Is anyone interested in coming to help me for a day’s tuition?

[WendyS]

First, please accept my apologies if I shouldn’t be posting this here but I have checked out the designers listed on the Actinic site and they don’t seem suitable.

I design and run a large-ish (380 pages + many pdf datasheets) B2B website which is information-driven and also has Spanish and German sections:
www.photonic-products.com.

I am trying to convert it into a store using Actinic v9 Business, rather than have 2 separate sites, retaining the design and structure as far as possible.

I assumed that I would be able just to put "buy now" Actinic fields at the end of each product row (the products are laid out in tables), see

http://www.photonic-products.com/pro...o-visible.html

However, after attending training courses, working through the Advanced Guide, the community and as many help sources as I can find, I cannot get my product layout to work as I can’t get the tables to line up and I think I need to create variables but I don’t really know what or why.

Also, my site is currently organised in various directories under the root folder and there are a lot of pages in the Spanish, German and News directories. I don’t know how the structure and navigation should be set up or if I can retain the current structure. I am not including the Spanish and German sections in the store – they will have to buy lasers from the English pages.

What I would like would be for someone to have a look at my product layout tables and work out the best way to design the layouts

http://www.photonic-products.com/pro...o-visible.html

and then come and spend a day with me to show me how to set them up (and why, so that I can understand) and advise on the navigation structure for the store and tell me if I am doing anything totally idiotic.

If anyone is interested in looking at the design and coming to spend a day showing me how to do it, please email me your prices and dates you would be available and I will get back to you asap.

My email is info at photonic-products dot com. Photonic Products is very near to Stansted Airport.

[leehack]

I think you may need to face facts here that after that much trying to learn things, things are pointing somewhat to you not being able to do so. Employ a designer to do it for you, that's what they are good at and you concentrate on what you are good at. Any successful business at some stage has to realise they cannot do it all and have to get people in the know in to help. There is no disgrace in not being able to grasp it, we all have things we can and cannot do.

[click4]

get someone in

I couldn't agree more leehack...

Dont waste valuable time trying to do something that just isnt your forte...i learn't the hard way..and now get someone else to do it every time

[chris ashdown]

Designers need meat to live on or at least some veg, a few days work is not probably very atractive, when they could be at home doing design on long term projects earning millions like Lee and Jonty

Might be better if you offer a bit more to tempt them

[leehack]

I did some tuition over the space of a year or so for a handful of clients a few years ago and the overwhelming feeling I took from each lesson was that after about an hour, the human brain could not take in anything more and most of the day was (after that point) wasted. There was so much to take in within such a short time. I stopped doing it and instead offered support contracts, where I could be contacted as and when a problem arose, I felt it offered better value (you don't get a designer worth his/her salt for anything like a £150 a day).

HTML, CSS and actinic are all something you have to be using very regularly IMO. It's generally not something you lock in once and never forget like riding a bike is. It's an industry where you learn things over months and years, not days or weeks. Take the jump from V7 to V8, it was a year on here before you started to see some real magic being created and that was from extremely experienced actinic users. Croccy was a prime example of this, once at the front of design, 18 months later and by her own admission a bit 'out of it'. Things move faster than we ever realise I suspect.

Learning actinic, html and css amongst all the other things you need to know to run a successful business is just not realistic in almost every case I have ever seen. I'm biased, almost certainly I am, but not to big up my own industry, more from the privileged angle of having seen so many fantastic, good, average and plain terrible online businesses over the years. All the best sites have almost all of the same traits, it really isn't rocket science. Anyone on this planet if they had watched around a hundred versions of one cake being built, would themselves have a very very good idea on what ingredients are required.

[Jan]

There are some designers that do offer training so hopefully you will get some replies but you might find that you need more than a day.

It might be better to get a designer to do the work but then spend a half day or so with you showing you what they did. That way you get the job done but also learn how to do it yourself later.

Regards,

[Sean Williams]

I'm with Lee on this.
I do know a hell of a lot about computers, how they work and how to use them, software etc - I used to be 'computer professional' even.
I can design, but I'm not a designer.
I can build applications, but I'm not a builder.
I am also a business person, not brilliant, but good enough. And this needs to be my primary focus if the business is to succeed.
I spent 18 months learning how to use and 'configure' Actinic, became basically competent at it and even enjoyed it once the mist dissipated.
But then I realised I still didn't have a top quality site and I was going to have to spend ALL my time making one, as the site/s we had were already looking dated.
So I used a professional designer and voila! - a quality site that's up to date and most importantly works without glitches, which leaves me with lots more time to run the business.
The result of this path is that I now have the skills necessary to work with Actinic and make changes/tweaks if I want, but I don't have to worry about the structure of the site. This is a great place to be for me as I enjoy messing about under the hood and I can take pride in the fact we have a site that's up there with the best, while at the same time seeing my business progressing without the stress of knowing it NEEDS me to be under the hood.

Chris is right - let the designers claw in the millions but revel in the knowledge your site is going to be much better than you could make it without spending 100% of your time on it. A worthwhile investment, which coming from an old skinflint like me is praise indeed.

[pinbrook]

Chris is right - let the designers claw in the millions but revel in the knowledge your site is going to be much better than you could make it without spending 100% of your time on it. A worthwhile investment, which coming from an old skinflint like me is praise indeed.

When a designer does a good job you should be able to say they earned their money because your increase in turnover more than paid for their fee.

Just to echo what has already been said - take a look at your business and analyse how you spend your day, have you got time to spend 100-200 hours getting your website looking good?

Looking at what you say you need to acheive it might be more cost effective to get someone else to do the dirty work, ie the stuff that only needs to be done every 2-3 years. Then learn (get someone in) to show you how to keep the pages up to date with content. Much as Jan suggested.

As Lee says if you dont do design regularly you deskill very quickly. I pulled out of design a year or so ago, it now takes me 3 times longer to make any small tweak

[WendyS]

Thank you all for your help and suggestions, especially Jan - good advice and I am taking it!