SharePoint Site Hi- light: Don’t Tread On Me

Hello, and thanks for coming to check out another installment of our series, “SharePoint Site Hi-light”, where we discover who is using SharePoint, and what for. We also critique the website, talking about what they do right and what they do wrong, and then we score them based on design and usability, not necessarily in that order.

If you were with us last time, you’ll know that we took a look at Pella Windows and Doors, major suppliers of, you guessed it, windows and doors. Well, this time we’re going to stay in the “build a home” groove and check out everything we might need to cover our floor.

Let me introduce Mohawk, a leading supplier of floor coverings including carpet, tile, hardwood, laminates and area rugs. They even provide green carpet - as in environmentalism, not the color. Although I’m sure they have the color also.

Taking a first look, the color scheme is reasonable, although I was a little thrown off by the many graphics proclaiming their current campaign, but we’ll talk more about that later. Navigation is where it is supposed to be, although again, they use drop down menus, forcing a user to hunt down what they are looking for. In the place of the normal search box is what looks like a search box, but on closer inspection (reading it), it turns out to be a store locator. This is all well and good, but how do I search the site?

Another good thing that Mohawk has done is make visible ways of connecting to them by a form that is present on most pages, although it could be a little higher on the page to make it more visible.

Now onto the biggest problem I have. Their current campaign. It’s a really neat idea and could turn out to be something people really want to know about. That said, they took it way too far on the web site. I could barely surf without being bombarded with pictures and videos of the challenge that they were putting up against their flooring. If you ask me, it’s complete overkill.

All in all, I found more flash and sales pitches readily available than I did real information. This is a bit of a let- down because the information is there; it’s just overwhelmed by the other “stuff”. Overall Mohawk’s SharePoint site gets a 2.5 out of 5 stars. There is definitely room for improvement here. Their flooring is much better than their site, in my opinion.