Site Review http://www.funky-cards.co.uk/

[darrentickle]

Hi

I have finally got around to making my site live and would really like to have people views on the site and get any feedback on how to improve it.

The url of the site is http://www.funky-cards.co.uk/, please let me know if you see any mistakes.

Cheers

Darren

[Duncan Rounding]

A job well done Darren. Good looking site - I wish you well.

[acompton]

I agree. Very nice site. The Security section is excellent.

I found the word 'Pearl' mis-spelt on Birthday Tie Birthday Card

The Ts & Cs look a bit fierce.
9.1 The Supplier will take all reasonable precautions to keep the details of your order and payment secure but unless the Supplier is negligent, the Supplier will not be liable for unauthorized access to information supplied by you
Can you really say this?

10.1 Product images are for illustrative purposes only and may differ from the actual product
This might need re-wording, as it looks a bit worrying. Perhaps use "differ slightly".

[RuralWeb]

Nice site - well done.


Our guidelines include:

designing the site for an 800x600 view so horizontal scrolling is not required, even for users with small screensMaybe not so good as only about 4% of users use 800x600 these days and its getting less every day. When you change text size its does make things a little squashed. Also you give accessability details for ie5 which 1% of people still use while you dont give guidance for 6&7 which are different. Minor points though

[darrentickle]

Hi

Thanks for your comments and have taken them on board and have made some changes. I'm going to review the T&C's too but have changed the 2 areas you suggested.

This has been really helpful to me and has helped out.

Cheers

Darren

[leehack]

Nice site, just a few things, only one really bad thing:


No home page link, you are forcing me to use my back button or i get stranded on pages such as your T&C's. Having just a clickable logo is not acceptable, that is just a nice extra to having the normal navigation methods.
Designed for 800x600 screens, that's at least 18 months too late - bad decision. Your target audience are not using 12 year old PCs, never forget who is going to be buying off you. It looks like a postage stamp on my large screen and a bit dwarfed.
The vertical and horizontal dotted border, looks tatty, doesn't fit in and doesn't meet or blend properly. Change it to a nice solid and feint line, it completely goes against all other design on the site.
Minimalistic is fine, but your header is plain boring IMO. You are a card shop, inject at least a bit of life, catch my eye, make me look twice when i land on your site.
If you insist on sticking with the 800x600 (ie you have gone mad), then border the outside of the site, i don't like the way the top right part just blends into the background. I'd contemplate a background color, it will bring the site forward and send the background back, like it is a framed picture, much more appealing IMO.


Apart from that, nice job.

[george]

I'd say the colour scheme is bland. (just me by the looks of it so nothing to worry about lol)

[darrentickle]

Again thanks for the comments, was looking to change the Masthead as agree think it needs to be brought more to life. Yes need a link to the homepage and will add that too. When I did test the site a few months ago and did it large had user that where using laptop's on 13 inch screen asking for it too be smaller, may be I made it too small. What size do you normally build too then? Also will add a background colour just need to test some out.

Thanks again for the input which is really useful.

Darren

[leehack]

1024 fixed (1001) or fluid.

[completerookie]

When I did test the site a few months ago and did it large had user that where using laptop's on 13 inch screen asking for it too be smallerI think you have to look at the majority, not the minority (within reason).
there are people still on 256 colours, but we don't think about them any more, we also don't consider people with mini mobile screens (although perhaps we should be thinking more of them)

[Duncan Rounding]

For normal PC viewing I think the widescreen is becoming more prominant. A fluid layout therefore is becoming more important so you can fill the screen width and leave less below the fold.

[kathynewman]

Lovely site - though agree that the header needs to be more jazzy - you have some wonderful cards - would think that you could do lot more with the header.

One of my New Years resolutions was to organise birthday/anniversary cards etc for everyone at the begining of the year - but so far hadn't got round to doing it so i'm now off to do some shopping once worked out how many cards need to buy!!

Kathy

[RuralWeb]

we also don't consider people with mini mobile screens (although perhaps we should be thinking more of them)Some of us do and this time next year it will be more important to have a site working on a mobile than on a PC

[OriginalTouch]

Nice clear site.

Just a tip:
Noticed on your contact page that your email link is a "mailto:"
You may prefer to change that into code to avoid spammers?
(Been a victim myself many years ago and would never be so clear with the email address again!)

[darrentickle]

Thanks again for all you comments and taking note of them all and going to be making some changes to the site over the next few days. I'm interested in the fluid layout sites, as John Lewis did have a fluid layout site but then about 6 months ago changed to a fix width. Also a lot of the major retailers seem to be sticking to this rule too.

Thanks again for all your help will post again once In have made the changes.

Cheers

Darren

[leehack]

Fixed is the present and fluid is the future, mainly driven by such radically different screen sizes at the moment IMO. Unless you convert an actinic site to full CSS including floating sections, i can't imagine an actinic site looking good on 1024 and 1900 or higher. All the 1900 or higher layout would look like is a stretched 1024 layout.

[darrentickle]

Hi

It's taken me a while but have now updated the site again and made some changes including the colour. Had some designer friends and developers look at it and have got some good feedback and they are all saying it's better then the last design. So fingers crossed this is now all done.

Thanks again for all your comments and feedback which have been really helpful.

Cheers

Darren

[Kultya]

Very smart Darren. Nice clean lines and no clutter, its the kind of site I'd be happy to navigate around for a good while without being irritated. Not that I'm interested in your particular products but you know what I mean!

I did briefly look the other day and although I can't remember what it looked like, I do remember cringing a little!

Cheers
Malc
PS: You owe me one when I launch next week! :D
Only taken me a year!

[RuralWeb]

Much better - just sort out your links page as the links are opening in the same window and taking people away from your site. Also links to search engines are a bit naff - better to get some to relevant sites that are of interest to your visitors.

[Paul Bulpit]

I'd say the colour scheme is bland.

Me too.

The 'masthead' needs more 'zing' in my opinion.

[darrentickle]

Thanks for you feedback and will change the links page, one of the pages that I have been meaning to change.

I have been in talks with some contacts I have that design site for large corporate and it seem that have neutral colours is a better option as it focuses the users attention onto the products which is key, I think any way.

Now I have just got to work on the SEO/Marketing side of it.

Cheers

Darren

[leehack]

It's stretching the recommendation quite a bit to liken a small card website to a large corporate website. You certainly can't throw blanket rules like that across all sectors. If so surely you should be having a team of 6 guys running your website, just like they do?

You need to be in touch with what your target audience are expecting and a happy, bright and vibrant site is surely what majority of your audience would want to see? It doesn't have to be over the top, just inject a bit of life into the site.

[darrentickle]

I can see your point, and will try and do something with the masthead but think this is a clean looking layout and makes it easy to navigate around and uses neutral colours.

Darren

[chris ashdown]

Nice site

With the low cost of your products I imagine profit is hard to come by, so I would suggest you make a small charge for postage even if its only £0.50 per order it will make a big difference to your income and people will be expecting to pay a small charge

That way you could also offer free postage to purchasers of 5 or more cards at the same time (you may have this already I just had a quick look)

[Duncan Rounding]

Perhaps even a minimum order value.

[parklifeclothes]

I feel your images would benefit if you were to change what you sit the cards on when taking photo's, you can see it seems to be a wooden shelf with wallpaper behind, just looks a little homely. How about adding images such as a happy couple tieing the knot on the wedding card section. You could also add a tagline under your logo, maybe something like ...cards for all occasions.

[parklifeclothes]

Nice site

With the low cost of your products I imagine profit is hard to come by, so I would suggest you make a small charge for postage even if its only £0.50 per order it will make a big difference to your income and people will be expecting to pay a small charge

That way you could also offer free postage to purchasers of 5 or more cards at the same time (you may have this already I just had a quick look)

Would also encourage a few buyers to add an extra card or two to their order

[RuralWeb]

Your related items links should really be in blue or at least underlined to indicate they are links - as they are they just look like the rest of the text and people will miss them

[darrentickle]

Thanks again for all your input and have made some more changes to the site.

I'm going to look at taking new photos of the product next month as will be adding some new products too. So will try and make it look more non home like :D .

Cheers

Darren