Is that a new DiGi talk plan or are you just Happy to see me?
Sorry.
Lame-ass jokes aside, Happy is a new no-frills prepaid plan from Malaysian mobile phone service provider DiGi.
You can get the details of the plan elsewhere, but read on if you want to know what I think of the website.
To be honest, I think it’s pretty cool.
It’s one of the freshest sites I’ve seen from a Malaysian company. I’m not sure if it’s wise to equate ‘no-frills’ with ‘This is so minimalist it hurts!’ but I guess the layout does tie in with the branding.
I think the option to view the site in either Bahasa Malaysia or English is pretty clever, too.
However, the web designers should be smacked on the head for the ridiculously contrasting colors; I mean, come on, white text on light backgrounds? And, as blogger aMaNz points out in his own review, what is it with the background changing all the time?
It’s a little disorienting, don’t you think?
I think it’s cool to color-code navigational tabs, but to make the pages change color every time someone clicks on something is a little too Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to me.
But it would be funny if an Oompa Loompa actually delivered your SIM card, though.
I also think the icons on the top right of the page look like they should be clickable, for some reason; otherwise, why put them there? And why can’t I see the press release? Or does that come with my SIM card, too?
My only other beef is that the content could’ve been presented better if so much space wasn’t wasted with the tagline in the center of the page. If you moved the tagline into the header, you’d have more space to play with in the center of the page and more space for a proper navigation bar.
Instead, you get links split into to ‘Find out more!’ on the left side of the page, and registration and subscriber features on the right side of the page, which I think is a little odd.
Oh and they forgot to include a ‘Search’ function, too.
Those issues aside, I think that the agency did a pretty good job, overall. Great branding, nice, clean layout and it looks real fresh for a telco site.
4 Comments
December 18, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Nice review. While I do think it’s looking cool, the copy on the colors are absolutely ridiculous. Since I’m a typo geek, they really should have used VAG Rounded instead of Helvetica Rounded for more balance, it doesn’t echo with the nice “happy” logo.
April 16, 2009 at 11:43 am
I liked the Happy site too! So simple. Sold me the product. But then they got greedy. Our relationship –> The End.
April 18, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Yeah, I preferred the previous design. This new design is not so…simple. Plus, they messed up the grid. It’s so whack.
May 7, 2009 at 6:42 pm
[...] An old review of Happy.com.my. [...]