Website critique

Associate
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3 Dec 2008
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974
Location
London
Hi all,

I've recently been tasked with creating a website for an IT business, who are wanting to become more visible on the web. They've given me some ideas of their design and I've made a site based on that, very much a WIP at the moment, but wondering if anyone could offer any advice and guidance on its look and feel so I can relay that back to them, I feel that its a good start but there's something missing that would make it stand out etc.

Site - https://lambda-tech.co.uk

Thanks
 
Consultation and Procurement slide - white background/image make the text difficult to read.

FAQ Pricing? As all projects are bespoke, we cannot provide pricing online or over the phone, however we can assure you that we offer excellent pricing that is fair and competitive.

How are customers meant to get a quote? Someone visits the customer? Letter in the post? Not very tech forward for a company offering tech services.

Response time?
We aim to be as proactive as possible, by aiming to have a member of the team liaising with you on the day to work with and diagnose issues quickly to keep any downtime to a minimum.

"Aim" - so not a guarantee or given response timelines - businesses deal in facts not, best guess (although that is highly debatable!). "Keep any downtime to a minimum", could be reworded better ie minimising downtime.

A meet the team page, pics and bios', you pride on over half a century of experience, but in what and who?

Partnerships or customers? Banners/new page on who Lambda are working with, ie big industry companies.

No contact number? If your systems are down, you don't want or maybe can't send an email hoping someone will get back to you. You need to speak to a human immediately.

FB link doesn't work. X link: says Lamba, your website says Lambda - which is correct?

You could run your text through ChatGPT and get it more business sounding, or look at other tech provider websites for 'inspiration", but the site looks nice and slick :)
 
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- remove Home from the title
- mailto links went out of fashion ages ago, most people don't have mail clients that respond to clicking such links. bots will also scrape and spam the email address. have the contact link behave consistently with the rest of the links (scroll to a section with some info written there, or contact form so you can generate business).
- the most important info for this website is the list of services provided, put that on the screen when the website loads, don't need a massive logo, don't need a whole section about what lambda is
- don't make people click faq accordion items, just display the info
- I personally don't like the layout of one page with whole screens of info, some just one sentence of massive text. I'd rather have default size and flow so I can scroll it as normal, main nav as actual pages might then be useful.
- accessibility thingy is cute, but doubt anyone will use it, and if you scroll down then click greyscale it moves off screen which at first seems like it broke and now you're stuck in greyscale. so I'd just remove it.
 
My take on this is as follows:

The first section seems too easy on the eye and too vague. I think the first section needs something more compelling to encourage the reader to want to read on. It's not until almost the end of the page that you explain a bit about the experience within the company which I may never have scrolled down to see. I think it needs a softer introduction to a range of services rather than a broad statement like IT solutions and something about how many projects or years they've been delivering solutions for. It's also unclear as to whether these services are only being offered in Tees Valley or whether these solutions include cloud deployments. The inclusion of Lambda in the name seems like they could be laying claim to expertise with cloud AWS work so it needs clarifying whether they're about physical deployments within a certain geographical area or whether they do both. I would include a call to action in this first section to highlight that a free consultation can be booked. On that note I wouldn't use a contact form at the end of the page, I would integrate MS Bookings into an expanding section that opens to show the availability for the client to book a slot there and then that suits them without them having to wait on an email reply. I think an 0800 contact number should be in this section too.

I don't think the consistent background colour works, with all the sections running into each other. I think it needs different backgrounds to break up the sections.

The second section seems to contradict the first as it now states they're in the networking business. So now I wonder if the company knows what it's trying to promote and whether it has lost its way a little. Better to have a summary in the first section that softly introduces the reader to the fact that a range of services are offered and pick a few of the main ones to call out the descriptions of.

Third section seems like too many ideas thrown at the page competing for my eyeballs. I think it's trying to describe what you think the customer wants to hear rather than exuding confidence and expertise in what can be offered. It's also in danger of seeming like its conveying priorities and security doesn't look good near the bottom. The section is generally confused as it's mixing services with engagement / project delivery and aftersales. It could do with breaking out and perhaps include the consultation part with a new appointment booking section. It needs to be more chronological in the way it reads and introduces the client in my opinion. The section doesn't need anything about peace of mind, support or the Tees Valley, it's just fragmenting the section further into different topics. If you want to convey peace of mind then don't self proclaim it, show genuine client testimonials in a separate section. Ideally I'd want to see some integrated component of a well known reviews website for client feedback as you don't want to keep having to update a static web site when new testimonials become available. The support part would look more credible if the site looked like it wanted to receive contact, so a separate support phone number displayed and perhaps include a drop down or options selection on the contact form to include 'support' and direct the form to a suitable shared mailbox as per the purpose of contact, e.g., sales enquiry or support. I also don't like the variety of different size cards and background images. I think it would look better if it was a collage of equal sized images and titles where the image edges touch the adjacent one to form one whole rectangle but each square can be hovered over and it flips over or slides the rest to one side to reveal more text. I think the section should lead in some way with the project management aspect as the umbrella to the key services of infra, access management, av systems and security but ordered by turnover importance, so lead with what the client is best known for. So I would break this into two sections but share the same background colour, leading with project management, maybe with a narrow horizontal break between the two sections.

The forth section, 'experience', well why didn't you say so ;) It's too late being down here, this would be better as a much more assertive statement in the first section. If they're confident about what they do then don't hide it under a bush. No one else in business is going to bang that drum for them. The rest of the section I hate though, it looks too much like it's been cribbed from a template and you've shoe horned in some facts to fill it out. The small number of staff doesn't seem like a positive. I wouldn't mention any of those stats, they don't add anything in my opinion. The testimonials would also serve this purpose anyway.

The FAQ's section seems premature and fake. If you want to call out why us, then stick to that as a section and slot it in before a testimonials section.

The contact us section I've partly mentioned already but I'm not convinced on the language of getting the ball rolling as being very professional sounding for the type of client they are, it seems a bit cavalier.

It needs a footer section with t&c's, privacy policy, company registered office details, registered company number, which country it's registered in, some of these are a legal requirement.
 
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