Site review: Virgin Trains revamp
Virgin Trains relaunched its website yesterday with an updated look and feel for the site, which apparently aims to 'convey the brand's new positioning of train travel as superior to other modes of transport'.
I'm not sure whether it does that, but it does look a lot better than the previous version. I've been comparing the site with the old version...
Site review: Whistles.co.uk
Fashion retailer Whistles relaunched its website last week, and the resulting Flash heavy site is certainly different.
According to Whistles' Jane Sheperdson, 'We spent a lot of time researching best practice online. We then threw out everything we had learned, and just designed something that pleased us visually.'
This is an interesting way to approach the design of an e-commerce site, but what will the result be for the user experience?
Site review: BBC Democracy Live
The BBC yesterday launched a new political website, Democracy Live, which enables the public to keep up with TV coverage of political debates.
The site offers live and on demand coverage of the Commons, the House of Lords, the European Parliament, Scottish Assembly and more, so you can keep up with debates on a variety of issues that may effect you.
Site review: Auto Trader
Motoring website Auto Trader has recently launched a new version of its site in beta, updating the technology behind the site and introducing a more modern design.
The Auto Trader mobile website was impressive when I reviewed it recently, so I've decided to have a closer look at the new desktop site. It's a pretty big site, so I've confined my review to a used car search...
Site review: M&S relaunch
Marks & Spencer launched a revamped version of its website yesterday, the first major update since 2007.
According to M&S, the aim is to 'dramatically improve the customer journey from browsing to basket'. I've been seeing how well the site achieves this goal...
Site review: Clothing at Tesco
In the same week that Amazon launched its standalone footwear site, Tesco launched its clothing range online on a separate website, Clothing at Tesco.
The site showcases the clothing range that shoppers will find in its Extra stores, as well as exclusive online items. I've been trying the new site out...
Site review: javari.co.uk
Launched at the end of last week, javari.co.uk is Amazon's new standalone site selling footwear and handbags.
The online retail behemoth has been selling shoes on its main site for some time, but launched a dedicated site to attract more brands. I've been taking a closer look at the website...
Site review: John Lewis fashion
John Lewis relaunched the fashion section of its website this week, aiming for an extra £70m in clothing sales by 2011.
The retailer, which currently gets just 6% of online sales from fashion items, has added new brands and redesigned in an attempt to make the section more appealing. I've been taking a closer look...
Site review: Kiddicare.com relaunch
Baby products retailer Kiddicare.com has just relaunched its e-commerce site, with an emphasis on improving the site's merchandising tools and product images.
Kiddicare is a retailer that does a lot of things well online, such as offering as many payment options as possible, and organising product reviews effectively, so I've been seeing how well the new version of the website shapes up...
Mobile site comparison: Rightmove and Globrix
Property search engine Globrix launched an updated version of its mobile website this week, with some extra functionality for iPhone users.
Rival Rightmove also has a mobile version of its property search engine, so I've been looking at the two mobile sites (on an iPhone) to see how the user experience compares...
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
