive, starts with no standard nav
• Some of the cons could be fixed with good
  development

• Cons
• This site was easily my worst user experience of
  this new year so far. The menu is incredibly
  difficult to use, and was clearly not done
  properly as it breaks in both Firefox, IE, and
  even Safari 3.1 has some issues.
• The menu as noted before is hard to use and is
  prone to changing what section your in with a
  slight horizontal movement.
• The menu is too small to read properly

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Image Credits
http//www.dvein.com/
http//www.etsy.com/geolocator.php http//www.ets
y.com/connections.php (Credit for finding this
goes to Stephanie)
http//www.mgmgrand.com/
http//www.nickad.com/
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Image Credits
http//www.nike.com/jumperman23/xx3/
http//www.Ajijohn.com
http//www.Burstlabs.com
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One last note

• I was told Rolex is all about elegance, I came
  across this while searching and felt that
  something this special needed to be shared. This
  had to be one of the tackiest sites going.
• This is incidentally, the official Vegas tourist
  website, or at least, it claims to be. It can be
  viewed in all its glory here.
• http//www.lasvegastourism.com/