Advice please

[Sylvia]

. . . or at least a critical appraisal, please!

If anyone has the time, I would appreciate comments about my website - have tried to keep it simple and uncluttered but representative of me and my shop. I have sorted out HSBC ECommerce (unless they know better) and need to go 'live' as soon as possible. Having no knowledge whatsoever of hosting or website construction a few months ago, this has been a very steep learning curve.

Sylvia
www.star-lite.me.uk
Email: sylvia@star-lite.me.uk

Thank you to everyone who has posted queries in the Community - they have helped tremendously.

[masjohnson]

congrats

on climbing that learning curve. I think you've done great from a standing start. Two points: couldn't see your VAT reg number anywhere, plus it may be best to also have contact details on your home page.

Cheers,
MJ

[Gongshow]

Perhaps more pictures ?

Your catalog sections page is very type heavy, it might be nicer to have three or four of the catogeries with a thumb nail picture from the section.

You sell pretty things let people see them as soon as possible.

david

[Sylvia]

Advice please

Thank you Mark and David for your comments - other opinions always make you think (or should do).

My contact details can be put on the home page - now another learning curve on how to centralise text, as I have just tried to do it with lopsided results! The text that is there already is obviously temporary anyway. I am not VAT registered, so this bit is OK.

I also do not like the appearance of the catalog section page and wondered how to make it more appealing - now I know. Thumbnails sound like a good idea, so this is another learning curve for me to master!

David - thank you for the 'pretty things' comment. I do my best!!!

Sylvia

[magicalwonders]

Hi Sylvia,

Nice site. Loads nice and fast! A couple things you might want to think about. You have two links called Catalogue and Products which are for the same section. A slight inconsistency maybe.

The other thing I noticed was that the links don't seem to change colour after visiting them. You have a fairly big site with lots of sections. After a few minutes it's easy to forget where you've been and where you haven't!

Just a couple of thoughts. I'm sure you'll do really well with the site.

Best wishes,

Myles Sinclair

[darrentickle]

Hi Sylia

The site loads quickly and the colours balance well. From a user's point of view you might want to highlight some of your key product on your home page.

The product page's are very text heavy which can be a bit off putting for some people, not sure how your target audience is but might be worth getting feedback from them, I always find that really useful. One of point when you click on the info page the text seems smaller, might just be my browser.

On the whole it does what you want it to do which is good. So well done.

Just a question for you, did you have any issue with HSBC when you first set up your store as I'm getting an error message saying:

Transaction was rejected by HSBC. Message:
The order is invalid because the order ID is a duplicate.

Good luck

Darren

[Sylvia]

Advice please

Thank you also to Myles and Darren for your helpful comments. As a result of the above, products now reads catalog. When I looked at the 'visited links' colours they did change very subtly from purple to black! Now they change to lavender!! Contact details are now on home page and centred.

'After a few minutes it's easy to forget where you've been and where you haven't!' - this applies also to me trying to fathom out how to use Catalog!
Darren - it's not your browser nor your eyes, the text is definitely smaller on the Info Page and I had nothing to do with this - it's all down to Catalog.

I have not been able to sort out how to incorporate thumbnails yet and how to lighten the text.

Darren - HSBC seems to do their own thing. No, I have not had your problem yet! Mine have been trying to prove to HSBC that they have not got their settings right and it has taken time and patience. In the end, I asked them if their response to 'Amazon' would be the same as it was to me - I was then put on hold for about 5 minutes and then another setting was corrected. It's great fun!

Sylvia

[darrentickle]

Hi

Not sure if you are using a style sheet to set your font size which might be why your text size is so small. If that is the case I would play around with style sheet and increase the font size until it's at a readable size.

Thanks for the advice on HSBC; I could believe that they aren't open over the weekend?

Cheers

Darren

[Sylvia]

Advice please

Success! The text on the Info page is now readable. I have been trying to include thumbnails on the Site Map page and failed dismally. I have been working on the P_SiteRoot_Index.html template in the PreviewHTML sub directory. Is this the correct template to use, please? I am using Dreamweaver for the first time and 'what I see, is not what I get'. I know I have to uncompact the files and carry out a full preview of the site before I can do anything - or at least that is what the Actinic Help files say - and then save the amended file.

It don't work!

Darren - have you sorted HSBC problems out?

Sylvia

[darrentickle]

Hi

I didn't think you need to change the templates begining with a P_ as these are only for previewing the site, so that might be your issue with not seeing what you want?

As to the HSBC issue I sorted out one, but did a test transaction just now and the server seems down. I have sent an email to support and will see what happens. I'm a bit worried about this as I haven't done any marketing yet until I know that this is 100% ok.

Cheers

Darren

[Sylvia]

Advice please

Done it - using the facilities within Actinic and not having to resort to another major learning curve just yet! Thanks everyone for the suggestions, they have been worthwhile incorporating.

Until the next problem when I go 'live' . . .

Sylvia