Two snowboarding companies relaunched their websites today: 686 and Burton. The sites both feature black backgrounds with red accents, both use Flash, both feature a lot of product, and yet they are perfect examples of completely different user interface philosophies.
One is a simple, clean, attractive, easy-to-navigate blog with all the social tools built right in. The other is an overly complex, heavily “designed” monster, that offers up spinning logos and new menus at every turn, and looks more like a CD-Rom game from 1996 than a website for 2010.
We’ll let you decide which is which.
You’re also forgetting that one probably cost $50,000 to make and the other $1,000,000.
I’ll let you decide.
686 wins – that’s an easy one. Ecommerce can be integrated in to any website if they wanted to sell direct. Building a personal connection with your customer is harder to do. Good for the little guy.
Please tell me im not the only one who sees which site is worth the value….686 4 life!
one sells direct and one doesn’t.
and these sites are way both over 10k easy
Personal beliefs on both brands aside, you don’t always have to spend the most to get a great value.
Art and design is in the eye of the beholder… The burton site is one of the most beautifully designed sites I have ever seen. Bandwidth wise its a little bulky, but it’s so information heavy you can stay entertained for days. 686 went the huge flash site route 2 years ago and had a beautiful site but had bandwidth and resolution issues. Its tough these days to balance usability and award winning design with that little bitch called “bandwidth”.
As the leader in the snowboard industry burton has a responsibility to always push the limits of design and style. I think its admirable that burton is still trying to make the craziest site they can. Its also a nice step for 686 to take a simpler approach. Forward thinking vs pure function, there really no right answer to that question…
Needless to say my burton is stickered up heavy with 686 stickers. At the end of the day both these companies kill at at what they do and snowboarding would not be the same with out them. Thanks Kristin & Berardi for always hooking it up!
I dislike the Burton site. It is over-done and a step in the wrong direction. Too much face-twatter-space going on. If anything they are pushing customers away…NOT pushing the limits.
I tried to figure the community site out and gave up after an hour – too much of my time was wasted with little ROI.
Fail Burton.
I also think it’s a shame they got rid of the message boards. All of the tech info gear questions, etc. where’s their new home? Am I missing it?
686 for me please!!
i like 686, cause they rule. and their site is awesome, easy to use and these deep thoughts things are hilarious, keep um rollin!
one question… ? is “Ak” above really “mike” from 686?
please respond.
i.n.l. from the truth patrol
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