Site review: The Digital Room

[Timmo]

Hi All,

Wondering if you guys could cast you eyes over my redesigned site, I'm specifically interested in the path from 1 of the google adword landing page (1 for each main product)

http://www.thedigitalroom.co.uk/products/acrylic/acrylic_prints.html

through to the checkout.

I seem to be losing people on the way.

I have been told by one lost soul that it's too wordy / to much info.

I'm trying to provide all the info so the client has an understanding as to what there desired print will look like.

Thanks in advance.

TimmoB

[Duncan Rounding]

I don't think there is a clear call to action, the process seems long wiinded, but most importantly there's no pricing.

[jont]

I have ordered several canvas prints in the past and the process was straight forward.... I would give up in an instance trying to use your site.

Why do I need to provide name and email with an upload? That is rhetorical as I know why but is not the way e-commerce sites operate... check out Normans plug-in for uploading which ties the artwork to the order.

Prices. These should be against the product not on a separate page. Someone finds your acrylic prints and the prices are not shown and have to click around to find. When I followed your link I though I was on a brochure page as no "buy" button.

Half the product page is taken up with how to order. This is wrong. If the process needs explaining to that extent it is too complex. The page should be about the acrylic print and not how to order. There is no info on the material, thickness, how it is printed, quality... there is a link to the homepage for details but again you are taking people away from the product which is the number 1 cardinal sin on e-commerce sites.

Landing on the homepage there is no obvious way on how to find the products. None of the large images are clickable, none of the side images are clickable... just a few text links buried in the text.

[leehack]

I agree also, in trying to be as helpful as you can (good thing), you have actually made the process seem very long winded. The balance of information on the pages is all wrong, products are king, not the process to buy them. There is too much need to leave pages also, once they are there, give them all the info they need, the only reasons to click away should be to see a larger image or to click the add to cart button.

Have a look into the 'tabber' on drillpine.biz, i think it could work great on your site, it provides lots of info, but also keeps you on page. I am after a large canvas of my son, so was going to test the process, the last thing i would ever want to do first is upload my image though and i was soon put off.

A key thing to do when building a site is have a look into what the best 2 in your marketplace are doing, we all want to be different for sure, but the basics ingredients of a successful website are often the same.

[Timmo]

Fairly brutal but truthfull replies, thanks for that.

I have been thinking that I have over complicated the whole thing.

Jont, could you tell me who Norman is?

I lose a lot of people during the upload process.

Look like a trip back to the drawing board.

Thanks again.

TimmoB

[leehack]

Norman Rouxel - member of the forum, same website and guy that i mentioned i.e. www.drillpine.biz

[RuralWeb]

There is an official standard that you can use to specify the readability of your web pages. The Flesch Reading Ease test is a United States governmental standard to determine how easy a text is to read. It measures the approximate level of education necessary to understand the web page content.
Higher scores indicate that the text is easier to read, and lower numbers mark harder-to-read texts.

A high Reading Easy Score means that a text is easy to understand. The Grade Level shows the number of years of education that are required to understand the text.
Make sure that your web pages are easy to understand. Do not require too much work from your website visitors.
Make it easy to understand your web pages, make it easy to navigate them, make it easy to buy on your website. The easier your website is to use, the more you will sell.

[Mark H]

Given that you have the artwork instantly (uploaded photo) on order, and assuming you are not sending the work out of house, I think you might get a few more customers if your turnaround was signficatnly less than 10 days - some people might be looking for (relatively) last minute gift ideas.

[RuralWeb]

Norman does a plugin where you can upload an image and it will show the image in the item you are selling so you could use that to show the picture in a frame size/shape or whatever - certainly would help with the more difficult shoppers. Design the site as it it were for a 5 year old to use

[Timmo]

The previous incarnation of the site was a lot simpler to use, so we will be making a quick redesign.

I have contacted Norman with regard to his plugins and suspect that we will be going down that route.

Thanks for your help all, I'll post the results of the redesign when it's done.

Timmo.

[Timmo]

Hello again,

After much consideration we decided to create a seperate site to the original and see how it fairs, so please take a look and let us know your thoughts.

http://www.canvasprinthouse.co.uk/

as the web coding is very much a part time when i get a moment to squeeze it in affair, it takes a while for me to get stuff sorted.

I know that i have issues with the actinic section in ie6.0 this is down to the fact that actinic doesn't seem to like my if statements for bringing alternate css for the different versions of ie. and help or suggestions for this would be gratefully received.

Lastly does anyone else use a three monitor system when coding actinic 9, my version keeps crashing and i'm wondering if it's the video cards causing this.

Thanks in advance,

Timmo.

[TraceyHand]

I know that i have issues with the actinic section in ie6.0 this is down to the fact that actinic doesn't seem to like my if statements for bringing alternate css for the different versions of ie. and help or suggestions for this would be gratefully received.

Try unchecking the 'compact html' box in Design > Design Options.
This should help solve the problem...however, it will add to your page sizes.


Lastly does anyone else use a three monitor system when coding actinic 9, my version keeps crashing and i'm wondering if it's the video cards causing this.

Thanks in advance,

Timmo.

IIRC, someone else posted about V9 crashing on a multiscreen setup but I don't think a solution was found (or, at least, one wasn't posted)
Could be worth hunting around for the thread to see if there are similarities between your and their setup that could offer an explanation.

[Timmo]

Hi Tracey,

As I only have a few products I do not think the page size will be an issue, so i will try that solution and let you know.

Edit to say, yep that sorted the problem thanks heaps, now i just need to edit some css and it's there. :)

Actinic have told me that they don't have a solution as yet, i feel the best bet is to ditch the third monitor and see if that cures the issue. Again i'll post results.

Thanks.

Timmo

[Mark H]

This might help as well with serving different CSS to different browsers:

http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=21151&highlight=uplevel

:)

[Cheapprices4u]

tim can i ask is that one fo norm's plugins you used for uploads or something different?

[jont]

Doesn't look like it Gareth - Normans attaches the details to the order so does not require the name and email details.

[Timmo]

hi Gareth,

No the upload is from my original site slightly adapted to add a flash movie on submit so that the client has reassurance that the site hasn't frozen.

I have looked at lots of different upload systems, but none of them have quite the results i am looking for.

On my main site this upload system as had well over 7000 uploads from clients, most of whom are quite happy to enter there details.

In general what do people think about the colour of the site, is it a bit girly?

and what about having the other boxes content on all pages, ie sizes and prices?

Do you think that there is a good enough call to action to purchase?

Timmo.

[Duncan Rounding]

I think the colour of the Start Your Order button would be better with the rollover images reversed - ie more eye catching to start.

It is a bit girly TBH but not sure if that matters too much - depends on your audience I guess.

I don't like the o'old fashioned' reverse drop shadow on the logo.

[Cheapprices4u]

sorry took so long to get back to this
so which one did you end up going with out of curiousity?
i keep lookign at norms patch but i like to tinker ;)

[gabrielcrowe]

"There is a problem with your image's size."

..but you gave me no criteria?

i like the idea, but this is executed all wrong.

- dont collect emails at the upload stage
- no names either.
- the need to see it on a canvas. use the gd library.
- use an ajax/php uploader. get your head around the web 2.0
- loose the flash.

[Timmo]

Ok it's me again,

Taking on board all previous comments, we've decided on a new approach,
this is very much work in progress, no navigation works yet and i haven't fixed ie6 yet either.

Before i go to far, i am looking for comments on the overal look and the call to action. I have a lot of work ahead, i don't want to waste my time if you guys feel i'm barking up the wrong tree.

http://www.art4kidz.co.uk/

The url is a temporary one and nothing to do with the site.

Thanks in advance.

Timmo

[davie_ne1]

we use a three screen setup running under vista and we had not had any problems with actinic crashing

[gabrielcrowe]

in this new site, you could move the 'start your order' button above the people.

i had to scroll down to get at it.