Case Study 9: NoDoubt.com

In preparation for their current US tour, pop rock band No Doubt has redesigned their official website.

There are two navigation systems on the home page.  The primary navigation is the top of the page, and can be found again on the bottom of the page in tiny text.  The groups are as follows: Home, News, Tour, Band, Video, Discography, Photos, Links, Fans, Community, Store.  The bottom navigation also includes “No Doubt Direct”.  The groups generally make sense.  Fans was a little confusing because you don’t really see that on band websites and I was confused as to what it was.  It turns out it’s an actual listing of fans (based on profiles created on the website).  Community might be renamed Forum or Messageboard.  I had no idea what No Doubt Direct meant at the bottom of the page.  It turns out it links to a video blog.   I think the label Video Blog or Vlog would be more appropriate (and it saves space!).  There is an obvious hierarchy to the two nav systems.  The top one is big, bold, and in the “header” font.  The bottom one is tiny and all the way at the bottom.  The navigation doesn’t disappear, except for the Store and Community, which are separate pages.  Both nav systems have rollover states.  The link remains in rollover state once you are in that section, indicating where you are in the site.  The site doesn’t go very deep so there is no breadcrumb. It would be hard to get lost.  You can always get home by clicking the homepage (unless you leave to the store or forum).  There is no need for a site map because the site isn’t so deep.  The typography is clear.  Big bold Impact for headers, Arial for body text.  It might be improved but it goes well with the band’s current image (which employs a lot of black and white, graphic, ska-esque, London-esque imagery). A lot of the section headers also have a gray background.  The only color used is red and a little bit of yellow.  The grid stays consistent.  The sections on each page change a lot but the headers make it really clear how the page is divided.  It’s all an attempt to organize the information and incorporate a lot of the new features (fan profiles and more fan interaction).  

The focal point of the pages is the large image at the top.  The banner takes up almost half of the horizontal space, which isn’t economical but I think they are going for graphic impact (hence the font choice).  It’s a sort of iconic black and white image, with NO DOUBT in large bold Impact lettering at the top.  There isn’t much imagery in any section besides Photos, especially because there aren’t many promotional photos from this current band image yet.  I saw the picture used at the top repeated in the band section, only smaller (which was sort of lame.)  I’d like to see more imagery.  Overall, the site is sort of basic as it is now.  I’d like to see the theme be taken further and cleaned up a bit.  I think it could be a really interesting image for the band but it looks sort of bland now.  The objective of the site seems to be both information (discography, bios, tour info, news) and for the fan community (which is a new step.)  Fans are featured on the home page, there is a video of the band asking fans to submit cover versions of a song to be used as background footage for the concerts, etc.  There is no search function, which is a problem.  The most useful aspect is the incorporation of recent information from all sections on the home page, so you can make a quick check without having to go too deep.