Work in Progress site..

[bcomp]

The new guy to Actinic asked for help, and got this type of abuse, what the hell are you people on today "look how clever i am at rubbishing someone", so what if he used a actinic template, so do the majority of people, not everyone wants to or needs to design their own

Christ I thought ben was over the top, but now see exactly why he is right.

Tell him about the colours or other improvements.

Your right that Ben wasn't far off the mark in his post and i often wonder why if people have nothing constructive to say why they bother posting as 99/100 times all they achieve is creating another needless argument, perhaps it's actually time that Actinic used the warning features of the forum software and members who are regularly aggressive etc warned and if necessary even banned regardless of who they are or think they are as the case might be.

The site that the OP Steven wanted comments on is http://trials.actinic.com/trials/trial56339. I personally even though it is using a standard theme with a different menu and colours think it looks quite nice even though I’m not a fan of white text on black as a rule and surely the themes and ease of tweaking them for non web, html, css coders is the appeal of Actinic, perhaps it's the tactic of ripping everything to bits developers and designers are using to drum up some business or something.

Sometimes you just can't win around here, Ling (with the whacky sitemap) does something far out and unique and gets ripped to bits by a select few for her uniqueness and then Steven asks for comments on work in progress and because he has stuck with the norm and tweaked an Actinic theme he gets ripped to bits as well, it just doesn't make sense to me.

[gabrielcrowe]

I ripped them both.

In reality, I like Ling, but I also love to hear her reasons for things. Her sitemap ruffles feathers, so be it. Technologically, its sound, i'm not denying its logic, I just like to joust about it, possibly over biscuits.

The work in progress site mentioned here is obviously by a DIY customer of Actinic. For that reason, he gets a thumbs up, for his attempt, and it is tight, for a starter. But its not a full blown 'wow-thats-amazing' site. Actinic designed the site, the OP inserted the content. I could have made that site on 30 mins.

In both cases, opinions were raised, and educated ones at that. That's all they are kids, opinions. If a person cannot handle another persons opinion, then we're all doomed.

We're guaranteeing the arrival of hexagon monsters.

[parklifeclothes]

The problem is that if you want a honest review now and again you have to accept critism, surely thats the way anything will get improved.
There is no point in just being nice and saying its lovely, again the OP will gain little from it.

[Jenny]

professional critism is good and helpful.

[gabrielcrowe]

so, here is my professional breakdown of this site:

1 - Traditionally, using black on a site background only works on very luxurious and well designed sites. Top brands that don't need trust and already have it.

http://www.boohoo.com/

This is a good example. I picked it randomly out of google. Black and pink, speaks volumes about lavish girly things.

If black is the way to go, then why do ALL the top sites have white backgrounds? ebay, amazon, play, dabs, etc. The truth is that even logic must give way to physics. People find white on black hard to read. On the site i gave, click into the shop itself. See? white background. Now were talking.

2 - The header is nice, but perhaps it should be a little less in height. Again, i reference some major players, where they are basically 75px high logos. You;re wasting valuable product space. We arent here to buy your header. We're here to buy your necklaces.

3 - Call to action: You'll need something glaringly obvious that helps the shopper get to where they are going. How about: "Buy a gift with their name on it - click here" or "10% off until 99/99/99 click here!". These battle cries will get a lot of attention, and will give the site momentum. Not only that, but if you actually deliver on your promise, you'll get more trust.

3 - I like norms menu, keep that.

4 - You need to put something nice and bannery on your frontpage. look at: http://www.skateasylum.co.uk its not perfect, but this layout actually works. It shows products, while ahving some wide image spaces, to get people to popular zones. Actinic's default templates are not good enough, if you want to wow your customers. Consider some flash banners with some sparkly things in them. People like sparkly things, especially with jewellry (sp?).

5 - Variety: I think you might want to start putting things in neat boxes to separate them. The page is essentially a block of disparate content. How about some simple content separation? Your right hand par could ahve some nice dividers, and your content area could be white, with dark text. Invert the center style and see if it looks out of place.

That's all i can think of for now. Was that any help?

[bcomp]

It's not necessarily the opinion it's the way in which the opinion is expressed that I feel is the problem especially when done in a I know everything, you know nothing and overly aggressive way. As chris said the repliers could have easily made constructive suggestions but instead chose to reply in a "look how clever i am at rubbishing someone" smart arse fashion and i fully agree with him that "There is a way to word things in a professional way, without humiliation surely!"

In this case there were several un-necessary replies which provoked a reaction from the op, in this case the repliers would have just been better off just saying nothing.

Constructive criticism is fine but I feel it could generally be offered in a much less aggressive, condescending and more professional way.

The themes included with Actinic and having the ability to easily tweak them like Steven did is probably actually the appeal of the software too many business owners who are not web design wizards but want to get an affordable foot on the ecommerce ladder and the ripping of something to bits like is the case here because a user has tweaked a standard Actinic theme is ridiculous.

[bcomp]

so, here is my professional breakdown of this site:

1 - Traditionally, using black on a site background only works on very luxurious and well designed sites. Top brands that don't need trust and already have it.

http://www.boohoo.com/

This is a good example. I picked it randomly out of google. Black and pink, speaks volumes about lavish girly things.

If black is the way to go, then why do ALL the top sites have white backgrounds? ebay, amazon, play, dabs, etc. The truth is that even logic must give way to physics. People find white on black hard to read. On the site i gave, click into the shop itself. See? white background. Now were talking.

2 - The header is nice, but perhaps it should be a little less in height. Again, i reference some major players, where they are basically 75px high logos. You;re wasting valuable product space. We arent here to buy your header. We're here to buy your necklaces.

3 - Call to action: You'll need something glaringly obvious that helps the shopper get to where they are going. How about: "Buy a gift with their name on it - click here" or "10% off until 99/99/99 click here!". These battle cries will get a lot of attention, and will give the site momentum. Not only that, but if you actually deliver on your promise, you'll get more trust.

3 - I like norms menu, keep that.

4 - You need to put something nice and bannery on your frontpage. look at: http://www.skateasylum.co.uk its not perfect, but this layout actually works. It shows products, while ahving some wide image spaces, to get people to popular zones. Actinic's default templates are not good enough, if you want to wow your customers. Consider some flash banners with some sparkly things in them. People like sparkly things, especially with jewellry (sp?).

5 - Variety: I think you might want to start putting things in neat boxes to separate them. The page is essentially a block of disparate content. How about some simple content separation? Your right hand par could ahve some nice dividers, and your content area could be white, with dark text. Invert the center style and see if it looks out of place.

That's all i can think of for now. Was that any help?

10/10 Sir. Excellent stuff, well done for the professional and well informed response Gabriel which i totally agree with.

IMO the trial site is not bad but it can be improved on which is what the OP really was asking and if he follows your advice he will not be far off the mark should he actually manage to make the suggested changes.

[gabrielcrowe]

5/5 but, why argue?

Simon, you're a fruit. Get off that soapbox and get some work done.

[Darren B]

Simon the other thread, which has been edited by the original poster was not as it reads now, and abuse came from the OP aswell.

im sorry but im sick of this lets play nice attitude, there are different people in all walks of life. I have customers that call me a c**t but this is the type of people they are. The comment would be offensive to many but you have to know the person 1st. Im not saying its right and i dont personally like it but it is ment in a "your bloody stupid" way.

The problem i have is people here are trying to do is change people like this. If you ask for a review and someone says dont use x with y i dont see the problem, you came here for peoples opinion, obviously you value it or you would not ask for it, dont get the raving arse over a post if you dont like what you read.

[parklifeclothes]

Because we all seem to be pandering to be nice and don't say this/that we have effectively lost a massive amount of knowledge, most of which is far exceeds the knowledge that support can give and certainly more accessable (not 9-5) in the members that have now withdrawn from the forum, these members have over the years given more (and far beyond) help and assisatance than any of these new users will ever give but these new users seem to get listened to by actinic when they complain.

By following the route of half a dozen users with maybe a few hundred posts between them we have lost 10's of thousands of potential posts, I know what I would prefer.

[guccij]

Because we all seem to be pandering to be nice

I've just written more or less exactly this on the Ben's post thread. Sick of it, I am

[gabrielcrowe]

yes, it looks like both threads seem to saying the same thing, in a roundabout kind of way.

[Rich Brady]

Is now a good time to mention this should be in the search engines and site review forum

[Mike Hughes]

Is now a good time to mention this should be in the search engines and site review forum

Probably when it started, but I think it's now an 'any other business' thread.

Mike

[guccij]

You know what? I hadn't even noticed that!