EightBlack.

I’m buying some new PC bags for our team. I know the bags I want. So yesterday, I went online to find out some basic details, like where to buy them, how much and if they can be customised (ie have our logo put on them).

The bags? Crumpler. They’re a cult bag. It’s a good story, so let me elaborate a little.

Crumpler is one of those typical rags to riches journeys. There’s always 2 guys, a garage somewhere and a lot of beer and pizza. And that sort of “we don’t give a stuff attitude” and “we can do this better”. And so they did.

Apparently, the first Crumpler bag was designed for a bike courier, you know, those agitated fitness freaks that ride around the city like they just swallowed 5kg of pure cocaine.

They dont actually talk so I dont know why their companies give them 2 way radios. They yell a lot. And they dont appear to have any regard for their own safety, or those around them.

There’s also something to be said about guys who look like they need a good wash, who are comfortable standing in a packed elevator dressed in lycra, delivering documents all day. No one dares talk to them and I bet if they delivered a package to your office, you’d sign for it, even if it wasn’t for you.

Right. Back to Crumpler.

So the company takes off. They move out of their garage. They hire some more people. Find money to grow and start cranking up the manufacturing.

Somewhere along the way, someone probably said to them that they need a website. Made sense, after all, they were a funky, sexy, cool brand with a hip following. Word of mouth made sure that the company prospered.

But when it came to designing their website - that’s when all logic ceased to exist.

I think the same bike courier who injested the pure coke was also given the job of briefing the agency on designing the new site.

You know where this is heading. I’m going to give Crumpler a bagging so to speak.

Which is true. I am. Because their website sucks.

It might be clever, creative and unique. It certainly makes good use of flash. It’s got audio (even though the audio will cause you to lose the will to live), its got video of the 2 founders talking upside down. It farts, burps, sqeaks. You move shit around on the page. Yada, Yada, Yada.

But try and buy something, try and actually make sense of the freaking navigation, try and find a dealer or retail outlet quickly and you’re screwed.

More importantly, try and find them on Google.

Now before I get attacked for criticising the design, I will say that I do know the agency that designed the site - Sputnik. They’re a good outfit with good people. But this is not their fault. It’s their clients.

7 seconds. Remember this.

That’s all you’ve got to capture someone’s attention online. Maybe less.

I’m assuming that Crumpler consider themselves a real, grown up company. After all, they’ve expanded overseas, have a good brand, make great product and no doubt have world domination plans.

And I’m all for creativity online and being unique. But this site just pisses people off. Takes too long to load, is too hard to use and ends up frustrating the user.

Crumpler would be better off designing 2 sites and playing to this angle.

Sometimes, being too clever is not a good thing. Good website design means analysing the online evidence and tossing the emotion out. How many people opt-in to the mailing list? How many people buy online per day? How many people contact us with complaints or comments? And how long does the average visitor spend at the site?

All I know is that as a customer of Crumpler, I’d much rather go to their store than be subjected to their online experience.

And in a time poor, cash rich society, that’s probably not a good thing.

Subscribe to more posts like this

Related Posts:

Add to | | | View blog reactions

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 1st, 2006 at 5:28 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.