Oyster.com posted on twitter they would like some usability feedback on their website, so here’s a free 2 minute review. Thanks to the site owner for giving us an opportunity to learn together 
- The site looks nice enough but it’s not really clear where to start
All the screen elements have almost the same prominence in the visual hierarchy.
- I would make the search more prominent, it looks a little lost where it is right now
It’s in the standard place for search which is good, but it doesn’t jump out and show you can search and browse the site
- Las Vegas is “under-construction”
I can see now that you have dimmed the menu choice,but I didn’t notice it was dimmed until I hovered over it and it became “Coming Soon”. Always avoid any “under-construction” links. It’s the online equivalent of not telling someone a road is a dead-end and forcing them to do a three point-turn (in their thought process).
- “Hotel Reviews” labelling duplicated
I can see this label 6 times in the interface, and I think you might be wasting space trying to reinforce your site purpose in this way. I would prefer to see 1 clear, prominent reference to “Hotel Reviews”.
- The headline seems wordy
It doesn’t grab me, it seems to take twice the amount of words to make the point that I would expect.
- Logos in “Oyster in the news”
I was expecting these logos to go to the publication sites, not all to a “oyster in the news page“.
- Accessibility issues
There is a lot of images with no alt text on the oyster in the news page.
- Drastic change in layout style
The site goes from fixed width to liquid when I get to the search page. My screen is 1440×900 and this change felt pretty significant. At first I wondered if I was still on the same site (eek!)
- Expedia and Travelocity lay out their search on the homepage and in the center of the page layout
You’ve got a lot of search terms there, and they seem quite squashed in. I think the search should be central, then revert to the side when you have search results displayed, following the mental model quite a few users will be expecting if they use expedia etc.
- Blog relevance
I followed your blog link expecting to see travel news, but there was a big feature on Nikon cameras? I was expecting to see articles on new hotels you’ve just added, or something like that.
Time’s up
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Thanks very much for the feedback. Always helpful to get a smart fresh set of eyes on the product to see what becomes hard to see when you are very close to it. We will definitely take all of your comments very seriously.
Thanks for taking the time,
Elie
CEO
Oyster Hotel Reviews