Case Study 8: SlickDeals.net

A friend recently recommended using a website called Slick Deals (slickdeals.net) to enter sweepstakes (she apparently won a $3000 TV within a month) so I’ve been checking it out and now I’ll review it.  The site’s users scour the internet for deals on anything (coupons, free samples, sweepstakes, sales, etc) and submit them.

The website has a couple spots for navigation, but the primary one is, again, a horizontal bar at the top, below the title.  The title and logo are in the upper right, and look professional and well-done.  However, to the right of this goodness is a banner ad.  As Gavin would say, BOOOO!  It really really takes away from the look of the entire website (because it remains their the entire time). Incorporated into the navigation is a search box and login box.  

The navigation has Home, Coupons, Forums, Blog, and Tools.  Home has a listing of Latest Frontpage Deals in the left-hand column.  It also has a right-hand column with lots of doodads, and this gets crowded looking.  There is a box explaining what Frontpage Deals are (the site’s management picks the “best” deals).  Under this are a couple ads, then “hot topics” which are popular posts in the forums.

The bottom of the page is interesting (picture 1).  There is a grey box enclosing the bottom, that looks like the bottom of the page. It has copyright info, the logo, and a tiny version of the primary navigation, with added privacy policies, etc.  However, under this there is another bottom of the page.  Here is a very well-designed little information section with links to twitter, Facebook, a Facebook app, help, submission guidelines, and a very nice little graphic.  However, all this nice information is buried on the bottom of the page.  I had no idea Slick Deals was so in with the 21st century.  Most people probably don’t.  I’d say this information should take the front seat, at the top of the right-hand column.Also, there should be less deals on the frontpage so we don’t have to scroll all the way down to see the bottom graphics.

Back to the navigation.  When you enter other sections of the site, another horizontal navbar appears under the first one.  Also, as you rollover each section name, a dropdown menu appears.  The items in this menu and the secondary navbar are the same for Coupons and different for Forums.  For blog, there is a navbar but no dropdown.  For Tools there is a dropdown but no secondary navbar.  This should all be straightened out and made consistent.

The real action of the site takes place on the forum (picture 2), which is embedded in the site.  This is where people post deals.  This functions like your standard messageboard.  One nice feature is the tagging system, which uses symbols to label deals. For instance, in the freebies section which offers free samples, posts can be labeled “apparel”, “food”, etc. In Sweepstakes, posts are labeled “1 Entry” or “Daily”.  There are also icons indicating “Hot Posts” and a rating system with 0-5 Thumbs Up.

Because there is so much information, the typography can get a little messy.  I don’t know how to avoid this other than reducing the amount of information given initially on the home page and make people dig a little more before being bombarded with text.  At least then it’s the user’s choice.  The grid stays consistent and the only focal point is the information.  People are scanning the site for things they want to own, so it’s really like an information yardsale, lots of junk, but some really good finds.  So there is no way to avoid the clutter in this regard.  Well, maybe one way they did this is to have almost no imagery.  Besides the icons, there are very few photos.  The colors are a little much.  I can count 10 colors on the homepage.  This should be reduced.  These colors are used in myspace style boxes that act as backgrounds for headers.  The layout is definitely boxy.  The features of the site I find most useful are the labeling system in the forums.  One thing that annoyed me about the forums is that the posts can be bumped.  When you go to the Sweepstakes forums, you want to see the chronological list of new sweepstakes and avoid the ones you’ve already looked at or entered.  After a while of entering, it can be confusing as to which you’ve already entered.  So when posts get bumped (ie someone posts in the thread and sends it back to the top of the list) it destroys the chronology.  

Slickdeals is THE website for finding sweepstakes (which apparently has a huge following and subculture around it) and I think it does a great job.  It just needs a little reorganization and simplification to attract users.