If you’ve never been to woot.com yet, check it out. They post one deal, everyday. Beyond that, they have multiple sections of their site with different categories of deals (shirts, wine, tech, etc.) Woot has always been an incredibly easy to use site, simple to understand and navigate. Unfortunately, it seems as though someone’s decided to give it a complete makeover.
The Good: Thankfully, they’ve at least decided to keep their branding intact. Woot’s defining green color is still dominant all over the site, giving it a lot of continuity. On the homepage, there’s still a big yellow “I want one” button, tempting the user to purchase that new vacuum that can climb stairs and play music. The new site’s interactive elements are really engaging, including a nice drop down preview of each category.
The Bad: The site has lost it’s simplicity. First time user’s will now be greeted by a home page that looks like it’s just a scam to get your money. The site’s purpose is not clearly represented as it used to be. Instead, it’s become overrun with ads and pop ups (just how many times do I have to tell you I don’t want to log in or sign up?!). Although some of the interactive elements are nice, there are just simply too many of them. It seems someting pops up everytime you hover your mouse over something.
The Pixels: It feels as though nothing on the layout is aligned properly. It seems as though it’s just a series of randomly sized boxes placed on top of each other. The categories along the bottom of the site (right above the footer) don’t spread out evenly across the footer. Of course, I’m sure this bothers only me.
The Good, The Bad, and The Pixels 