The alternate energy business is booming despite the fact that gas and oil prices are going down. People are still seeking out new ways to create cheaper, cleaner energy. The recent astronomical spike in gas prices hit customers hard and got them thinking about new ways to power their lives. As a result, new sources for environmentally friendly energy products have shown up online. One such website is AltE, a company and website committed to making and creating products that promote and provide renewable energy.
The Alt-e website offers an alternative energy store as well as a learning center and community. All three pieces are critical to the idea of creating a new energy web portal. Users learn about products before they buy them, read reviews and have a place to purchase goods, encouraging customers to return to learn, share and buy again.
The model and content for the site is solid and the products offered are diverse and affordable. The site lets the environmental enthusiast buy hard to find tools for energy efficiency and offers them the tools necessary to learn how to self install and review products. These goods are not often found in your local hardware store and are not simple to install, so a web store that provides how-to information and a place to purchase is the logical location for this type of business.
If you are new to alternative energy the community and blogs offer a great wealth of information from people who have been through the process of using these products and also gives insight into how to go about getting these products installed. There is a base of users that offer comments and reviews on both the blog posts and the products themselves.
The best features of the website are the Alt-e university and community categories. It offers hands-on advice and information from real users so that newcomers can relate and interact. The opportunity to take webinars and classes as well as search the online library makes the site interactive and rewarding.
The site itself is a wealth of knowledge. No one can argue that the pieces are all there for Alt-e to take off as a portal for learning, buying and sharing alternative energy products and ideas.
So what’s holding it back from jumping to the next level?
If you judged the site by its design alone you would see that this cutting edge community does not have a look and feel to match. The site seems homegrown; from the colors to the typography there is a distinct lack of design.The site tries hard to make it easier for the user to get around, search the site and explore by adding an abundance of links, but it doesn’t take into account that a streamlined site is easy on the eye and will enhance and encourage users to return. More attention to quality navigation rather than a quantity of links would better serve Alt-e’s website.
The overall layout of the site doesn’t take into account issues like usability and user interface design and doesn’t optimize the most important spaces for user interaction. A lot of the most important details on the site are buried below the fold where users have to scroll to find them instead of taking advantage of the unused space at the top.
The homepage, once navigated away from, is hard to return to. The site would be vastly improved with a change as simple as a navigation bar that included: Home, Store, University, Community, Blog and Contact. Even the naming structure of the website seems complicated, with the page name coming before the actual website name making it seem like they are different websites altogether.
Overall this site deserves better. All the pieces of the puzzle are in place - the information, the products, and the community. Users are involved and excited. Doesn’t AltE deserve a cleaner, more advanced feeling interface on the web - one that matches its mission and product lines and delivers the information in an easy streamlined way?
AltE is a company on the cutting edge with a website stuck in the past. If it takes the time to work on the interface design and information architecture of its web presence it is poised to capitalize on a growing industry. I look forward to seeing this industry and this website grow to its full potential. All it needs is a good design team.
About Lauren Razzore
Assistant Professor, Art Department, William Paterson University
Bayside, NY, USA
Professor Lauren Razzore is a web designer, animator, and graphic designer who has taught in the Art Department of William Paterson University since the spring of 2006. She specializes in entertainment, sports and kids' design, working mainly as a web designer and flash animator.
Professor Razzore graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1998. In 2004, she received her M.S. in Communications and Packaging Design with a concentration in Digital Media from Pratt Institute. She spent 10 years working as graphic designer before transitioning into web design and animation. Professor Razzore has worked for several large-scale companies such as Lycos and The Topps Company as the lead web designer and continues to do many freelance projects for high profile websites and animation clients.
Professor Razzore's work can be seen in various places on the web, including www.topps.com, www.garbagepailkids.com, www.hollywoodzombies.com, www.wackypackages.com, www.topps.cardclub.com, www.bazookajoe.com and www.lycos.com.