Megan — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 16:57:58 +0000

I have never heard of "smarty templates" before so I had to look that up. Will have to google that... okay, I'm still confused. Maybe try posting a separate question in Web Authoring about that. Maybe that would make it more visible to people who actually know the answer.

At first glance I think the site looks great. It's a really good template for a site like this. Very colourful and bright and exciting. Since you're using templates I really don't know what kind of changes I should suggest.

I think the square boxes in the sidebar should have rounded corners. The square edges there conflict with the smooth, blobby look of the template. Get rid of that gradient there too and leave it solid.

On the product pages, get rid of the box around the individual products. Again, it's too boxy for the page design. Do rounded corners if you can, if not, take it out altogether. On this page I also have a different navigation menu that doesn't seem to fit with the template. Again, it's boxy, there's an ugly gradient in the back. and the smily bullets aren't very nice either (that's just a copy of the logo, but at this scale it's too small to make out clearly). Keep that part simple. Maybe a splotch or plain yellow circle would work better for the bullets.

I ended up looking at pinatas. On the index page here the photos are much too small. They should be the same size as the photos on the previous page. Once I get into an individual product, the photo is again too small. Remember that when buying online people need as much information as possible about what they are buying. A big, detailed photo is absolutely necessary. There should also be some information about how big these pinatas are. With a photo you really can't tell. Oh, and whether they come with candy inside or if you have to stock them yourself.

Looking at Ladies fancy dress area - lose the bright red centered text. It looks really bad. Keep it plain black, and don't center it. Centering text is almost guaranteed to look unprofessional.

I think the font throughout the site could be a tiny bit bigger. It's just a little on the hard to read side, and it's not as if you're short on space.

Overall a pretty good job. Just some little changes that could make this even better.

PCBOY123 — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 23:30:02 +0000

Is the site attractive to you? Yes, goes along with the theme
easy to use, and very easy to understand what the site is about.
??Is the shopping cart SSL??
if so lable it, makes customers more secure when ordering online.. well thats my 2cents

good job..

Magnolia — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 21:59:28 +0000

With my limited knowledge of design (and I bow down to everyone else who knows better) I would say its a standard thing to have a page title that is the same on each page. Maybe that comes from the frames era when only the content in the information frame would change - I dunno? Hopefully someone with more knowledge will be along soon.

I used a template for my site and used the same one for everything - maybe I am wrong in thinking that? Must get me some books on website design *sigh*

Mrtoejam — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 21:07:05 +0000

Yes I meant the title, normally I would be able to change it for each individual page to apply to the subject but as the site was designed for me using smarty templates every page has to have the same " generic " title.
Unless you know otherwise ?
You are quite right about the feather boa thing as there is a lot of re jigging to be done.
Thanks for reviewing the site.

Magnolia — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:08:01 +0000

Hi Martin

My first thought was Whoa!! What a lotta orange but on reflection it is a good colour for a joke/fancydress site. Resized my page and it is much less orange. Found it quite easy to move around and find things. One thing I couldnt find was the Feather Boa's (dont ask - its a G4 thing) had to use the search but did expect to find them under the accessories.

I am not sure what you mean by title tag? Do you mean the page title or the heading?

Is this what you mean?

snip from source:

Quote: Fancy Dress from Jokingaround, Costume accessories, Fancy Dress Costumes

You can change that on whichever page you want.