Learn about the key features that make these 5 optician websites stand out and deliver a great user experience.
By Carolin Hewitt,Jun 18, 2024
Carolin is a Copywriter for Zarla. She has a background in marketing communication and brand building, and has written articles about branding and logo design for small businesses.
An optician website should be user-friendly, informative, and functional; while essential features include an intuitive design, information about the practice and its services, a product catalog, and contact information, there is more to add to ensure a great user experience that helps convert website visitors into customers.
Attractive visuals, CTA buttons, online booking and e-commerce capabilities, accessibility features, and eye health resources all contribute to an enhanced online experience. Use our reviews as guidance when you create your website with our optician AI website builder.
How We Evaluate Websites:
Zarla checks that sites meet basic web standards for mobile and desktop. We also use Google's PageSpeed Insights, and WAVE, a service that evaluates accessibility for individuals with disabilities. PageSpeed scores and accessibility are important factors for search engine rankings. PageSpeed scores may not match user experience and can vary substantially.
- 1.Occhiali New York.
- 2.American Eyewear.
- 3.Eye Emporium.
- 4.Vision Source Eyecare.
- 5.The Optical Boutique.
Occhiali New York
New York, New York, U.S.
Occhiali New York is an optician on the Upper East Side of New York City that offers high-quality eyewear and has an in-store lab where eyewear is fabricated using the latest technologies in lens design. Their website reflects their premium brand with a stylish, minimalist aesthetic and concise text-based content that effectively imparts their vision, mission, and services.
Client reviews are featured throughout the site, as well as on a dedicated testimonials page. While the site mentions a large inventory of products, with an indication of the individual brands they carry, it does not have an online shop for visitors to peruse frames.
Pros and Cons
The site features attractive visuals to convey the image of a sleek, modern, stylish optical store. There are plenty of reviews to aid trust-building and text-based content is kept short and to the point, allowing for a pleasant browsing experience.
The site is rather impersonal, missing any visuals of staff. WAVE flagged a lot of errors, including more than 10 missing form labels, which may negatively impact screen reader users' experience. It also identified more than 10 instances of low contrast between text and background images, making it less accessible to users with low vision.
Desktop Review
The desktop site features sufficient breathing room to allow for a pleasant browsing experience and maintain a sleek, elegant look. However, individual page headings appear rather oversized and would have a more elegant effect in a slightly smaller size. While there is a back-to-top button to aid easy site navigation, there is a notable lack of engaging elements encouraging visitors to become customers.
Mobile Review
While the site slims down to fit smaller screens, some visual content on the home page overlaps with text content, rendering the latter difficult if not impossible to read. Unlike the desktop version, the mobile site does not feature a back-to-top button. Without a sticky top menu, this is a hindrance to easy site navigation. The mobile site scored 40/100 on Google's PageSpeed Insights performance test.
American Eyewear
https://americaneyeweardallas.com/
Dallas, Texas, U.S.
American Eyewear is a Dallas-based optician that has served local customers for more than four decades. They offer designer eyewear and have an in-house lab where they craft lenses for each customer. Their website has a clean and smart design, covering the company's story and listing the vendors from whom they source designer eyewear. Contact details are also provided, along with a page for news. However, the latter contains no content.
Pros and Cons
The site features high-quality images and concise text elements, allowing for easy and quick reading. Contact details are easy to find, and the site performed very well on WAVE, which flagged no contrast errors, only one empty link, and three instances of missing alternative text.
Some of the featured vendor images are of low quality and the site's news page does not contain any news items. The site is missing a reviews section as a trust-building element. It further lacks prominent CTA buttons prompting readers to engage, and the "OUR STORY" page contains an overview of the business and not its story.
Desktop Review
The desktop site features a spacious layout, contributing to a pleasant user experience. Text elements appear in a fairly large size across all pages, making it easy to read, and contact information is also conveniently presented at the bottom of each page. While listed vendors include clickable links, they don't lead to additional information about the vendor or their collection of eyewear, making the feature superfluous.
Mobile Review
While the mobile site does not feature a floating top menu, it has a back-to-top button, aiding easy navigation. The site's content is resized appropriately, maintaining rather large text sizes. However, the spacing between listed vendors is too generous, and the mobile site could benefit from a prominent contact CTA button. On Google's PageSpeed Insights test, the mobile site scored 37/100 for performance.
Eye Emporium
London, England, U.K.
Eye Emporium is an independent, London-based optician that offers comprehensive eye care services and a wide range of eyewear products. Their website has a lively, modern appeal with prominent CTA buttons and e-commerce capabilities. It provides clear details about its services and processes, store locations, and additional resources, such as news and FAQs, and features ample visuals and client reviews.
Pros and Cons
The site has a well-spaced, visually appealing layout with ample imagery and prominent CTA buttons to encourage visitors to book an appointment, find the nearest store, and shop online. It features e-commerce capabilities and customer reviews to build trust.
There is no main contact number displayed on the home page, nor a live chat feature for quick and easy user assistance. While WAVE only flagged one contrast issue, it found more than 10 instances of missing alternative text and over 20 redundant links.
Desktop Review
The desktop site functions well and is pleasant to navigate thanks to a clear menu with appealing, media-rich drop-down submenus. Store locations are conveniently listed with maps integration and the option to get directions, making it easy for users to locate their closest store. A search function and online shopping capabilities, including the option to save products to an online wishlist, further enhance the user experience.
Mobile Review
The site adjusts appropriately to smaller screen sizes, maintaining its rich visual content in adequate sizes and prominent CTA buttons. The top navigation menu's submenus do not include the visual content as on the desktop version, but this is a welcome tradeoff that keeps navigation on a smaller screen simple. On Google PageSpeed Insights, the mobile site scored a decent 63/100 for performance.
Vision Source Eyecare
Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
Vision Source Eyecare provides vision care products and personalized optometric services to customers in Kansas City and surrounding areas.
Their website has a modern design with a professional appeal, featuring comprehensive information about the company's services. Visitors can access patient forms and insurance information online, as well as pay their bills. The site also has an online shop for eyewear products with a convenient indication of whether and at which store items are in stock.
Pros and Cons
The site has a clean design with high-quality images, enhancing its visual appeal, along with plenty of clear, prominent CTA buttons encouraging visitors to engage. Aside from some low contrast issues, the site performed well on WAVE, which only flagged one instance of missing alternative text.
The content in the Vision Care section of the website is very text-heavy, which can be overwhelming, and would benefit from graphics and interactive elements to break up the dense copy. Some of the location-related images are of lower quality.
Desktop Review
The desktop site has a well-organized, appealing layout, and is easily explored via a straightforward navigation menu. It features prominent CTA buttons encouraging visitors to make an appointment, along with clearly marked links to learn about current promotions, visit the online store, or access the blog. While the site could do with more visual and interactive elements, its home page greets visitors with the welcoming, personable touch of a team photo.
Mobile Review
The website slims down appropriately for viewing on a smaller screen and maintains its seamless navigation aided by a sticky top menu as well as a back-to-top button. While the text-based content resizes appropriately for easy reading, several images are unsuitably cropped, diminishing the visual appeal of the website. The mobile site scored 69/100 on Google's PageSpeed Insights performance test.
The Optical Boutique
https://www.theopticalboutique.com/
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
The Optical Boutique is a Vancouver-based eyewear retailer that employs experienced opticians to help customers with eyewear decisions. Their website features team profiles for a more personal touch, and while there is a press section, featured articles are focused more on the store owner than the store.
The site's blog has limited entries, with some unrelated to eyewear or optical care. While the site makes a modern, fashionable impression and has e-commerce capabilities and an online booking feature, it could benefit from more optical-focused resources for readers and customer testimonials.
Pros and Cons
The site features high-quality images and an online booking feature. Team profiles add a personal touch, and the site's e-commerce capabilities include the option to adjust the currency in which prices are displayed.
The site's blog section includes off-topic content, and the site could do with more optical and eyewear-related resources to help guide customers' decisions. While WAVE flagged few errors, it found more than 20 low contrast issues that may impact the site's readability for users with low vision.
Desktop Review
The high-quality, fashion-focused visuals on the home page have a bold, striking effect on a desktop screen. While the top navigation menu does not stand out very well against the background at first, upon scrolling or hovering over the menu it assumes a white background with black text, making it easy to read. The video toward the bottom of the home page has a rather pixelated quality, which does not align with the otherwise high quality visual content on the desktop site.
Mobile Review
The website slims down neatly for display on a smaller screen, but the hero images do not resize and are cut off on either side. The mobile site maintains the desktop version's intuitive navigation, and content prices, such as on the About and Blog pages, are appropriately collapsed to facilitate easy browsing. However, the mobile site scored a rather underwhelming 43/100 for performance on Google's PageSpeed Insights test.
