Site Review http://www.funky-cards.co.uk/

[darrentickle]

Hi

I have finally got around to making my site live and would really like to have people views on the site and get any feedback on how to improve it.

The url of the site is http://www.funky-cards.co.uk/, please let me know if you see any mistakes.

Cheers

Darren

[Duncan Rounding]

A job well done Darren. Good looking site - I wish you well.

[acompton]

I agree. Very nice site. The Security section is excellent.

I found the word 'Pearl' mis-spelt on Birthday Tie Birthday Card

The Ts & Cs look a bit fierce.

9.1 The Supplier will take all reasonable precautions to keep the details of your order and payment secure but unless the Supplier is negligent, the Supplier will not be liable for unauthorized access to information supplied by you

Can you really say this?

10.1 Product images are for illustrative purposes only and may differ from the actual product

This might need re-wording, as it looks a bit worrying. Perhaps use "differ slightly".

[RuralWeb]

Nice site - well done.

Our guidelines include:

• designing the site for an 800x600 view so horizontal scrolling is not required, even for users with small screens

Maybe not so good as only about 4% of users use 800x600 these days and its getting less every day. When you change text size its does make things a little squashed. Also you give accessability details for ie5 which 1% of people still use while you dont give guidance for 6&7 which are different. Minor points though

[darrentickle]

Hi

Thanks for your comments and have taken them on board and have made some changes. I'm going to review the T&C's too but have changed the 2 areas you suggested.

This has been really helpful to me and has helped out.

Cheers

Darren

[leehack]

Nice site, just a few things, only one really bad thing:

1. No home page link, you are forcing me to use my back button or i get stranded on pages such as your T&C's. Having just a clickable logo is not acceptable, that is just a nice extra to having the normal navigation methods.
2. Designed for 800x600 screens, that's at least 18 months too late - bad decision. Your target audience are not using 12 year old PCs, never forget who is going to be buying off you. It looks like a postage stamp on my large screen and a bit dwarfed.
3. The vertical and horizontal dotted border, looks tatty, doesn't fit in and doesn't meet or blend properly. Change it to a nice solid and feint line, it completely goes against all other design on the site.
4. Minimalistic is fine, but your header is plain boring IMO. You are a card shop, inject at least a bit of life, catch my eye, make me look twice when i land on your site.
5. If you insist on sticking with the 800x600 (ie you have gone mad), then border the outside of the site, i don't like the way the top right part just blends into the background. I'd contemplate a background color, it will bring the site forward and send the background back, like it is a framed picture, much more appealing IMO.

Apart from that, nice job.

[george]

I'd say the colour scheme is bland. (just me by the looks of it so nothing to worry about lol)

[darrentickle]

Again thanks for the comments, was looking to change the Masthead as agree think it needs to be brought more to life. Yes need a link to the homepage and will add that too. When I did test the site a few months ago and did it large had user that where using laptop's on 13 inch screen asking for it too be smaller, may be I made it too small. What size do you normally build too then? Also will add a background colour just need to test some out.

Thanks again for the input which is really useful.

Darren

[leehack]

1024 fixed (1001) or fluid.

[completerookie]

When I did test the site a few months ago and did it large had user that where using laptop's on 13 inch screen asking for it too be smaller

I think you have to look at the majority, not the minority (within reason).
there are people still on 256 colours, but we don't think about them any more, we also don't consider people with mini mobile screens (although perhaps we should be thinking more of them)

[Duncan Rounding]

For normal PC viewing I think the widescreen is becoming more prominant. A fluid layout therefore is becoming more important so you can fill the screen width and leave less below the fold.

[kathynewman]

Lovely site - though agree that the header needs to be more jazzy - you have some wonderful cards - would think that you could do lot more with the header.

One of my New Years resolutions was to organise birthday/anniversary cards etc for everyone at the begining of the year - but so far hadn't got round to doing it so i'm now off to do some shopping once worked out how many cards need to buy!!

Kathy

[RuralWeb]

we also don't consider people with mini mobile screens (although perhaps we should be thinking more of them)

Some of us do and this time next year it will be more important to have a site working on a mobile than on a PC

[OriginalTouch]

email address

Nice clear site.

Just a tip:
Noticed on your contact page that your email link is a "mailto:"
You may prefer to change that into code to avoid spammers?
(Been a victim myself many years ago and would never be so clear with the email address again!)

[darrentickle]

Thanks again for all you comments and taking note of them all and going to be making some changes to the site over the next few days. I'm interested in the fluid layout sites, as John Lewis did have a fluid layout site but then about 6 months ago changed to a fix width. Also a lot of the major retailers seem to be sticking to this rule too.

Thanks again for all your help will post again once In have made the changes.

Cheers

Darren