New Site, pre launch checks :)

flamegrill

Hi All,

We're going to be launch a new addition to our VPS site. The app basically will let the customer/end user choose their OS, plan and add a control panel if they want to and then it'll take them to our store, cart fully equipped with their choices.

Can you please review it in different browsers etc and if you don't mind give us some feedback please? I didn't write any of this so go gentle, it was on our in house devs.

note: java script is required for it in its initial launch.

http://www.blacknightvps.com/vps-shop/vps.py/vps-basic

thanks,

Paul

EKRIUQ

Looks fine in the firefox browser, its this whole VPS thing that confuses me, is there a comparision grid that I can compare to shared hosting and dedicated server.

mneylon

Which version of Firefox?

I'll be putting up some more content on the site to explain the differences / advantages / disadvantages etc., of VPS vs. shared vs dedicated

DonkeyStyle \o/

Problems on Firefox [2.0.0.14]
Horizontal scrollbar no matter how large I make the window, probably some 100% width value somewhere with a margin on the outside.

Also there's a wee graphical anomaly on the 'basic' button, when selected. (see attachment)

The site loads pretty slowly, but maybe this is just the test server.

flamegrill

Hi Donkey,

Thanks for that. We're going to change the images so that it's more obvious what plan you've selected and I'll make sure that images are nicely rounded

Horizontal scroll Bar FF3B5 is affected as well as 2 on Linux, will mention that to the devs too.

thanks.

DJB

Looks really good. Wasn't expecting things to fly around the page like that but it works to good effect. Thumbs up!

I've resized to 1024x768 on my browser though and the width stretches past this dimension. The width of the rest of the site is fixed so why is this page fluid? Not always good to jump between the 2. When you go to the next page, it goes back to fixed again.

Messed around with it in FF2, IE7 on PC and FF2, Safari on MAC - here's my views:

- IE7 PC: when I moused over "buy now" it didn't turn to a hand (fix that with css). I clicked on it and nothing happened, clicked again and decided to wait this time. It took a couple of seconds before it indicated to me that it was about to change page. Just my impatience really but something to note.
- FF2 PC: all good, no complaints. Same second or 2 delay when you click buy now on first page. Also happening when looking up a domain to register. I know it can't be helped but maybe you could put a overlay with loading/searching/whatever and grey/white out the page behind while the next page loads. You've done this much, wouldn't be hard to add.
- FF2 MAC: looks fine, same as PC
- Safari3 MAC: rounded corners js thing don't seem to work properly here. All top right and left corners have black dotes in them.

Lots of duplicate id's on the forms causing it not to validate. Easy enough to fix but not that you care too much on a checkout page but would be nice to have fixed. Code seems clear and nice though.

jquery's a great little addition to any site. Is it handling all the jumping around, showing, hiding, etc?

Overall checkout process is intelligent and straight forward. Didn't get lost, could go back if necessary without losing choices, etc. I think I'd separate the order details at the top from what's happening below (different background or something). I got a little confused in that I thought I had to add a domain but not necessary. Maybe it's just me.

Possibly style up your Terms of Service page a little. Looks too plain. Bit of padding, bit of colour = nice!

I really like that you can jump to any point in the checkout process and back again. Pretty neat.

Overall, I really like it. These systems can be a pain in the a**e to build and get right so that they work from a business point of view but are also usable from a customers point of view. I really think you've done a good job of it. You've a lot of option to take into account and you've managed to do it well.

Good job!

Dave

flamegrill

Hi David,

Thanks for the comments. I've passed the URL onto our dev people who'll look at those issues tomorrow.

The slowness is for a couple of reasons and that'll be addressed in a further update.

Cheers,

Paul

flamegrill

Hi David,

We've put some of your suggestions in place, can you have a look please?

Thanks,

Paul

DJB

Which ones? Just had a quick look and didn't see any difference. I tried a hard refresh too.

flamegrill

Good point ... some other peoples things have gone in heh. Main things fixed today are:

Plesk pricing included, the Starter/Basic etc menu is no more pronounced and it's very obvious which one is selected.

Theres a note saying "Please choose your Operating system of choice" or similar along with a vat note there now.

Also if you change the billing period and you've selected plesk already, it dynamically updates the plesk pricing on the fly.

The horizontal scroll bar issues is also gone

Paul

peejay1986

When the BASIC button is selected using Opera, the 3 other options disappear. Is this supposed to happen?

flamegrill

peejay1986 nope it isn't... bug opened with our devs, thanks for the heads up!

I don't use opera myself, but I've FF2, FF3B5, IE6, IE7 all on my ubuntu machine so I can see most of the breakage. As do our Devs.

Cheers,

Paul

WizZard

Works fine in Safari 3.1.1 on Mac OS X 10.5.2. Looks good too (apart from the rounded corners, screenshot attached)

peejay1986

flamegrill wrote: »

peejay1986 nope it isn't... bug opened with our devs, thanks for the heads up!

I don't use opera myself, but I've FF2, FF3B5, IE6, IE7 all on my ubuntu machine so I can see most of the breakage. As do our Devs.

Cheers,

Paul

Not many people do use Opera. I'm a bit of a loner on this case

dkell

When you click on "What is Plesk8?" the dialog that comes up is missing part of its top right corner in FF2.

Also, when you click on that link, the dialog box appears at the top of the screen (so the link you clicked on is no longer visible) - it may be more personal preference than a bug, but I never like that.

flamegrill

dkell that'll be fixed in a bit I think :-)

Can you all have a look at the original URL I posted again please? We've made quite a few changes in the layout and design aspects and tried to continue the main design more into the application.

Thanks.

Paul

adm

firefox 2.0.0.14
res:1680x1020

Home page looks wrong.
checkout the attached image

flamegrill

adm: What OS? It looks Ok in FF2 and FF3B5 and IE 6/7 here. Also safari and Opera (bar a few small things).

Ta.

Paul

adm

sorry. windows XP