I have been following (or at least trying to follow) lootmaar.com since I read about it on Jehan Ara’s blog. I have always wondering about the future of online auction in Pakistan. Ebay, as we all know, is big in North America and other countries. But they don’t provide the same service to those living in Pakistan. Lootmaar, wants to fill this gap and provide an online auction platform.

So today, I will be looking at the lootmaar.com site and give my two cents on the good and the bad about their UI. 

Brief Overview:

The layout of the main page is a fixed width. I wonder why didn’t they use flexible width layout to provide better viewing experience. The user is presented with large tabs for “Buy”, “Sell” and “Sign in”. These three actions are important and the base principle for the site. Actually just the first two are the important ones.

They have various categories that users can post auctions under. A large “How lootmaar works” banner and quick link banners are also presented on the initial view. Scrolling down on the main page, gives us the “hot items” view. 

The auction page is simple which three columns that provide picture, bid details and the seller details. Underneath it is the item description which is provided by the seller.

An interesting layout. Lots of white space and large font size. 

So what about it?

Color scheme is nice and easy on eyes. Its mostly white so that’s not really an issue. The small FAQ type banner is very interesting and I think gets the point across. The auction page has the information in nice and easy distinctive fonts and colors which is easy to read.

The thing that bothers me the most though is the fact that the designer didn’t really design it for an auction site. Don’t get me wrong, the layout does not maximize the purpose of the site. Which at the end of the day should be the sole purpose of lootmaar.com

Let’s start by looking at the main page. The header is just a complete waste of space. There the tab for sign-in is just simply not needed there. I would have made the search box more prominent since that is what I would like to do almost 90% of the time. 

The whole strip bar underneath the tabs are also not well placed. The search box repeats itself right away! And the two other blocks information are totally irrelevant for the user, I would rather offer them a link to a quick tour of what Lootmaar is. 

Categories list on the left side needs to loose the circles and the width for this column needs adjustments. I would put the “One Rupee Auctions” and “Auctions Ending Soon” banners right above the categories list. 

The list for hot auctions should be moved up a bit so that they are right there for the user to click and buy. There is a lot of wasted whitespace on the page. The three column layout for hot items section should be fixed to make space for at least one more column. The images are a bit too big for previews. There should also be a button for making bid right away on the item, currently this isn’t the case. I am sure this will drive their auctions up rather quickly. 

The auction page for an item has an interesting layout as well. I think they could really really use a re-design on this page. The page fails to attract a user to quickly make the bid or instantly buy the product. The icon should be placed underneath the initial item description. The message for the user to login (to be able to place a bid) needs to move out from there. Rather this shouldn’t be on this page at all. The user should not be forced to register at all. See Lazy Registration Design Pattern for more details.

There is another odd panel that I saw on this page. When you scroll all the way to the bottom, you will see a “Bid on this Item” section. Where there is a login form, right there! In the middle of nowhere! 

Overall, while lootmaar is trying to bring a great service to people in Pakistan, it should also work on the UI development of their site. I strongly believe that just like any other e-commerce site, the layout for lootmaar.com can drive their user registration up considerably. What is rather more important than user registrations is user bidding. If they can get a user excited about a listing, by letting him find the product that he is looking for quickly, then their auctions will be more successful. 

In the end I believe that lootmaar’s success is very much directly related to a successful auction. I wish them all the best for future and I hope they really do become the eBay of Pakistan!