In the underground with Elle – mobile!
Totally fed up with a long trip in the underground, I thought it would have been cool, if I had had the chance to flip through some fashion magazine. So I took my mobile and typed in some fake URLs starting with m. – like the Facebook mobile site – and adding the name of the magazine. And wow: my second attempt was “Elle” and I landed exactly on m.elle.com, Elle’s homepage!
My first impression was a site with very basic layout, which however fits perfectly to the screen of my Nokia 6630 and recalls immediately the slick and elegant layout of the magazine – starting with the dark grey header with white logo and pink navigation. I could find all the categories of the magazine and its websites, e.g. the blog, runaway, fashion, pop culture, hair & beauty, life & love, astrology.
I first checked my zodiac sign and afterwards landed on the homepage again – and guess what, the zodiac section has been saved on the homepage, meaning that for all future access to the site, I could already see what would have happened to me on that day without navigating further on the site! The site is well organized, with titles for every category that link you directly to the article you choose – this has the advantage of reducing the length of the mobile page – and the navigation on the bottom. Only remark: I would personally prefer the navigation to be set horizontal rather than vertical, as I think it is much more straight forward for the user, it looks anyhow nice.
A special note of honour goes to the category “My closet”: here, you can find a kind of collection of everything you have read or viewed and “bookmarked” with only one click from the bottom of any page. So if you have limited time to read the whole article or if you see an image you would definitely like to have a look at later on, what you need to do is only a click and then going back to the closet section, isn’t that cool?
Besides the usual good content, the site offers different functionalities as well which I find very useful, first of all the “Sign up for text alerts”. This allows you to receive fashion and beauty tips up to 3 times per week, just a couple of clicks and done, I am up-to-date for the whole week! – and if you do not want them any longer, you can opt out by simply sending the keyword STOP to a shortcode. The other two good functionalities are the “Send to a friend”, where you can send the URL via SMS and the “Become a fan” – of the dedicated Facebook fan page. And last but not least: no glossy, bulky magazines to carry in your bag or them getting wet when it rains – only a mobile browser and you are in touch on the go!
Tags: Beauty, Elle mobile, fashion, mobile web