Elrea Thomas
Learning Aim, A: Understand the principles of website development.
Introduction
For this report I will be analysing, evaluating, and comparing L’Oréal Paris's website with ASOS’s website.
L’Oréal Paris is one of many brands owned by L’Oréal and their website is very interactive and intuitive
to engage customers. Both ASOS and L’Oréal Paris advertise and sell products on their company
website. ASOS has a more standard website layout with the use of trendy vibrant colours on their main
webpage, to meet the needs of changing customer tastes and fashion styles.
A1 Purpose and principles of website products
Product/service based and their target audience.
L’Oréal is a product-based and service-based company. L’Oréal is a private limited company, and it
belongs to the cosmetics industry as they offer skincare, make-up, haircare, hair colour and fragrance.
They also provide numerous services such as analysing your skin, virtually trying on makeup, and
virtually trying on hair colours. On their website they provide these virtual services and advertise their
products. From looking at their website they target women as most of their models are women and they
offer products aimed at people aged between 15 to 40 as they sell basic low-price products which are
affordable for young students as well as anti-aging products for adults above 30. Their diverse products
are suitable for all cultures and ethnicities, making it a broad market. Whereas ASOS is a product-based
company that focuses on selling clothing, footwear, makeup and accessories for both men and women.
ASOS is a global E-retailer (purely Internet based) and a public limited company. Their target audience
are people between 20-30 years as they sell several expensive branded products which are targeted
towards employed customers and new trendy clothing to meet the fast-changing demands in the
fashion industry. Their target audience is broad as they have products in a range of prices from
affordable to luxurious, so they sell to people with various levels of income. ASOS operates and
distributes their product globally. In their ‘about us’ section on their website they mention their main
objectives are based on diversity and planet issues. They advertise their products with images, videos,
and text so customers can purchase the products by adding it to their basket. They both advertise
products in diverse ways such as L’Oréal make use of more GIFs and ASOS advertise with images, of
models modelling in their products. L’Oréal provides virtual services on their website however, ASOS
does not include any. Therefore, ASOS could improve their advertising by providing virtual services such
as for trying on jewelry. Overall, on both websites you can view and purchase the products with a well
running online service and receive targeted adverts by becoming a member.
Web 2.0 technologies
Web 2.0 technologies is the term used to describe a variety of web sites and applications such as social
networking sites that allow anyone to create and share online information or material they have
created. A key element of the technology is that it allows people to create, share, collaborate &
communicate. When companies provide users with web 2.0 features on their website it allows users to
perform tasks by interacting with their website, this improves the ease of use for customers. The
features of web 2.0 technologies include social networking sites, signing into website accounts, forms,
videos, online web applications etc. Whereas on web 1.0 surfing on the internet was banned and there
, Elrea Thomas
were only static pages with flat information, with which users could not interact. On L’Oréal’s website
they include basic interactive features such as being able to click on product images and simply view the
product details. They also include web links to their social media pages and their ‘about us’ and ‘contact
us’ pages. The links are clear as they turn red when you hover your cursor around the link. ASOS have
also made use of interactive features such as web links to their main website pages and social media
pages and they have clearly shown it is a link by changing the colour from grey to blue when you hover
your mouse over the link. ASOS have included a ‘like’ button so users can like products and add it to
their basket. The like button is useful when the user is window shopping and does not intend on
purchasing the product at a specific time. However, L’Oréal can improve by using a like feature as users
can like products more quickly than having to add it to their basket. Also, ASOS can add features such as
‘virtual interactive try on’ for their products that L’Oréal have done, to make their website more
interactive and usable for all users. But as ASOS is a clothing brand it can be difficult to develop virtual
try on features for clothes and may not be entirely necessary as users can easily return their order if
they do not like it or if it does not fit. Overall, both websites have implemented the standard web 2.0
features within their website, but L’Oréal have included extra interactive features to further attract their
customers and gain a competitive advantage from their rivaling businesses.
Consistent (Consistency and Intuitiveness), Navigation, Customisable/ Flexible
The purpose of making a website consistent is to improve the functionality and visual elements of a
website to ensure headers, footers, navigation bar and sidebars all work with the company's overall
theme and colour palette to maintain a brand identity. Consistency can be applied to many different
things within website design. For example, consistency in the colours and typography used, the
positioning of links on pages and the style and images used. Keeping your website consistent makes it
easier to use for users and intuitive and cuts down the time to develop the different webpages. The
company should include the same layout and fonts on all their interfaces including their websites and
applications. In the screenshot below I searched for hair style products on Loreal’s website, and it says
on the top left corner that there are twenty results within this category, instead of scrolling through all
these products the user can make use of their intuitive layout and sort and filter based on more sub-
categories. This maintains a consistency when searching for products with the filter and sort options
available for all product categories. It avoids users from confusion and frustration when finding specific
products amongst the 100s of other products. ASOS have also made use of filter and sort buttons,
allowing customers to find products quickly and easily through their endless range of clothing, footwear,
accessories and so on. The use of drop-down buttons makes it look more professional than a list of
categories filling up the page. Also, L’Oréal isn't as intuitive as ASOS when advertising products for
example, displaying they could advertise winter products during the winter season. However, they
mainly keep their home page the same throughout these seasons by advertising hair colour products,
this can maintain consistency, but it is not very intuitive. Whereas ASOS constantly change their main
page and colour schemes to attract a wider audience and display their new sales and discounts in an
attractive format. Overall, from I believe ASOS focus more on intuitiveness than consistency with their
marketing styles on their main menu page. On the other hand, L’Oréal have a more simplistic and
consistent approach, remaining very focused and niche on their market. Therefore, L’Oréal could
improve by advertising with more intuitive images and colour schemes to attract more customers and
generate more sales.
, Elrea Thomas
Navigation is an important feature that firms can develop on their website to make it easier for users to
navigate and find the products or information they require. A consistent navigation system helps users
to find the information more quickly. By ensuring the navigation bar is clearly labelled by making the
search button look like a button with shading around the box improves the overall navigation of the
website. Also, predicting the keywords when the user searches up something can make navigation more
efficient and quicker for customers as it saves users from having type it all out. The navigation bar is
usually at the top of the webpage as people read from the top to the bottom. Both websites have used a
standard search engine bar, this is a standard feature found on most websites. They both use a simple
and easy to navigate design so people without IT skills can easily use their website. The first screenshot
below shows how effectively ASOS predicts keyword and shows a list of options with the word “puffer”.
This will save users time and frustration from having to find certain products. However, from the second
screenshot you can that L’Oréal do not predict keywords, making the search process more time
consuming so this can be an area of improvement for L’Oréal, but as they do not have an extremely
large product range in comparison to ASOS it may not be a necessary feature for users. Also, their search
button does not look exactly like a button with shading or rounded edges, this could make it more
difficult for users to navigate and find the search bar. But as search bars are usually on the top right it
