A few months ago, a sip of an absolutely delicious cup of dark drinking chocolate made me an immediate fan of Naked Chocolate Cafe. Being the nerd that I am, I found Naked Chocolate's logo design to be just as delicious as the treats they serve. It's simple, clean, sophisticated, and yet it preserves an element of cuteness, almost cheekiness, that is essential to its identity as a lighthearted establishment. Their packaging is just as lovely. It makes everything you buy feel like it's a very special gift. (Now I sound like a slogan machine.) Needless to say, I just had to see their website.
The site defaults to a splash page that features a close-up photo of one of Naked Chocolate's translucent shopping bags with their logo and address printed on it in a deep, yummy brown. The splash page loads in stages (maybe it's just my browser), but the bag is the first thing that appears. I thought that this was the entire splash page for a moment, and I loved seeing just the white bag on the white background. Seconds later, however, two photo boxes appeared next to the bag, each featuring a slideshow of images of Naked Chocolate's gourmet goodies. I can understand the logic behind this, but to be honest, these pictures detract significantly from the splash page. The images switch too quickly and too abruptly. I don't enjoy them. If they spent more time on each image, and had them fade in and out rather than flip from one to the next, I think it would be much more appropriate.
At the bottom of the splash page, there's a link for "HOME". Alas, it's in the default link blue, underlined and everything.
The homepage is very simply laid out, but it's interesting how, despite a simple layout, a page can still be hard to read through. I like the fact that the Naked Chocolate logo is small and neatly placed in the upper left corner. The primary navigation is next to the logo. The deep red text clashes with the warm pinks and browns of the logo, but the visited state is a green that contrasts nicely with the logo. The font is a simple sans-serif (looks like Arial) but the words are underlined, which I find pretty unnecessary and unprofessional-looking. The rollover states are bright orange-red and underline-free, and it's amazing what a difference the elimination of the underline makes.
The secondary navigation is on the left side of the page, under the logo. It is also dark red and in a sans-serif typeface, but it is distinguishable as secondary because it is much smaller than the primary navigation. The links in the secondary navigation, however, are not as clear. "Products" is the first link, followed by "Chocolates", "Beverages", "Cup Cakes" and "Desserts". I'm thinking, "Aren't these products?" I click on "Products" and find that it takes me to an introduction page about Naked Chocolate's products. The other secondary navigation links take me to pages about those specific products. I would improve this by having "Products" as the only secondary nav link, or putting it just in the primary navigation, and then when users click on "Products", THEN they see links for the specific products. What's weird is that the "Products" link in the primary navigation takes me to the same page that the "Products" link in the secondary nav does. It doesn't seem to make much sense.
The rest of the navigation is pretty straightforward and well-organized. Each page has the same layout (logo in upper left, white background with black sans-serif body text, primary and secondary navigation). The homepage offers the user the chance to subscribe to a mailing list, download menus, and make a "virtual visit" to the cafe. (Clicking this link opens a whole new page with videos about the cafe.) The one thing I don't like is that, after I leave the homepage, the only way I can seem to find to get back is by clicking the logo, which then takes me back to the splash page. I have to click the "Home" link from there. Very clunky!
The site has lots of pictures of the Naked Chocolate store, and I think the pictures add a lot of warmth to the site, especially since it has just a white background and not very much body text. The primary nav links do exactly what I thought they would do: "News" takes you to a page full of links to articles, "Store" gives you hours and the address, "Contact" gives you the address again, along with a phone number and email address, and "About" gives you a history of the establishment.
I like that I can download menus from the homepage, but I would appreciate it if I could just read the menus on the site without having to download them.
The site features lots of pictures of Naked Chocolate's products, but I think it could be spruced up a bit if some of these images were used in the background at a low opacity. It would look less like someone just "stuck" the pictures on the pages.
Now I'm craving chocolate. Oh boy.
www.nakedchocolatecafe.net
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