Submarina.com

Dear Submarina

I came to the website in order to find out the operating hours for the Carmel Mountain location. After sitting here for five minutes waiting for your all-flash webdesign to load and then having to turn off my pop-up blocker just to get the location listing to even display, I find out the location I wanted closed within the time that I spent trying to find out if it was still open.

Five web design faux-pas committed by your site in the time I was on there:
1) No non-flash viewing provision. You just lost anybody not on broadband internet, anybody using an older computer and anyone using a PDA or cellphone.

2) The website resized my browser window the instant it loaded. If I wanted a fullscreen browser window, I would have done it myself. Please don't presume to tell me how to use my computer.

3) Why does a sandwich store need a flash site so complex that it requires a loading screen? You sell sandwiches!

4) Website coverpage. I went to submarina.com, I already know it's the site for submarina, I don't need a whole page telling me just that I'm at submarina.com.

5) From initial loading to finally finding the hours of the store, I clicked a total of seven times, not counting the clicks I made to allow the flash to load and to disable popup blocking. It should never take a user more then three clicks to find the information they need, and it should NEVER take an entire 10 minutes just to find out if a store location is still open. I probably could have gotten the information faster from Google.

Your flashy webdesign may look pretty, but it's costing you money.