new shop: please take a look!

[Sally Dickson]

Here is my new shop:

http://www.smileyworld.com/shop/acatalog/index.html.

Please take a look, have a good dig about, even make some purchases, which I will refund.

I have been working on this for 6 weeks and all I can see is a white and yellow blur, so all comments welcome.

BTW there are 7 different alt-primary templates in this shop, is that a record?

Cheers,

[Sally Dickson]

well its finished now...

I have just finalised my www.smileyworld.com/shop/index.html

I like it lots, but if anyone can spot things to improve comments are much welcome.

Sally

[Duncan Rounding]

A nice clean fun looking site.

There's a few things I personally noticed:
1. There's a lot of space taken up by the logo at the top of the page, how about putting the images side by side that would give you more viewable product space without having to scroll.
2. The colour scheme changes from the nice yellow to a mix of yellow, light yellow and blue - personally I'd keep it all yellow - does the customer need to know which sectiuuon they're in by colour?
3. There was no way to navigate to other product sections without first going back or up the tree. Might be worth adding some hard links to your other sections to make that easier. (I didn't realise that I could click on the logos at the top until later)
4. Shipping and Handling in your T&Cs has a problem, see: <b>Cost of Shipping</b> >!!
4. The top of the Paypal payment page refers to Creative Catalogues Online not Smileyworld - it might be worth mentioning about that on the referring page not just in T&Cs.
5. It would look better if you had some products on the pages for 'Just Arrived' and 'Special Offers'.
6. There are links to http://www.smileyworld.com/ at the bottom of the pages but I couldn't see a link from http://www.smileyworld.com/ to the shop.

A nice site, I hope it does well.

[pinbrook]

I assume you developed the site using 1024 res. I've attached 2 images one showing the site at 800x600 res, and the other at 1280 res. Both screen images do not show the site off to its best.

Additionally I didn't like the fact there was no left hand navigation, I was immediately lost.

When I saw the two images in the banner one underneath the other I assumed FF was pushing them underneath, until I viewed in IE and saw the same, it might be better to have both images side by side as they use up to much space, and thus not much of the site is visible at the initial glance, its one of the golden rules to get as much info as you can above the fold (ie without having to scroll)

[AZ IT]

Hi Sally - nice site - made me smile

I agree with Jo on the screen size issue - the Web's guru on usability (but creator of humungously ugly websites) Jakob Neilsen recommends optimising for 1024:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/screen_resolution.html

In your case however, I would consider fixing the page at 1024 so that it doesn't expand further. Where I disagree with Neilsen (and Jo I suspect) is fluid layout down to 800. Unless you are particularly aiming at people who have not changed PCs in the last five years (nothing wrong with that I might add, but they are not most ecommerce sites' target customers), I would not reduce image sizes etc to squeeze down properly to 800, and spoil the effect for the majority of visitors, most of whom (apparently) now have broadband and screens at least 1024.

[george]

Looks like the footballs are free!!!

Very generous of you!

[acompton]

Nice looking site; very cheerful. A few small comments:

1. Is "Special Offer" (LHS) supposed to be a link?
2. There seem to be three different logos? Could this be reduced?
3. The "Have a Nice Day" cuddly has the following description:

This calculator features two-way power - using both batteries and solar power. More

Can't think where I've seen that before.
4. Site seems to be set up as one product per page (you have to drill down a long way to find the price). Could the products be moved up a level?

Alan Compton
www.greenknightgames.co.uk
Great board games and cards games you won't find in the High Street
http://www.greenknightgames.co.uk/ac...iftTRAP_2.html
GiftTRAP - the ideal Christmas game

[pinbrook]

Where I disagree with Neilsen (and Jo I suspect) is fluid layout down to 800.

I repect other peoples decisions not to optimise for 800. However my preference is fluid where you at least pay a little attention to 800.

My solution for this is to use images at 120 px wide within product lists (with image clickable for large image) and restrict the text of the product description to 250. This still leaving room for left and right nav.

The reason for product description at 250 is because it is easier to read - like newspaper columns.

I cite this as one example of easily making 800 look good whilst not diminishing the experience for wider browsers. Where you have a long product description i would place the description below the image. Where I had a site where the image was a real selling toot ie clothes I'd make the image also 250 with description underneath. So thers plently of permutations.

You can always use css to float items and just let then go across or down the page depending on the space available.

Don't forget there is an ever growing number of viewers on phones/PDA who could do with a better experience too

[gabrielcrowe]

OMG! Smiley Toaster!!!!!

w0000t!

re: screen res.

learn css and make dymanic sized sites, the lot of you, dammit.