Test Freak - Freakin’ Tested
If you’re like me when shopping online, you’ll spend ages reading product reviews before buying a product. These reviews have a tremendous influence over my desicion whether to buy an item or not - sometimes more so than the price. It frustrates me when I can’t see the feedback of a product on sites such as Amazon or Play.com because no one has bothered to write a review for it.
Startup product review site Test Freaks is a fantastic idea for a website. It is essentially a haven for critics to express their opinions on products they have bought, and for shoppers to get an idea about their product’s qualities (and lack of) from previous buyers, before a purchase is made. Often the manufacturer’s description isn’t enough - they’re obviously going to heap praise onto their products!
I was very impresed with the usability of the site, and I really like how the search function gives you both product and category matches as you type into the bar - a very neat touch.
The product page gives you a heap of useful information from reviews, ratings (expert and user), a gallery, pros and cons, and impressively, links to websites on the Internet where the product is being sold at the best prices.
A couple of issues I had with the site was the fact that a product I was looking for (a popular Sony TV) wasn’t in the database. I guess you can’t expect everything to be there, but certainly in order for this to be a huge success, users must feel they can depend on it for any product.
Another small issue I felt was the design. While very usable, I felt the colour scheme of dark oranges and greens, and lack of excitement generated from quite a basic layout didn’t do justice to the qualities of the service. It makes the site look quite home-made rather than a serious commercial application. I think a white/grey + blue or red colour scheme similar to that of their competitors Pricerunner would be a step in the right direction.
Overall though, I was very impressed with the amount of reviewers on the site and the catalog of products that are on there. It does what you want it to and deserves to be very successful. While on the subject of reviews, I’d give it 5 stars. *****
I thought the site was pretty good to be honest, well laid out and looks really smart.