Trader's Association Website Design - 5 sites reviewed

17 March 2010 - By Sean Fishlock

Traders associations and they have specific website requirements. I've been lucky enough to work on projects involving this type of business which differs from associations. Along the way I've done some research into traders association websites from around Australia, so I thought I'd share some of my views on them.

Firstly I'd like to note that as an ex Brisbanite, the trader association is a perculiar phenomenon that is mostly restricted to Sydney and Melbourne where traditional suburban strip shopping centres exist and are not dominated by shopping malls. That being said, they can be found elsewhere and many shopping malls have centre management and many towns have progress associations and tourist associations that share striking similarities.

Traders associations exist to promote their member businesses and need to provide information for visitors on getting there, local events of interest and provide value added services to strengthen the loyalty of members and consumers. Some also serve a social and cultural function in briefly documenting aspects the commercial history and heritage of an area. Traders Association vary in size and are generally not-for-profit while most receive their revenue from the traders they sometimes source funding from other sources such as local government organisations and community grants. Larger shopping centres and malls are generally backed by commercial interests.

In terms of Traders Association Website Design, a critical aspect of these organisations is their business, store or directory. This can be quite complex to manage and maintain and also puts it beyond the abilities of many inferior web designers, hence introducing a substantial setup cost. They also advertise and promote the area in different ways. This means a one-size-fits-all solution can be difficult to find. With these things in mind it may or may not be a suprise to find that not all traders associations have websites.

I have picked a sample of 5 such website and rated them based on some of my own criteria, some scientific, others subjective. It is difficult, for example, to determine whether their business listings are accurate or up-to-date.

Please note that if you manage or own one of the websites I have featured here, please take any criticisms constructively rather than personally.

1. Footscray Traders Association

http://www.footscraytraders.com.au/

Design: 75%
Design is ok. Strong visual identity which has obvious links to the red white and blue colours of the local football team. Imagery is adequate, but ordinary.

Navigation, Usability and Content: 55%
The double menu, vertical and horizontal is confusing and there are far too many categories displayed vertically. There is underlined content which are not hyperlinks while other important hyperlinks are not given underlines - a big no no for this. Content is adequate but Local Events archive is a bit of a mess and clicking on Business Listings, the most prominent menu links does nothing. See also comments about main menu in Browser Compatibility.

Browser Compatibility: 50%
As mentioned above, main menu is a big issue. On most browsers other than Internet Explorer (notably Firefox and Google Chrome), the white menu links are rendered vertically which puts them over the white background. This is a serious and unforgivable navigation issue.

Accessibility: 90%
Overall accessibility is good with only a few problems found.

Search Engine and Social Media Optimisation: 50%
The site's identity focuses mostly on traders rather than consumers. Low pagerank and link popularity are problems as is heading markup and the lack of a sitemap.

Overall: 70%
A reasonable attempt at a Traders Association website but fails in areas of execution.

2. Chadstone Shopping Centre

http://www.chadstoneshopping.com.au

Design: 75%
While the branding is quite strong (to be expected for one of Australia's most popular shopping centres) with use of black grey and blue hues, they contribute to some significant usability issues. Use of the hero image and marketing message is quite bold.

Navigation, Usability and Content: 65%
There are some nice and interesting features of this very functional site dragged down by some technical issues.

The store finder in a prominent position at the top of every page is a good idea, although the category selection list is quite long. The store directory is quite good. Doorway pages and maps are quite well developed and the feature banners on every page are a nice touch. The menu is user-centred with labels like "Shop" and "Eat". While this looks good in concept, management of content has contributed to some confusing associations for some pages.

Firstly the Flash splash page is very annoying for return visitors and relies on Flash, as does some of the other interactive features. The option to skip the website intro is provided, but on some browsers this is cut off. There is an issue with readability of text on the black background. The semi-transparent flyout menus overlay the text which can look quite messy and many of the main menus don't require it.

There is a embedded multimedia and interactive content. However a simple "About Us" link for the benefit of first time visitors is nowhere to be found, even in the footer.

Pages sometimes take a little time to load which can be frustrating. I had to click more than twice to view an interactive map which popped up in Flash.

Browser Compatibility: 75%
As mentioned above, use of Flash plugin is an issue but generally compatibility seems ok.

Accessibility: 60%
Use of Flash plugin is an issue for accessibility and there are definite errors in accessibility on this site.

Search Engine and Social Media Optimisation: 80%
Overall a pretty decent effort in terms of SEO. This site gets great pagerank, has keyword optimised domains and text to image replacement. Facebook and Twitter are also discretely included on the homepage. Small technical issues with markup, metadata, lack of sitemap and use of Flash though which could be easily fixed.

Overall: 75%
This is one of the better websites out there, although you would expect this given the commercial interests.

3. Altona Village Traders Association

http://www.visitaltona.com.au/

Design: 65%
This is quite an amateur looking website. Nothing flash at all. It is modest and functional rather than lavish by design. The association has a brand, however it is disassociated from the graphical look of the site. Problems include wasted space and poor selection of font, size and colour in the stylesheets.

Navigation, Usability and Content: 65%
The website appears to have been built and maintained in an ad-hoc fashion. The information architecture and main menu appears to be poorly thought out. For instance, "Visit Altona" and "Getting to Altona" should probably be somehow combined as with sections about the place including "Wildlife" and "History" rather than being main menu items. As a result there are probably too many main links it and the drop-down navigation is lazy and there are a lot of inline links many of which are broken.

Having said that, most of the important links and content are there. Alternatives to the main menu are provided in the homepage search. Though the lack of a breadcrumb trail really hurts this site and it is easy to get lost within it, especially when linking from search engines, however it is likely due to the ad-hoc construction mentioned. The use of the header space for feature items is risky but ok. The "interactive" maps are pretty horrendous.

Browser Compatibility: 75%
Generally compatibility seems ok.

Accessibility: 75%
Accessibility on this site is quite acceptable.

Search Engine and Social Media Optimisation: 60%
Pagerank is ok although are some significant markup problems and browser titles are not optimised. Social media does not feature at all and there is also no favourites icon to differentiate it from other sites. No sitemap either.

Overall: 65%
Not a great looking site, but doesn't do anything wrong per se.

4. Glenferrie Road Shopping Centre Association

http://www.glenferrie.com.au/

Design: 45%
Another very amateur looking website. The copyright says 2001 and you really can tell that it is nearly a decade old. The association has a brand, and this is followed through to the colour scheme of the website, although far too literally and the black background combined with primary colours is a little offensive to the eye. The site is text heavy and fonts are far too small especially on larger screens where there is a significant amount of dead space on the homepage due to the long and awkward directory category list down the left hand side of the page. Animation is distracting and the images and Flash movie are too small and repetitive to make a visual impact.

Navigation, Usability and Content: 50%
Navigation and usability are pretty poor. For example, there is a whole main menu item reserved for Competition, however when you click on it the page says "No Competition This Month", similarly in the events section "No Events". One presumes it is always like this and just due to poor design. The Quick Find is a massive alphabetical list of very business which is awkward but works. The Business Directory categories are far too long and make the page scroll excessively. Content is inadequate, with poor maps and simple links offloading users to other sites for important information. Search probably does not belong on the main menu and doesn't describe exactly what you are searching for. Furthermore there are missing links and the contact form has no validation leaving it very open to spam.

Browser Compatibility: 55%
The site has poor browser compatibility. For instance the interactive map did not work on any other browser than Internet Explorer.

Accessibility: 35%
This is one of the worst examples of accessibility I have seen for a traders association website and is seriously letting down the site.

Search Engine and Social Media Optimisation: 40%
URLs are not friendly, markup is horrific, embedded styles, browser title is the same throughout the entire site, no favourites icon or social media. That it even appears in a search engine index relies completely on its pagerank.

Overall: 40%
This site is atrocious and is possibly hurting the business and its traders.

5. Belgrave Traders Association

http://www.belgrave.net.au/

Design: 90%
A very nice professional design, possibly a template, it is soothing on the eye and the logo is effectively translated into the site's visual identity and the layout is uniform with good use of space. The only comment would be that the colours are slightly washed out and possibly not quite enough contrast in the text. The animation on the homepage with the image slideshows is subtle but effective. The unusual (centre and left) justification combinations used in the layout of some pages are also a little unorthodox.

Navigation, Usability and Content: 70%
The site requires you to first click on a main menu item, then it dynamically slides the submenus out. This is a nice visual effect, but slightly clunky in terms of usability. Otherwise the structure is simple and intuitive. Images are sometimes used in place of text for visuals, however this is not a huge issue as they are done in the right way.

All the important information is there, however some pages (such as "What's On") were blank and the "News In Belgrave" heading appears even when there is no news, giving the impression it can be clicked on.

The business directory is simplfied (given that this is obviously a relatively small shopping centre), however the listings did not appear to be logically sorted. An alphabetical listing in each category would be better.

The virtual tour aspect of this site, unlike others, actually works quite well.

Browser Compatibility: 80%
The site appeared to work well on most browsers

Accessibility: 90%
I found few if any issues with the accessibility of this site, with the exception of a few images being used for supplementary blocks of text and headings. One of the best of its kind in terms of accessibility.

Search Engine and Social Media Optimisation: 85%
A good page rank, URLs are highly friendly and there is a favourites icon (albeit difficult to recognise). However there are issues with the markup, particularly inconsistent page titles and headings which may carry a slight penalty.

Overall: 85%
An excellent site with a few minor issues which could be easily fixed.

Conclusions

There is quite a lot of variation in the quality of trader's association websites. On the whole, however, it is worth noting that most such websites fail to complement the organisation's function and most have average designs. I would expect to find the ability for traders to update their listings and perhaps even get direct referrals, however these sorts of features are rarely present.

If you know of any good ones, let me know by commenting below and I'll see if I can add a review at a future date ....