I'm sure we all visit the Oakley web site on a regular basis, so what does everyone like/dislike about it? Here are my thoughts:

Likes
1. Nice graphic design and page layout
2. New technology pages provide good info

Dislikes
1. Too difficult to find specific items using menus
2. New eyewear families are confusing
3. Infrequent updates
4. New products MIA (Hatchet, Warden, Fatcat)
5. Lately, everything is "Temporarily Sold Out"

Ed Chiu (eddyc - 8/13/2004 10:12:39 AM)
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Same feelings really. They had it fine two years ago, where the families were divided correctly and everything has hard coded. Then they swicthed to products linking to a search for that item, and then returning the results. This causes error with not being able to find everything. I thought zero's were discontinued for a while, but they were still there, just inaccessible. Then slowly the brought back Jacket vs Frogskins and made things a little better, but now we're back to O matter vs crazy designs vs women's vs half jackets. It make no sense anymore. Although they're slowly replacing the search 'feature' with static pages. I'm sure it's easier for them to use a serach to list the products, so all they have to do is add a new item and it shows up, but that's what I do here, and it still is catagoried correctly.

Dann Thombs (Dann - 8/13/2004 10:20:57 AM)
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Hmmm... Thomb's Web Consulting Services has a nice ring to it, don't you think? You could offer your service to Oakley to clean up oakley.com and make it easier for potential customers to navigate the site.

Ed Chiu (eddyc - 8/13/2004 10:48:23 AM)
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Ahh, yes, consulting. I'll just tell peple what to do and get the big bucks. I'll take old pairs of glasses too.

Really I like the graphics, but never at the expense of usability. I'm guessing all this is outsourced.

Dann Thombs (Dann - 8/13/2004 11:11:39 AM)
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My roommate was in web consulting before he started www.BlackOut-Design.com He always said in relation to anything I would design I had to look at use-ability and user interface on top of my design. There is a professional term for it all that escapes me at the moment. People would actually go to school for it, jus tto tell people what colors to use and how to set up the sites. Me, I prefer good design but it does have to work simple and easy and right now Oakley.com is a little difficult to get around. I actually think they do it inhouse. I had always wanted to go out there and try and work for them and I had found an ad agency that did a lot of their work in San Diego (I think) and then I had read an article that they were moving there design inhouse.

As far as the website goes, I am not down with the current flow. I don't like the new family categorization. I don't like having the little "view all eyewear" link at the bottom of the eyewear page. I hate that it almost never updates with product that shows up on ebay and in other outlets. I feel it was nicer in the last year before what we see now.

Phil Barket (kingphilbert - 8/13/2004 12:21:28 PM)
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I'm hoping someone from Oakley reads this thread. I know that if I was a casual customer or a new Oakley fan, I'd be upset that so many of their products are "hidden" or missing entirely from the web site. Phil, I agree that the previous incarnation of the web site was so much more user-friendly and had much more thorough content.

In fact, I would say that the way The Oakley Review is set up is a great template for any type of retailer... a catalog listing the main product types, sub-categories for each type, specific models in each sub-category, and finally color combinations for each model. It doesn't get simpler than that.

The lack of timely updates and complete absence of new models is just strange for a company that prides itself on high-tech, cutting-edge products. I wonder if Oakley realizes that the best places to get new product info are eBay, this site, or certain Japanese sites. If I see something new, I go to oakley.com to see if it is there, and typically it is not.

I miss the days where new product teasers would show up months before official release, and you would eagerly go to oakley.com everyday to see if anything new would pop up. Oh well. Hopefully this is a temporary situation.

Ed Chiu (eddyc - 8/13/2004 12:53:37 PM)
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Yeah, the plates were a good teaser, same with the dartboards (zeros/blades....), but that seems to be only in January/February and then new products just pop up during the year. Before creating this site, I didn't have any contact to clue me in on new products, so I'm not sure how much exposure last year's Q3/Q4 items got like Halos and Teaspoons. Still it's nice to have the HOME page be the end all for news and new products, not an online flea market, or a site I can't read without babelfish.

If they are doing the site inhouse I hope they're not paying someone full time. Maybe they should and get some new and fun things up.

If I wasn't concerned with bandwidth I'd post my online Oakley RPG that I wrote, haha. The silly things I do when I'm bored.

Dann Thombs (Dann - 8/13/2004 2:26:58 PM)
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Maybe someone is listening... I just checked the "sunglass cases" section, and they have re-vamped it and added models that were always available for purchase but not on the site (Large Half Vault, Black/Black Kevlar Case). They have also added a link to a .pdf chart at the bottom of the page that shows what models fit in each case. I swear I saw a chart that looks very similar on northernwave.com. Maybe Oakley "borrowed" the format. It is fairly thorough, but this is the third chart I've seen that says Mag Four/Four S will fit in the Metal Vault. It won't... I've tried. Maybe I'm just afraid of scratching them up, but it is a VERY tight fit. I could not get the case to close up. Nothing bigger than a Wire will fit. By the way, Fat Cat and Warden are listed on the chart, and at the bottom of the chart it says 'Hatchet "Coming Soon"'. Curious.

Moving in the right direction, I guess.

Ed Chiu (eddyc - 8/13/2004 2:47:08 PM)
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The website is pretty good now, but when I do a general search in 'All Sunglasses' the Rx stuff clutters it up. I'm glad I can do a quick search on 'polarized' to see if anything has been updated, but some search terms don't work; like 'VR28'. !? I would think that that would be in their search engine.

I would also like to see quicker updates - they don't have to give the scoop on new stuff coming out all the time, but there are models and products that are out and old hat by the time they get in the database - M Frame strap kit, Earsock kits, etc.

E C (EastCoast - 8/13/2004 3:45:13 PM)
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I liked the old site that had 'Today's Bomb' and 'Hot Stuff' pages, I like the ease of use of the new site, but it's not updated enough, and the menu's and choice is a bit crap! Nice pictures of some gorgeous women though! Yes!

Darren Taylor (rolyatnerrad - 8/14/2004 3:26:30 AM)
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I'm guessing the search works on a keyword system rather than full text or fuzzy text. Strange how they forget some words though. Try search for Fluoro. You get nothing. There some even worse omissions too.

And I really hope they don't add real models in the future to compliment this fashion trend. Don't need a whiplash suit when one of them tries to model a pair of doggles.

Dann Thombs (Dann - 8/14/2004 10:19:20 AM)
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What's been said is pretty much what I think of the site. They need to update more frequently, simplify the categories (especially in apparel), and in general I think it would be nice for the site to have a glossary of their Oakley-speak as they do in some of the watch manuals. What I especially like the site for the huge product pictures and good explanations of some of their technology.

I found some humor in this new customer button; it shows a different message every seven seconds:

I believe Oakley needs to put actual real photos of their sunglasses and RX frames instead of those crappy paintings or whatever they have to represent their glasses. Because neither the frame color nor the lens color in the paintings come close to matching how they look in the real world. If they had real photos that would make it so much easier to decide which lens or frame looks good. What do you guys think?

Tre Go (trego33 - 8/15/2004 2:19:13 AM)
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Ya that would be a helpful addition, but I don't think Oakley would ever consider implementing real photos since I think no matter how you cut it, photos would probably make the site look more amateurish without the photoshopping/airbrushing in the current images.

Leo Wong (DarkGrieverX - 8/15/2004 3:10:53 AM)
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that and the fact that real photos would probably cost more too. with those renderings, its real easy to change frame/lens colors on a computer than to take photos of each and every color combination of every frame. also, the original angle of the rendering of the sunglasses are kept, so it looks more professional when a browser is clinking on each color combo. keeping a certain angle and perspective when taking photos of multiple items are very difficult.

i agree than the color renderings do not represent the real colors in any way, and that real photos work better in that respect. but it wouldn't be cost effective.

as for the latest oakley.com site format, i like how the O-Matter section has lens and frae sizes, as well as the front and side profiles. it looks nice and neat. i also like the new Wires section, with front, side, and top profiles, but now frame/lens sizes like the O-matter. X-Metal frames are kept with their own section, but i'm slightly confused that no they're using the name "Overthetop" as a new genre, and that Zeros are included when they had their own section for the longest time. however, it also helps that they kept the "view all sunglasses" page. the prescription eyewear pages definately needs a lot of help.

another gripe is that since day one the site is like a snail for 56K users. even the simplest page take minutes to load. oh well...

W.B. Ng (bong - 8/15/2004 11:41:51 AM)
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People - with digital technology being the way it is I dont think real photos of their frames would cost so much as to be totally non cost effective and in return it would probably boost sales and reduce returns as people would be able to see what they want exactly the way it looks and thus buy more and also reduce returns as people would know exactly what they are buying before they buy it. Anyways I Hope Oakley does put this suggestion into effect as it would make me buy more often from the website instead of going into a store to purchase.

Tre Go (trego33 - 8/15/2004 6:01:10 PM)
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I also agree that photos of actual glasses would be much more helpful than paintings, especially for showing true lens colors. They seem to be making a lot of changes to the web site, so let's see what happens.

Ed Chiu (eddyc - 8/15/2004 6:50:36 PM)
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If they do take my suggestion and shift to real photos I want a pair of sunglasses as consultation fees.
On and On and On and On And I dont stop............

Tre Go (trego33 - 8/16/2004 9:11:45 AM)
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Real photos would be nice, but as said before, it would look more like a small chain showing off their inventory rather than the artforms they're trying to achieve. That's part of the reason I made the gallery, so people could post what they really look like.

Gallery is now user specific, so you can create your own section. Should make things a little cleaner. Must be logged in of course.

Dann Thombs (Dann - 8/16/2004 10:52:08 AM)
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Honestly speaking and not because I want to start an argument or something - having studied marketing for the last 4 years - I understand the importance of the visual image. In my opinion Oakley would greatly benefit from using real photos. As far the real photos not looking artistic enough, I'm sure Oakleys got one hell of a design team that could work magic with real photos and make them stand out and not look like some cheap online peddler. In fact I'm going to go out on a limb and say Oakley will switch to real photos sooner than later.
ON and ON and On and On and I dont stop

P.S. and if they dont then I guess I'll still have to go to the damn stores and check the stuff out.

Tre Go (trego33 - 8/16/2004 5:34:37 PM)
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Maybe that's part of the plan. To get you out there and trying them on.

Dann Thombs (Dann - 8/16/2004 8:12:03 PM)
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hey... it worked on all of us here, didn't it? :)

W.B. Ng (bong - 8/16/2004 10:30:16 PM)
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Sure did. But if you look back to the Ichiro Juliet thread, they have some serious discrepancies at times with the photoshop vs real life.

Dann Thombs (Dann - 8/17/2004 9:32:06 AM)
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Another thing about the catagorization. If an item is new, it's not in any other caratgory. A new section is nice, but I'm a nut for order and structure.

Dann Thombs (Dann - 8/19/2004 1:20:58 PM)
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