fargostuff.com - HOME

fargostuff.com - HOME

I love the idea of this site, but hate its layout. The idea was to sell art by local Fargo artists (yes, there really is an arts community in Fargo, you betcha) and other Fargo-related items, but the design of the website has lagged significantly behind its content.

INTENDED AUDIENCE

• People who live in Fargo, North Dakota

• People who used to live in Fargo, North Dakota

• People interested in local arts communities


USEFULNESS OF CONTENT

I stumbled across this website when I was searching to see if I could buy “Four Cities” cards online (see image). This site sells “Four Cities” items and works by other Fargo artists and musicians, as well as tickets for local events and now, apparently, a plot of land in Fargo.

There is a variety of items for sale--jewelry and other accessories, cards, clothing, music, etc. Unfortunately, the homepage reflects the range of items available in a disorganized way, making it hard to get at the site's content.

CONSISTENCY OF DESIGN

The website is unattractive and poorly designed, both in terms of visuals and navigability. There seems to be a desire to use color to mark out categories, but ultimately the color is used to randomly to be really useful, except for the green used to delineate “Land” sale in the headers (who sells land on this kind of website? Coldwell Banker, apparently).

EASE OF NAVIGATION

The home page is utterly disorganized. The main section is attempting to function as a kind of community billboard and as a way of highlighting items described on other pages. The categorization in the left-hand column items is awkward and inconsistent, and color is used too randomly to be useful — it’s not clear why some items are yellow or red. “Love from Fargo” refers to a series of gift packages including items from a range of artists. Clicking “Four-Cities” takes you to various Four Cities items (T-shirts, sweatshirts, magnets) but not to the Four Cities cards, which are available under “Cards.” Clicking “Music” on the left brings you to a list of CDs available for sale, including a link for “Barking Dog Records”… which brings you to many of the same CDs, and is the same link you can get to from “Barking Dog Records” in the homepage’s left-hand column. The inconsistency of that column makes the website hard to navigate.

Typing “four cities” into the “Search” box and clicking on the question mark turns up a lot of things that aren’t “Four Cities” items, including a set of North Dakota charm-bracelet charms, with no image, that isn’t listed under “Jewelry.”

CONCLUSION

Overall, I love the idea of this site (and I want one of those “I used to live in Fargo. Really.” sweatshirts). But the poor design of this particular website is not serving the artists represented well