Gucci takes a bold step at capturing the emotion and feeling of the in-store experience on their website. Instead of providing search and navigation like most eCom sites, Gucci instead uses flash to display handbags on shelves as one might see in the store; the user can scroll horizontally (but not vertically) to browse through the entire selection.

Pros:

Gucci is a high-end luxury brand and this site establishes them as such. By displaying the product in this light, the designers are able to bring some of the emotion that one might get from shopping the store online.

Product details appear within the interface, sliding out and making it very easy for customers to view the details of several products without a pogosticking effect.

Cons:
The horizontal scroll is not typical of websites, and as such may not be clear to some users. (although the arrows and the overall design do afford that there is something more to the left of the viewable area).

This design idea clearly will only work for some companies and products; those with a deeper product line or less high-end product would never be able to pull this off.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 18th, 2006 at 11:10 pm and is filed under web UI, web 2.0, site reviews, AJAX. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.