What company has the best archery website?
05-16-2008, 07:20 AM
#11
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Northern Illinoise
Posts: 2,464
RE: What company has the best archery website?
To be honest with you, I'm not a huge fan of any of them.
From a pure graphic design appeal the Hoyt, Mathews, and Bear sites are all about on par with one another. My only critique of the Hoyt site is that it looks too much like Realtree.com, but that's because the same company designed both of them. Also, when you get there there's almost too much stuff going on. I want to know about Hoyt bows first and foremost, not all of that other fluff and BS that's on the home page. IMO the Compound Bows page should be the home page, or at least something close. Mathews and Bear bothdo a better job of at least showing off their flagship bow on the home page. The Bowtech site is terrible from a design perspective. No offense to whoever built it, but their old site looked much better.
From a useability perspective I think Bowtech wins. Menus are well organized and easy to read, pages aren't too cluttered or hard to read. Overall, pretty good. Mathews uses a lot of Flash to "wow" you, but I found it cumbersome to navigate through and use at times. And I know what I'm doing. Your average Joe web surfer may be a little overwhelmed at all that's going on. Same with the Hoyt and Bear sites. At times there's so much going on that my eyes wander all over the page looking for what I want, but finding everything else. Or figuring out that I have to click on little flash menus or dropdowns to see certain items.
From a search engine optimization standpoint they all suck. Some of them may even be beyond sucking from the perspective. Terrible job across the board.
Overall I think the winner for me is going to be Hoyt followed by Bowtech. The Mathews site is probably the most advanced but lacks functionality with the excess use of Flash. The Bear site is good, but just doesn't do much for me. And the Elite site shouldn't even be in this poll. It blows horribly.
From a pure graphic design appeal the Hoyt, Mathews, and Bear sites are all about on par with one another. My only critique of the Hoyt site is that it looks too much like Realtree.com, but that's because the same company designed both of them. Also, when you get there there's almost too much stuff going on. I want to know about Hoyt bows first and foremost, not all of that other fluff and BS that's on the home page. IMO the Compound Bows page should be the home page, or at least something close. Mathews and Bear bothdo a better job of at least showing off their flagship bow on the home page. The Bowtech site is terrible from a design perspective. No offense to whoever built it, but their old site looked much better.
From a useability perspective I think Bowtech wins. Menus are well organized and easy to read, pages aren't too cluttered or hard to read. Overall, pretty good. Mathews uses a lot of Flash to "wow" you, but I found it cumbersome to navigate through and use at times. And I know what I'm doing. Your average Joe web surfer may be a little overwhelmed at all that's going on. Same with the Hoyt and Bear sites. At times there's so much going on that my eyes wander all over the page looking for what I want, but finding everything else. Or figuring out that I have to click on little flash menus or dropdowns to see certain items.
From a search engine optimization standpoint they all suck. Some of them may even be beyond sucking from the perspective. Terrible job across the board.
Overall I think the winner for me is going to be Hoyt followed by Bowtech. The Mathews site is probably the most advanced but lacks functionality with the excess use of Flash. The Bear site is good, but just doesn't do much for me. And the Elite site shouldn't even be in this poll. It blows horribly.
05-16-2008, 07:31 AM
#12
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Cogan Station, PA
Posts: 2,298
RE: What company has the best archery website?
ORIGINAL: Justin
To be honest with you, I'm not a huge fan of any of them.
From a pure graphic design appeal the Hoyt, Mathews, and Bear sites are all about on par with one another. My only critique of the Hoyt site is that it looks too much like Realtree.com, but that's because the same company designed both of them. Also, when you get there there's almost too much stuff going on. I want to know about Hoyt bows first and foremost, not all of that other fluff and BS that's on the home page. IMO the Compound Bows page should be the home page, or at least something close. Mathews and Bear bothdo a better job of at least showing off their flagship bow on the home page. The Bowtech site is terrible from a design perspective. No offense to whoever built it, but their old site looked much better.
From a useability perspective I think Bowtech wins. Menus are well organized and easy to read, pages aren't too cluttered or hard to read. Overall, pretty good. Mathews uses a lot of Flash to "wow" you, but I found it cumbersome to navigate through and use at times. And I know what I'm doing. Your average Joe web surfer may be a little overwhelmed at all that's going on. Same with the Hoyt and Bear sites. At times there's so much going on that my eyes wander all over the page looking for what I want, but finding everything else. Or figuring out that I have to click on little flash menus or dropdowns to see certain items.
From a search engine optimization standpoint they all suck. Some of them may even be beyond sucking from the perspective. Terrible job across the board.
Overall I think the winner for me is going to be Hoyt followed by Bowtech. The Mathews site is probably the most advanced but lacks functionality with the excess use of Flash. The Bear site is good, but just doesn't do much for me. And the Elite site shouldn't even be in this poll. It blows horribly.
To be honest with you, I'm not a huge fan of any of them.
From a pure graphic design appeal the Hoyt, Mathews, and Bear sites are all about on par with one another. My only critique of the Hoyt site is that it looks too much like Realtree.com, but that's because the same company designed both of them. Also, when you get there there's almost too much stuff going on. I want to know about Hoyt bows first and foremost, not all of that other fluff and BS that's on the home page. IMO the Compound Bows page should be the home page, or at least something close. Mathews and Bear bothdo a better job of at least showing off their flagship bow on the home page. The Bowtech site is terrible from a design perspective. No offense to whoever built it, but their old site looked much better.
From a useability perspective I think Bowtech wins. Menus are well organized and easy to read, pages aren't too cluttered or hard to read. Overall, pretty good. Mathews uses a lot of Flash to "wow" you, but I found it cumbersome to navigate through and use at times. And I know what I'm doing. Your average Joe web surfer may be a little overwhelmed at all that's going on. Same with the Hoyt and Bear sites. At times there's so much going on that my eyes wander all over the page looking for what I want, but finding everything else. Or figuring out that I have to click on little flash menus or dropdowns to see certain items.
From a search engine optimization standpoint they all suck. Some of them may even be beyond sucking from the perspective. Terrible job across the board.
Overall I think the winner for me is going to be Hoyt followed by Bowtech. The Mathews site is probably the most advanced but lacks functionality with the excess use of Flash. The Bear site is good, but just doesn't do much for me. And the Elite site shouldn't even be in this poll. It blows horribly.
Usuability wise, Bowtech is my choice as well. Nothing fancy or flashy, but the navigation is well organized, and the site provides a lot of information. The design is lacking, but functionality wise, it's well done imho.
Matthews use of Flash was good, but overdone. Additionally, some of the animations were sluggish, but there was still something missing from it. The concept of the bow builder was nice, but not as refined as Hoyts.
Bear from a design point looked the most clean and more outdoor themed.
Elite only had ONE plus for me for why I put it on there: simplicity.
