xverion Posted July 7, 2006 Share Posted July 7, 2006 I finally got most of the site done, still need to add the pics and product description and put in the shopping cart, and a few links will be getting closed down as items get combined, but the foundation has been built and we will have a working e-store in the next few weeks.Let me know what you think, and please sign our guestbook and sign up for the newsletter!www.islandbreezescandles.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sara Posted July 7, 2006 Share Posted July 7, 2006 It is pretty easy to navigate. Your banner there has a the Close/Minimize icons on it - is that on purpose? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xverion Posted July 7, 2006 Author Share Posted July 7, 2006 Sara,yeah, have to fix that. I don't know why that got stuck on there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ladysj Posted July 7, 2006 Share Posted July 7, 2006 It looks very nice and easy to navigate I think I would tone down a little of the white though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smiley_miley Posted July 7, 2006 Share Posted July 7, 2006 I love you site. It looks clean, easy to navigate, and the links are very visible. The only thing I would change about it is the font in the content on the index page. It is a pretty font, but more important than looks is readability. It is a bit hard to read, so I would change the font to be a script-type that is easier to the customer to read. Looks don't mean anything when you lose functionality. JMO The site looks great, though!Katie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NattyCat Posted July 7, 2006 Share Posted July 7, 2006 nice site. the font under "THANK YOU" is barely readable though - very hard on the eye - would be better with a less fussy font? I only got past first paragraph till my eyes wanted to start watering! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
northkountry Posted July 7, 2006 Share Posted July 7, 2006 JMO but I think that the font on the main page is a little hard to read. If I was going to your website I wouldnt read it because its not easy to read. Other than that it looks good! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xverion Posted July 7, 2006 Author Share Posted July 7, 2006 Thanks for the comments everyone! I am going to change that font, it was on my to-do list, just forgot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lorrie Posted July 7, 2006 Share Posted July 7, 2006 Your site looks great! I also signed your guest book! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perlgoodies Posted July 7, 2006 Share Posted July 7, 2006 Hi, The following is a collection of thoughts and opinions on the web site from a professional perspective. I do web design for a living and I ask you not take anything in this personally but just thoughts to help you get your site on the right track.Problems:1) Your main page is entited "homepage". This will need to be changed as soon as possible so search engines don't index it as such.2) Like some people mentioned, the curly font on the main page should be swapped with a more legible and supported font. Some browsers/OSes will not be able to render this font unfortunately and it is hard to read.3) Your page has no default layout. Your main page has a 3 section layout (two side bars and a content center) while the sub pages just have floating text in the middle of the screen.Each page should have an identical apperance (with exception of splash pages which shouldn't be used anyway). I would stick with the template of the index page and push that apperance on all sub pages.4) Similar to #3, your navigation menu changes location. This is a no-no and should never be done. The navigation is the single most improtant section of the web site and it needs to be consistent.Also, the top nav bar on your sub pages changes location and each has a different size. If nothing else, be sure to go through and make sure the nav bar stays put.5) Get rid of the guestbook. You WILL lose a lot of business for having a guestbook on your page. Especially considering it is a free guestbook with advertisements. Guestbooks and counters make a web site look like a home page and people don't feel safe buying from a homepage.This is a major problem.The goods:1) I like your nav menu on the main page. I don't care so much for the vertical bar on the mouseover though, but the menu itself looks like.2) The overal template of the main page looks nice. It'd all look better if your sub pages looked like this page.3) Your logo is nice though it's too close to the edge where your text meets the side of the browser. Overall the site looks good but there are a few major issues that need some looking into.Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xverion Posted July 7, 2006 Author Share Posted July 7, 2006 Thanks for the professinal perspective on the web site perlgoodies, I really do appreciate your insight into it. I did notice that the nav menu moved around a lot, and i did fix the font on the main page, which will change again I'm sure. Also, I was really on the wall about the guestbook, but seems as though I will drop it now. thanks again for the advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luci Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 Congratulations!! Sure looks like you've been busy. I wish you all the best in this endeavor. :highfive: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CareBear Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 Perl made some great points. Especially about the counters - they give me the creeps.Love the look and the logo. And fun to see you are just across the river - have to pay you a visit some time! Do you have a retail location? Or are your products carried somewhere? IMHO that sort of thing gives people a lot of confidence in a company. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xverion Posted July 8, 2006 Author Share Posted July 8, 2006 Carol-Don't have a retail location as of yet, but it is in our business plan. Actually, have a friend in NJ, who owns three retail locations, one in Woodbridge mall, who is going to start carrying our products. As for the counters, yeah, that was never in my plan for the website, I hate those things. I thought the guestbook would be a good idea, but being a business I was kind of on the wall about it, perl's suggestion actually made up my mind for me, so it was taken out.I've still got some work to do as you can see, taking pictures, getting descriptions together, getting the shopping cart up(at least I got it working!), and hopefully it will all come together in the next few weeks!Thanks for the comments! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sudsnwicks Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 I like your logo. It has a vacation feel to it, and vacation means shopping! Perlgoodies - what did you mean when you said having a counter and guestbook made it feel like a home page? What is a home page? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perlgoodies Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 I like your logo. It has a vacation feel to it, and vacation means shopping! Perlgoodies - what did you mean when you said having a counter and guestbook made it feel like a home page? What is a home page?A home page is a personal web page for a hobby. Say, you have pictures of your cat on there or your small bowling club. A personal web page has no real purpose other than collecting things you like and putting them up for your friends and family. Home pages are not a site set up for selling products or services.A web page, company page, web site, is a site developed around a common theme to present information, products or services to other people. This would include a search engine, chatroom web site, or a small candle making business.The main difference between a home page and a real web site is how it looks and who it's made for.Above, I used home page to describe the type of page a user may have created. It shouldn't be confused with "home page" meaning either:1) The main page of every web site can be called the home page2) The page your browser opens up to by default is also named a home pageWould you buy products from a web site that looked like a personal home page instead of a real web business? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sudsnwicks Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 Thanks for the explanation, Perlgoodies. I get it now. When you said home page, I was thinking of the main page of everybody's website. Hence the confusion.I did not realize before that a counter and guestbook made it look like a personal site. It does make sense though, for if you look at the websites of 'real' companies, they do not have these things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybersix Posted July 11, 2006 Share Posted July 11, 2006 Very clean and relaxing site, I like it! And I'm sure it will be beautiful when finished.And for counters.. I hate counters on sites, but sometimes they provide useful statistics (I read them all day long!), so I found two invisible counters. Nothing appears on the site and you paste the code in all pages you want to track. They give me keywords analysis, visit length, popular pages and other nice infomations on my visitors.One is in italian so I will not suggest it, the other is www.statcounter.com.They give you a small log size then say you have to pay if you want more.. well, I didn't pay for a larger log size and the counter keeps tracking all the visits.HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.