GKB Opticals Group, who launched their online retail arm GKBoptical.com last January, have soft launched a web application on their website called the Virtual Try-On. The company claims that visitors to the web application (with a claim of over 1500 daily hits since its launch last month) can try on over 4,000 sunglasses and eye wear with a few clicks. The Experience: The website is quite an information overload, though content display is pretty fast. For example, if the user hovers over over the Help/Locations menu button, he would encounter nearly 37 clickable items ranging from Advice, Benefits, Sunglasses, Prescription, Eyeglasses, Lenses to GKB outlets. Similarly, every menu item in the main navigation bar, has over 30 clickable items. The front page of the website, is not a fit to screen, rather it is a long scroll to the bottom.Once the user selects a pair of eyewear, there is a mouseover zoom which does not work for the right hand leg of the product. The Virtual Try-On web application: The first thing which is conspicuous by its absence, is the segmentation of range into male and female, which is manageable in the eyewear section, but not in the sunglasses section. The second thing is that rather than let users modify their pictures to fit a frame, the website has a zoom in or out function which makes you wonder if the company actually provides different sizes. The app also offers a Rotate left/right function, which is good if the user wants to view how the glasses would look…
