Take a look at our new choice.com.au homepage

We’re busy working on a new CHOICE homepage and navigation menu and would like your feedback.

Our aim is to create a homepage that keeps you better informed about a range of consumer topics and issues, helps you find product and service reviews easily, and communicates who CHOICE is and what we do. Attached are two desktop layouts that show how the page might look with different types of content. We’ve noted ‘work in progress’ over parts of the homepage that are still in the research and design phase, such as the navigation.

So, what do you think? We’d love to hear your first impressions on the two images below.

Image 1:

Image 2:

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We’d love to hear what @vyc and @CHOICE-Supporter groups think of the new homepage.

@phb, @jenuhr, @bronwastaken, @roony, @meltam, @mudpuppy @PaulB - I’m tagging you as I know you have helped with some site feedback in the past. If you have the time, we’d love to hear what you think about these updates to the choice.com.au homepage.

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This is much better than the current landing page.

Choice is about looking past the gloss at the facts. The landing page should reflect this. Don’t make it too glossy! Graphics should be there to support the content not to dominate.

I do not believe that the tag line ‘providing unbiased…’ is needed at all. If anyone wants to know, they can click on ‘about us’.

The graphic and headline font for the lead article ‘Whip 'n snip it’ are both still too large. The font for the headline ‘flight delayed or cancelled?’ is also too large.

Generally, people won’t scroll down below the initial screen, so you need to capture their interest with all the important content on the first screen that loads. I think it is OK to scroll down one more screen to see less important content, but there shouldn’t be anything below that except site navigation.
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Hope that helps. If any of this doesn’t make sense, I am happy to be contacted to discuss what I have said.

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Thanks @meltam, we really appreciate the feedback. Have a good weekend!

I prefer the first - self-promotion is important. Some of my friends don’t know anything about you,and don’t believe you are not subsidised by industry.

Personal preference, I like the new one. Marketing appeal, I think the old one was better. I can’t see anything on the new one that could be a problem so I guess the number of people following links from the home page will tell the final story.

Image 2 for me, Clear, uncluttered, no confusing overprint.
Be careful how you use coloured print on coloured backgrounds. Some of us oldies have difficulty seeing words clearly. Black is still the best for contrast.

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Image 2 for me as well, I don’t like stuff appearing over the top of content that you have to dismiss from view.
Perhaps the “Providing unbiased reviews…” could appear when you hover the mouse over About Us.

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I like image 2 as well but maybe with the blue Choice banner from image 1. And I agree with jackbarry963 re using black fonts for clarity. It seems to be a trend nowadays to have a very light grey background with a darker grey font. Not easy to focus on.

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Image two for me as well. I prefer to have a clean and clear landing page with the latest news but where I can easily navigate to the items I’m looking for.

I notice in image one the opaque overlay with ‘providing an unbiased view’ can be acknowledged and removed. What would be left once you hit ‘Got It’? The image underneath or would it then appear much like image two?

Hi @melony thanks for your feedback. Once you click ‘Got it’ on the banner seen in ‘Image 1’, it will disappear and the page will appear like ‘Image 2’. We will also ensure that once you’ve clicked ‘Got it’, you won’t see the banner again when you revisit the homepage.
Thanks,

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Between the two page images, I prefer image 1 although I think the panel which acts as background for the statement “Providing unbiased reviews and defending consumer rights…” could be smaller to make way for other information.

I think the most eye catching space on the page (usually the first left hand article or picture) should be reserved for alerts (eg defective product recalls, warnings about scams), and news on consumer rights campaigns instead of product reviews. In this case, “How to avoid buying a defective apartment” and “Campaigns & your rights” would outrank the Whip 'n snip it review.

Ultimately, being told to watch out for pitfalls as well as what products and services or which businesses to avoid would make for better choice. Protection is the key to consumer rights.

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Prefer the 2nd one;
agree with comments re the overprint on colour harder for mature people to easily read. In some case I cannot even read some print on colour.
agree with don’t require the tag 'providing unbiased" etc
agree with alerts should get preference for top left - Top left and bottom right is where people look first so important info should go there.
agree with font too large as per meltam6554
Keep up the good work :slight_smile:

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Am I right in seeing only one like button for the 2 choices, making it not possible to express my preference? Thanks. (Both are good anyway, but I prefer the first)

Hi Brendan, I can’t compare it to the current landing page because, as you know, Choice Community is the only ‘Choice’ page I can open. Image 2 is clean, fresh-looking and easy to read. I like the positioning and clarity of the word Choice on that image.
I agree with meltam6554 that the font headline for those two articles is a bit too large. The more one’s eyes can be drawn to different articles (without cluttering the page), the easier it is for readers to continue looking at the site.
The panel showing covers of Choice magazines in Image 1 looks dull and heavy, and takes up unnecessary space so that visitors see less of the lead-ins to your articles. My first impression of Image 1 was “Boring!” I agree with gordon about where to put “providing unbiased views …”, and OldRed about the colour on colour problem. If you want to feature your mag covers, why not do it as a banner at the bottom of your page where you can put your “share” icons if you use the Image 2 page?
Whichever page you choose, I hope it is available to a range of browsers because I don’t have any trouble opening other web pages with Safari.

hi @meltam and @lyn

Thank you for your feedback regarding the largest font size on the images we shared.
We reviewed it and have updated the design so the font is smaller, agreeing that it makes the other information in the top area easier to read, please see attached.

The ‘Providing unbiased…’ is going to show only for the first time a person visits the CHOICE homepage, so if you select ‘Got it’, it will not show again and if you are visiting the homepage for the second time or more, it won’t show at all either.

Thanks for your time and thoughts, it’s very appreciated!

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Thank you @jackbarry963 for your feedback about colour contrast.
We will check the contrast levels of all the text to make sure it is readable, for example we will need to adjust the ‘Join CHOICE’ green background so the contrast is better.
Thanks!

I prefer the second version. I like the ribon at the top of the page that doesn’t have too much information and takes you straight to the article. I would prefer another font for the body of the articles, different from the paper version and the titles a little smaller. I think this new homepage will be a great improvement!

Just a thought on the colour options. Could there possibly be a choice for colours on the page to assist those with Colour Blindness? I have seen pages on some other sites where there was an option to change the page colours to suit. This I think generates a page similar to how pages are rendered for different browsers.

Hi, I’m a bit late to this forum but wanted to add that I like the new focus on content about your consumer advocacy work. Although most people will come to your website in search of consumer reviews and research, the consumer advocacy info will help drive memberships and engagement.

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