Site Review - Puddle Pet Care

[kathynewman]

Just finished new design for our site (not live yet). Would welcome peoples thoughts/opinions.

http://www.puddlepetcare.co.uk/acatalog/test/

Payment methods have not yet been set up.

Thanks

Kathy
PS
I have someone going through it to check for errors such as spelling and missing product details!

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

I have just has a very quick look around and like the new look.

One or two things I noticed include:

The top nav bar overlaps the side menus, in particualr the word email us is partially obscured (IE7).

The section image boxes are not consistant in height, particularly if no price is displayed or the product title is long, this should be easy to fix.

The basket summary seems too far down the page to me personally.

The default buttons in the basket would benefit from being replaced with some nice new custom buttons.

The Drinkwell Filter section box has the price £5.99 displayed twice at section level, might be because it contains two products.

[kathynewman]

Thanks for the comments Darren - have made the changes re section box sizes and products where 2 prices appeared and am working on some new buttons.

Re Basket Summary - I would have liked it further up but couldn't quite fit it in with the menu's - always looked bit odd! Hoping that where it is will be ok especially as view basket & checkout are also in main top menu!

Kathy

[Mike Hughes]

Hi Kathy,

I like the look. A big improvment over the old design. Much more open and friendly.

I like the 'For Cats' / 'For Dogs' Separation of the menus. A bit confusing with the 'Home' and 'Email Us' buttons overlapping. I'd move them back into the centre.

Not too sure about the Brown and Green. The orange looks good, but you might want to try and find some colours that are more sympathetic. I'd probably keep the cats and dogs menus the same colour, just to highlight that they're both product menus and use the alternative colour for the info stuff.

The New products box for 'Jolly Moggy Catnip Mice' is smaller than the rest which needs sorting.

The payment type logos on the bottom should be made the same height to tidy that bit up. You might also want to close the navigation box at the bottom or continue the lines right down. Did you mean for one side line to be green and the other brown? Orange might look better.

You also have different line widths for the 'Featured' and 'New' products. They should really be the same.

Just notice the lines at the side beside the dog & Cat pictures. They look a bit odd to me. If you want to frame the central content you could consider using a different colour background at the sides. Lee does this on many sites to great effect.

Lastly, "The pet shop that comes to you" heading. That sounds to me like you're a mobile pet shop with a van. It might just be me, but worth checking it with a few people and see what they say.

Mike

[pinbrook]

I'd probably put the centre nav bar (home, aboutus, delivery etc) right at the top of the page and right aligned tomake it abit more noticable, and reduce the font size

'm also a traditionalist, i like to see features where i expect them to be, whilst i understand why you want the dog menu on the left and the cat on theright it doesnt work for me and consquently makes the site look out of kilter.

noadays people expect product menus on left, admin menu/links on right, basket summary top right

i dont understand why you have this product as 3 separate prodcuts though puddlepetcare . co.uk/acatalog/test/acatalog/Comfy_Cone_e-Collars.html

on the whole i prefer the new cleaner look, but cant help thinking if you got a graphic artist to do you a psd layout you could lift the site much more, to me it still has that amateur edge which is a shame as the site has good product info, creditibilty etc etc but just needs that final push

[acompton]

Hi Kathy,

I like the look.

...

Mike

^^^^ Everything he said.

I like the new look, but Mike has raised all the points I thought of. I have wondered about "The pet shop that comes to you" before...

[Owen Drumm]

If I had a pet I would buy from you:-) The only thing I can see is that the Add to basket button overlaps the bookmark making the bookmark open sometimes when you go to click the cart button.

[gabrielcrowe]

I had issues with scretching the window, the header looks odd. the site is dynamic with, but the header isnt?


safari 4, osx.

[kathynewman]

Thanks everyone for your comments - working on a few "tweaks" and will repost the site soon!

Re: The Pet Shop That Comes to you - we have had this as our strapline since the buisness started nearly 10 years ago - at the time there were very few online pet stores and it was perhaps a little more appropriate then than it is now - so will have a think about that.

[acompton]

Posted at 04:41AM

Cue: competition for a new strapline.

[TraceyHand]

Posted at 04:41AM

Cue: competition for a new strapline.

straplines = wrong kind of swimwear?

[Darren B]

arrrrrrrrrrrrrrr my eyes, kathy what have you done

[Darren B]

oh and the layout is broken in chrome

[spooky]

More importantly
when does it go live so i can buy the turkey toy?

malc

[TraceyHand]

have you checked to see if you can buy it on the current live site?