My website

[leehack]

4. Rollover map. Yes, that's a great idea and something that did cross my mind. I'm very new to Actinic and knew nothing of html 6 months ago so it's been a steep learning curve. I have managed rollovers on buttons using CSS but what you're suggesting, Lee, sounds pretty tricky. I think it's an excellent idea though and I'm going to look at trying it out. My initial thoughts are like turning a light on so that the room is lit and the other rooms go dark. Or maybe zooming the room forward but I think that would be a substantial amount of work.

This probably sounds more difficult in writing that it actually is. I would suggest trying a simple approach first to see what you can achieve. A simple table layout with rollover images in each cell would be my first step. Although the cells would be uniform shape, the rollover images could be sized differently and vertically aligned differently to give the feel of a house.

It all depends how involved you want to get with it, this is an example of what kind of effects can be achieved with some time - link.

[completerookie]

Having fertilised three teenagers

he's been feeding them bull**** all these years

[kathynewman]

Having fertilised three teenagers I don't need to add you to my favourites. Well, not unless you do shotguns, an unlimited fund cashline card, two taxis, oops, cars that run on water and a skybox remote that overrules the regular one. Oh, and a secret cupboard for our kitchen that keeps (my favourite) foods longer than two hours.

Isn't it funny how you get mental images of people on the web - I seriously had George down as a young free & single - never imagined him to have 3 teenage children!

Kathy

[acompton]

I seriously had George down as a young free & single

And I had him as exactly the opposite!
His choice of Music Artiste (Oasis, Stiff Little Fingers, The Rifles) came as a bit of a shock.

Alan

[Tickle]

Hi folks,

I've made a few changes to the front page to remove some clutter, change colours, and adjusted the map and product image banner a little to stop it freezing.

It's still very much a work in progress. It seems a bit bare without the other kids pictures on the screen now but does have better white space so it should be much easier on the eye and to understand. I'm not happy with the LH nav and I think I'll soon lose it altogether in favour of a few buttons.

So now it's decluttered and so-on could you give me your thoughts on how I can make it feel right until I can afford to get a decent designer on the case?

Thanks

John

[leehack]

Millions times better already and i haven't really looked yet!

At last someone who asks for a site review and listens - woohoo!

Nice one!

[leehack]

New products and Best sellers need slimming down so that they only show 8 products each (2 rows). You must include images also as it looks like adverts without them. Don't be too keen to show too many. It will be far more successful with just a few key products, than a multitude of products which is just too overwhelming for anyone to bother looking at.

Run a Monthly special offer on just one product, look at what your suppliers have deals on and run an offer on that product. I will very shortly be purchasing items for my new baby, sites with a special offer always catch your eye. The free delivery and advert for it is GREAT!

The rabbits having a threesome make me laugh.

The left hand nav is awful compared to the rest of your site, give that some attention and i think you are on to a real nice site.

Really well done, i like it!

[Tickle]

hehe.

It was great to have such useful feedback Lee. I'm a little lost on how to get the feel right but it'll come to me I'm sure.

I want to take up the advice to widen the screen to open it up for 1024 soon and then see what I can do to brighten the page. With the lack of kids smiling images the page seems to have lost something.

I think that the map could be improved by a more artistic version.

I'm still pondering on how to better implement the banner to show what's in a room.

Cheers

John

[leehack]

With the lack of kids smiling images the page seems to have lost something.

Dude there is 6 kids on show, 5 of them are grinning and one is looking perplexed at a balloon. Its perfect and clean now, it's only your eyes that are seeing that problem.

The images below the left hand nav could be a little lower, giving the nav a clear and defined space. The blue box around the nav needs its corners rounding over, everything else on the site is softly edged. This can be easily achieved by having a 9 cell table (3 x 3) with each corner cell having a small image with the rounded corners. The centre cell then holds the navigation links. There are a number of different ways to do this, that is probably your easiest while you are getting to grips with it.

[Tickle]

Hi Lee,

Just seen your follow-up.

I know the LH nav is awful at the moment. It's temporary. With the room nav I want to have the side nav giving a different perspective on viewing products such as showing holiday products rather than just sun protection. My thought is that the room approach doesn't lend itself to all ways of thinking about where to fnd a product.

The best sellers and new products entries are an attempt to add text content to the page for SEO and hoping that people wouldn't really bother with scrolling down. It's a poor attempt I know. Having loads more pictures concerns me in terms of the extra KB. But I take you point and it would look much better with only 8 per section and images. Easy to fix.

I'd better get off to bed. My wife's 40th tomorrow. She'll thank me for broadcasting that I'm sure

Thanks

John

[leehack]

If you really want another image included, try and get a funny one that can go on the bottom of the left hand menu. With a kid sticking his/her head out of a hole or upside down or something. Basically something that catches your eye but isn't dominating. A wibbly wobbly square around the nav might achieve the same effect.

[acompton]

Room navigation is much better. Layout is cleaner. It's looking good.
Some small points:
- possibly too many colours in the graphic elements; I count red, pink, orange, two blues, two greens; the photos provide plenty of colour, so the graphic elements can be more unified
- "faq" looks like "fog" Try using upper case?
- the Best Sellers only needs to be a list. I always think that this list reinforces the customer's choice with the impression that the item they are thinking of buying is popular - therefore it must be good.
- how about a kiddie from the ethnic groups?

Alan Compton
www.greenknightgames.co.uk
Great board games and cards games you won't find in the High Street

[fleetwood]

Hi John

A big improvement.

Now you have to be brave, (and listen to the comments) and repeat the process a second time ie trim EVEN MORE!!!!
In an ideal world, you don't want too much scrolling on the home page - put as much as you can in that visible top area.
By that, I don't mean reclutter the top half, I mean trim the various elements like the bestsellers and New releases down to just a few (exactly as Lee has said), have pictures not text (a picture is worth a thousand blah blah), and have them visible without scrolling much.

If this means losing the interactive sub nav bar (the pictures that change on scroll of the map), then I would do it.
Pretty and clever as it is, it dosen't actually do much.
Hover over the car room, the bar sez 'childrens car safety', and shows same in pics.
To be honest, and not meaning to be snide, I kinda guessed that car mean't child seats etc. I didn't think a childrens stuff site would be selling cars, auto parts etc. If there was room for this features, I would keep it, but I think you could use this valuable space for something else, and fit the bestsellers where they can be seen.
(Do keep the 'click on a room' bar, but move it up a little, closer to the room map).
Make the room interactive with rollover images (the switching on a light idea you had was great).

I wouldn't worry as much as you are, about SEO on the home page.
Search engines go far deeper than just the first page.
I think you would be better off making sure your products pages are optimised (as time permits), rather than trying to cram the front page with text for max SEO.

I'm assuming it's just because its a work in progress, but will say anyway - the privacy etc links, and credit card bits belong at the bottom of the page, underneath everything else.

Use the sidebar to add further navigation depth. Keep the main/ central navigation as simple as you can.

Good practice on a home page is always to take a step back, and visualise a real world shop.

When you step in the door, what should you see.

A few simple signs (large and clear), giving you an idea where to start looking.
An impact item (special promotion, eye catching colour or display), to entice you in to look further
etc

Off putting would be a complete directory in small print (to fit it all in) just inside the door, and a display of multiple different products.

People like making quick decisions - its makes them comfortable that they are going to get somewhere. Make every visual cue an easy decision (I see, I click here), rather than a ponder moment (hmm, so many choices, which one do I try first).
When shopping, we are far more comfortable making lots and lots of quick obvious decisions, than one or two complex ones.
(I can't take credit for these ideas - try 'Don't Make Me Think' by Steve Krug, for some great ideas on web design).

Hope some of that helps.

Happy Birthday Mrs Tickle - hope you both have a nice day.

[fergusw]

This probably sounds more difficult in writing that it actually is. I would suggest trying a simple approach first to see what you can achieve. A simple table layout with rollover images in each cell would be my first step.

Another good example of a similar roll over (image map) effect can be seen at CSS Play

With the tutorial for creating such things found on the same website

It is in CSS so if you do not have a lot of experience then it may become a bit confusing, however, for your site to achieve this effect when rolling over your rooms would only require 1 image and it would give a similar effect to the site Lee pointed you to.

Just my tuppence worth

As for your website design, as another "Forum Father To Be" I have been having a good trawl. I agree with many of the comments that have already been made. I would reiterate Lee's comments about the best sellers and new items. There were too many for my eye to quickly take in, and even after reading I did not know what these products looked like and therefore was not sure which one to click on to get more detail. Psychologically it did not help me make a simple, emotive decision, instead the volume of text presented when I scrolled down simply made me want to go back to the nice clean image at the top.

[leehack]

As for your website design, as another "Forum Father To Be"

Congrats Fergus, when is yours due?