Is the new Manchester City FC website the prime example of how football club websites should be designed?
Since the takeover of the club by Abu Dhabi United Group last year was completed, the Manchester City board have been busy transforming the club into a top club that will compete for honours with the best clubs in the world.
It seems that not just signing quality footballing talent such as Robinho, Tevez and Gareth Barry are the only important steps in improving and developing a modern, global forward thinking club.
The new Manchester City website, is very modern in it’s overall layout and design. The incorporation of their official Twitter feed being pulled into the new homepage is a first for an official football club website.
Built like a social community and not just another football website.
The site is built more like a social media community which incorprates the main features of a football club website. Users are constantly encouraged to share club news and information on social networks, using a nice designed social bookmarking tab. On the news page you are also encourage to subscribe to the Manchester City football club RSS reader.
Typography
The typography of the website really adds to ease of which user can read and understand the text. The text is clean and very user friendly across the website.
Usability
What I really love is that the site has it’s club shop built into the navigation of the site, no need to go to an external club shop website. If your finished reading club news and updates, you can click the shop tab in the navigation and add some products to your basket. The usability of the checkout process is really simple and registration is easy to complete.
An interactive experience for the fans
The video player on the site, is quick and fast loading. It resembles something more like Youtube than your traditional stand alone video media player. The videos are free to access making the site even more entertaining and interactive.
The use of social bookmarking links are also used very effectively on the video player, videos can be easily shared on Facebook or Twitter.
All these features on the Manchester City website make it a class above other top football club websites in the world.
So congrats to Manchester City for having the first interactive social community football club website. Expect Arsenal and Manchester United to follow suit in future. I just wish my club Leeds United would get their act together a built something similar.
