robertnoyes — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 00:13:28 +0000

Not to big on the colors but other than that I think it looks good.
Robert

adjroth — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 03:47:25 +0000

Danke. I've made quite a bit of changes, still working on it and should be ready to index and start taking orders within the month. Since I'm going to be selling, I dont wanna take any chances on something not being right and having to fork over a couple hundred or maybe even thousand dollars because something wasnt listed right or wasnt understood.

mscreashuns — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 01:58:15 +0000

It looks much better now. You seem to have really grasped our advice and applied it. It looks great.

farmer_Tom — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 23:22:38 +0000

The page does a great job of displaying your products and I am amazed at the range of prices (I could afford some of these, actually!). I like the shopping cart mechanism and the way you organized each category of jewelry. Homepage content ought to be centered though and maybe you should take a page to tell us a little bit about you. What is your story and why should I invest in you as a jewler? Remember that people will hesistate to make huge purchases unless they trust you. Other than that, it looks like a fine site and I wish you best of luck with your new business!

adjroth — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 22:20:49 +0000

Thank you, Busy and Megan for your replies and in so much detail.

The products I have listed here are listed in a database which I have downloaded from the manufacturer I'm using. The word jumbling and squashed text you've pointed out have been fixed programmatically using the str_replace function, while others such as pricing can only be fixed by reviewing and editing manually to get the best results.

The problem with products not being added into the cart when you click buy is an issue I have been working on. Basically it creates a duplicate item in the DB if it doesnt exist, and adds it to the cart to determine the size chosen. It doesnt always work.

International orders arent being accepted yet because the cart I have written wasn't geared towards shipping outside of the US because the type of products being sold. I know it wont take but a few minutes to set it up for international, but I would need to find country codes supported by paypal.

I'll work on an FAQ and shipping information pages as you suggest. I am sure it's a great inconvenience to shop on a site only to find out they wont ship to your country.

As for the title image, I've added anti-aliasing text, but I'm not much of a graphic designer and not too familiar with all the tools and effects, nor do I have the imagination to create something amazing. I'm using Paint Shop Pro 6 Beta so if anyone has any suggestions for effects that are useful for web design it is greatly appreciated.

Thank you again for your time.

Neutron2k — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 21:19:58 +0000

hmmm

i'm thinking some chalky pink colour could go well down the side. Jewellers always remind me of pastel colours in greys, pinks, purples and occasional blues etc. no idea why

Megan — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 13:12:53 +0000

LOoks like you've made some changes based on mscreashuns' comments. I like the dark blue colour scheme, I think it's appropriate for the site. You could try going a little more purple but it's fine the way it is. A contrasting colour isn't necessary here since you want to provide a clean, elegant look.

The graphic in the header does need some work. The text isn't anti-aliased which makes it look jaggedy around the edges. Learn how to use anti-aliasing in your graphics program (check the help files, or tell us which program you're using and we'll try to help). I like the mountain and star theme in the back - you could do a little more with that somehow in the graphic to make it have more of an impact.

In the content area, I agree with busy. It's rather chopppy and not as unified as it could be. The left navbar needs some work. Remove some of the styling on the forms so they don't look so harsh. I think the default controls are good because they stand out and draw the eye to the search function. Also add some padding or line-spacing on the list. You could try playing with the CSS a little more to make that navigation more elegant looking.

Then, move that right side block with the policy links and budget listings down into the left sidebar. Now you'll be able to bump the actual products up closer to the top of the page. Also remove that bottom border on the Budget heading.

I don't really love the link style with underline removed on hover. For navbar links it would be fine to have them with no underline and put it on on mouseover. As long as it's clear that those links are click-able. Make them blue too.

Now I'll do a little shopping. I'm assuming these aren't real prices!

It would be nice to be able to sort through the products a little more specifically. For example, I don't like yellow gold so I'd like to only see white gold.

Body text in general should be a little bigger. A little more line spacing might help too. Remember that readibility is more than just being able to make out the words. Small text and crammed line heights make it difficult for people. If you keep the font at a comfortable size it will be easier for people and they will be more likely to actually read stuff. There's also no spaces after punctuation in the description I'm reading.

Some of the product pictures aren't as clear as they could be. I think with high end purchases like this it's a good idea to provide as much detail as possible. Adding extra close-up pictures and pictures from different angles would be good, especially on higher-end items.

Next to the buy button there is a drop-down with numbers. I'm assuming this is sizes (I'm looking at a ring) but it's not labelled so I'm not sure. I clicked the buy button, got taken to a shopping cart page that says "your shopping cart is empty." Will try again. Okay, it worked that time on another item. Seems that it's just not working with the size drop-down.

Now that I'm on the checkout page I see that you only accept US addresses I spent all this time shopping on your site only to find out you won't ship to me because I'm in Canada. I used to have this problem a lot in the past but most sites have cleaned up their acts when it comes to international shipping. Normally I would check the shipping rates page first because some sites still do overcharge for "international" shipping. But I don't see any shipping rates page here at all. I think that's important to provide ahead of time - what methods you use to ship, costs etc. Especially wit higher end items that could cost the buyer a lot if they don't arrive.

Otherwise the process is going smoothly. I don't see any security icon in my browser at all. That's a bit of a red flag although I don't know what happens when you actually pay with a credit card. It's not exactly necessary right now.

Busy — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 10:59:49 +0000

First up there is a slight horziontal scroll at 800x600, no biggy but is there.

The main page top content looks like it's misaligned, just dumped there. you have 3 sections, all are different and apart from the text being the same colour as the links it's all different, diferent size, style, shape. The Jewelry below are aligned right (under the right two sections) leaving a blank space on the left.
If you disable CSS the page actually looks quite good with the default sizes and coloured links.
While the budget concept is a good one, I am left wondering in what currency this is in, your prices which I'll get to in a sec, are in weird cent values, 31, 84, 36, 62, 63 ... The prices in red just sit at the bottom, youd expect to see a was/now text or "sale price" or something. In this case red means danger.

There is nothing under the items so looks like the page has been cut off, maybe just a copyright notice or some links and even contact details just to finish the page off.

I clicked on Mens Jewelry and the top section is a lot better laid out, it has that connection with the sections. Don't make links go bold on hover, isn't very professional.
Some of your text on the item page is squashed up. "Approx. Item Dimensions:Size 7-12Approx. Total Item Weight:4 grams If the item shown is a piercing type item, due to the nature of body jewelry, all sales are final and cannot be returned under any circumstances for hygienic reasons. No exceptions, so please choose the product well."
The 'Approx' doesn't belong there and the piercing type item note should be in a seperate paragraph or elsewhere as it looks like you just threw heaps of items on without much thought.

The buy option on this item was a drop down list from 6-12, I'd only want one.
Ok I clicked on buy anyway but got a page saying "Your shopping cart is empty." my guess is because I refused the cookie when the site loaded, if this is the case you need to make people aware that cookies are apart of the sites process or use session cookies instead.
I was hopeing to get to the checkout page to see if there were any FAQ's or info about internation al orders, currency, time frames on shipping ... (I gather by the items your in USA). A currency convertor would be good, I understand a lot of US and Canada banks allow feeds to convertors, a faq on where you ship, how, what, where , why, how ... customs fees, how often you water the plants ...

good luck
Oh and the blue is a bit dark, like the summit icon, maybe use the lighter blue

adjroth — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 04:24:31 +0000

Thanks for the reply, mscreashuns. Your comments are taken greatly appreciated.

Although i've never liked underlines, the links could use some to let users know that they are links.

mscreashuns wrote: "The pink theme suggests that you are generally appealing to women ..... most of the jewelry that women get are from other men, so I would suggest going with a more neutral color scheme."

This is true, I didnt think of that until you said it.

I'm thinking a night blue, almost purple along with a sky blue color. Somewhere along the lines of the colors in the windows classic title bar. Or if anyone has any ideas of a different color scheme i'm open to any suggestions.

mscreashuns — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 23:03:05 +0000

I'm just going to give you some thoughts as I browse your site.

First off, the color scheme is not something that I would appreciate for a jewelry website. The pink theme suggests that you are generally appealing to women, and I can see why you would do that - most women wear more jewelry than men. However, most of the jewelry that women get are from other men, so I would suggest going with a more neutral color scheme. It should be fairly easy to change as the layout you have is fine right now.

Also, on the front page I noticed that all of the items have a little "in stock" image. It seems a little odd to me that you would put a notice next to the items that are in stock. All items should be assumed to be in stock and any items that are not in stock should be noted, in my opinion.

Also, some things (like that "in stock" image) could be replaced with simple text and save you a lot of space and bandwith. I'm sure they aren't large files, but if you get a lot of visitors (which surely you're hoping for), it could be a burden.

Links - There should be some sort of way to tell that they are links. I always prefer the traditional underline, and then when you hover, there isn't an underline, but there needs to be some way to tell that they are links. Also, on the front page there is a big gap between the intro paragraph and the uh...listings down there. You should probably tell what those are (random listings, most popular, etc...)

Besides that, it looks great. Good luck!