Monday, November 19, 2012

Your Guide to Scottsdale Fashion Square



        In this day and age, technology is very prominent in society.  Many people use their smart phones and computers as resources when looking for information about virtually anything.  With the use of technology comes the expectation of access to information with just the click of a button.  Because technology is so prominent in our society, it’s very important for businesses to have a website that is organized, appealing, and to the point. If Internet users are turned off by a website, many times they will take their business elsewhere.
One of the most important aspects of a business website is its ability to draw potential customers and entice them to come shop with merchants. The Scottsdale Fashion Square website has a clear advantage over competing shopping centers’ websites in this respect. It is set up so it is user friendly and straightforward.  One of the most important aspects of the website is its ability to attract shoppers to shop at the at Scottsdale Fashion Square. Navigating the Scottsdale Fashion Square website is easy enough that most individuals, even those with minimal experience, will be able to do it.

The Scottsdale Fashion Square is a mall located in Scottsdale, Arizona, which is a predominately rich suburb in the Phoenix area. The mall is home to over 250 stores and restaurants, including upscale department stores such as Barney’s, Nordstrom, and Neiman Marcus, as well as luxury brands such as Coach, Louis Vuitton, and Tiffany & Co. Because the mall is so large and diverse, it’s important that the website does not overwhelm shoppers.


The homepage of the website is simple in design, allowing for non-confusing navigation.  Only a few colors are used, purple, gray, black and white, which are appealing to users’ eyes.  The font is large and easy to read with the title “Scottsdale Fashion Square” legible at the top.  Many pictures are posted to draw in the readers’ attention.  A plethora of clickable tabs are located at the top of the home page making navigation easy and precise.  A scrolling bar displays a majority of the Fashion Square’s most popular retail stores.  Another scrolling picture bar provides the user with information on sales at different stores and information on promotions in the mall itself. All of these features provide convenience for people seeking information about the mall.
While it’s important to have an appealing home page, it is also important that the rest of the website is user-friendly. Starting with the most important function, usability, we can assess the Fashion Square’s website. Scottsdale Fashion Square website provides the user with organized navigation. Along with excellent navigation, any website in question should have a clear objective for its audience and be designed to meet it.  For example, this website’s clear purpose is to inform prospective shoppers about the wonderful shopping environment Scottsdale Fashion Square provides. Easy access and composition are some of the websites strongest features, along with a simple color scheme and direct access to any pertinent information about the mall.
Although usability is the most important feature, appearance is a close second in rank.  As a high-end fashion mall containing some of the biggest and most popular brands in the fashion world, the look of the Scottsdale Fashion Square website is important.  According to demographics of any mall shoppers, mainly women will be visiting this site. Most stores are geared to cater to women. Women are more likely to shop for not only themselves, but for other members of their family. Attention to detail is a characteristic of many women.  This means color, originality, modernism and feministic views are completely necessary to attract women shoppers and are apparent in the website’s design.
For example, since Scottsdale Fashion Square contains some of the most well known, high-end, stores, the color chosen for the website also must support this image. One color that is very dominant on the website is purple.  Purple is a color that is associated with royalty, wealth, and sophistication.  In addition to purple as a logical choice for the website, the colors grey, white, and black also serve a clear purpose.  Black is a color that is associated with stability, power, intelligence, and authority, white is associated with purity and cleanliness, and grey is associated with practical and solid things in life.
While the basic layout and color scheme stay the same, the colors on the homepage, like fashion trends, are seasonal. Scottsdale Fashion Square adapts to the seasons by changing the homepage colors from cooler colors in the summer to warmer colors in the fall. Some customers might not realize it, but colors do have an effect on moods, behavior, and emotions.
While colors support the websites design, it’s also important for users to be able to find what they need.  The home page of the website has a search bar that is visible the second a customer enters the website. The search bar makes keyword searches completely available at the tip of the users fingers, and is valuable for users that might be unable to find exactly what they are looking for on the website’s general sections.  Through this, a keyword search is done that will pick out specific words from the search and lead you to a page that has all of the links with the key words in it. For some users, the search bar will help tremendously.  It has the potential to be a factor that could possibly make or break someone’s experience on a website.
Not only is there a search bar, but also there is a drop down menu containing the names of every store in Scottsdale Fashion Square. This makes it easy to locate and look-up stores, and can immensely help a user in need of quick answers.  The clickable tabs come second to the search and drop down menus, but can do just about anything the user needs. “Directory”, “Sales”, “Dining”, “Events”, “Visitor Info”, “Gift Card”, and “Spotlight” are the names of every searchable tab.  Each of these can give the user an immense amount of information on these subjects.
One example of a tab with a great amount of information is the “Dining” tab.  Once a user clicks on the tab, they are directed to a page that is solely dedicated to everything a shopper needs to know about all of the dining options the Scottsdale Fashion Square has to offer. The main dining page is broken up into four sections, the full dining directory, restaurants, fast food, and specialty foods. This makes it easier on shoppers that know exactly what they are in the mood for in dining options.
            The “Spotlight” tab is a tab that might be looked over by most visitors, but provides just as much information as the other tabs listed. The “Spotlight” tab includes blogs and articles written to entertain and inform trend conscious shoppers. Not only does it inform the reader of the current trends, but it also has articles that provide make-up tutorials, Black Friday shopping guides, holiday entertainment tips, and movie reviews. This tab is useful for young adults, moms on the go, and, surprisingly, even men.
As the holiday season approaches, Scottsdale Fashion Square has encompassed the idea of Christmas. With the holiday season, comes more shoppers, bringing more traffic to the Scottsdale Fashion Square website. Holiday hours are important to shoppers, so a bold tab is added at the top of the homepage leading to a holiday calendar. Along with the “holiday hours” tab, ads promoting events such as Pictures with Santa and Black Friday sales scroll across the home page. While gift cards are always a popular choice among shopper, sales increase during the holiday season. Scottsdale Fashion Square website largely promotes their holiday gift cards by providing a link on almost every page of the website. By allowing gift cards to be purchased easily online, Scottsdale Fashion Square provides an original way to reach a more broad audience made up of people nationwide.
            Scottsdale Fashion Square website does a wonderful job at working to fulfill the needs of all audiences; from the single mom on the go to the family man, the website has something for everyone. Navigating the Scottsdale Fashion Square website is easy enough that most individuals, even those with minimal experience, will be able to do it. The accessibility and easy navigation of the website through the search bar, clickable tabs, and directory provide potential shoppers with a positive experience that will surely bring them back to the website again. Not only is the website user friendly, but it has the appeal as a storefront window in the mall. The website successfully draws the audience in, informs them, and entices them to come shop at the mall.  The purpose of the website is to inform potential shoppers in hopes of bringing business to the numerous retailers who call Scottsdale Fashion Square their home. As avid shoppers ourselves, we find the website very helpful, appealing, and successful in its purpose. The website has a little something for every type of shopper.


           
 The Scottsdale Fashion Square Website can be found here.

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