Another site to look at!

[Suemoo]

Hello all

We've been running our little shop for around 9 months now and everything seems to be going quite smoothly. It's not particularly fancy (another Smart-based theme!) but we've had nice comments from customers.

I'd welcome some comments from other Actinic users.

Thanks

Sue

[wjcampbe]

Course we'll have a look Sue.

Want to tell us where to find it?

[Suemoo]

Whoops! Not a good start

www.dinkybox.co.uk

or

www.dinkybox.com

Thanks

Sue

[pinbrook]

love it ......

[wjcampbe]

me too - reflects the joy and enthusiasm of the owner very well.

[RuralWeb]

WOW! What a great looking site, the graphics are very nice (do they download ok on dial up?) You have obviously spent alot of time working on the site you should be very pleased

[george]

Great site. Great images.

Since you need some constructive feedback I'd say one thing that you could do is make the links down the left side hardcoded to their destination, as opposed to going through (by default) the cgi-bin. This will make them more search engine friendly, and also quicker too. (There are a couple of threads within the forum that explain how to do this).

Also the list within the logo at the top, I wonder how many visitors will click on the words thinking they are links?

Great use of a `standard` theme though, eh folks? Well done.

[buspassjohn]

Brill Site!
Two things only, the Header Logo takes up half my laptop screen and the text is too pale for my old eyes, graphics great!

[Luddite]

Its fantastic. You've inspired me!

Nick

[TiggyPig]

Noticed this page: http://www.dinkybox.co.uk/acatalog/info.html

Stretches to far and distorts the screen, I think the top sentance is doing this, just add a line break in there

Mark

[pinbrook]

It's not particularly fancy (another Smart-based theme!)

it may just be smart theme, but it is the quality of the graphics that lift this site off the screen.

I have been bleating on about this for years now, the actinic layouts are fine for a base but pay a graphic designer for some images for your site and bingo....what a difference.

there's a very long post by Brian at Suresolutions about design which is very interesting

[Luddite]

there's a very long post by Brian at Suresolutions about design which is very interesting

Jo (or anyone else) - I don't suppose you can remember Brians username can you so that I can find this thread?

Cheers - Nick

[jont]

Very good use of the internal drop shadow for the product background and then the product on top... really makes the image stand off the page (and with relatively small images sizes also)

Agree about the header image - way too deep and every section that has a big fragment at the top forces a screen scroll before I can see any of the actual products. I realise the understanding behind the extensive fragments on each page but this is at the detriment of product placement - which is what the site is about.

Very nice site - well done

[jont]

Jo (or anyone else) - I don't suppose you can remember Brians username can you so that I can find this thread?

Cheers - Nick

Isnt it BJPSURF?

[compendia]

I also love the site, interesting that your products are suitable for a graphic design driven site and the designers here seem to love that.

I agree that the pale blue is really quitr pale, I'm also viewing on a laptop.

On the index page you have pics of some of the different lines you sell. None of these seem to have any alt tags so I couldn't tell what they were. Also I would expect these to take me to different parts of the site where I could explore what I have clicked on, instead they all took me to what seemed to be another front page. This felt like an interruption to me, if I've clicked on a picture of a product I would probably expect to see that product. Some of the most prostable cusomers are the ones that get to you knowing exactly what they want - if they see it on the index page they probably want to get straight to it.

I like the writing - the tone is really enthusaistic, but it felt a bit like a site for people who already knew what they were buying. Looking at the qees I couldn't really get my head round what some of the products actually were. Are they 'design pieces' are they toys? If they are toys what do I do with them? Also the introduction meant I had to scroll down a lot before I could see the products. You mention designers quite a lot. Do a lot of your target market search for designers? If they don't I would put that information at the bottom, so it is still there for people who are interested but doen't gat in they way of people who are trying to buy stuff.

I found that first picture on the /acatalog page took a while to load through my broadband connection, I also got a bit confused by it. I would expect 'create your own' and '10th anniversary' to take me to different parts of the site. So I wasn't a huge fan of the graphic being split into different areas sharing the same function.

I'd like to stress that I'm trying to find things to criticise here, I really really did like the site. What would you say is the worst thing about it? Maybe people will have some suggestions as to how your own pet hate could be improved.