What dyou think of these mock ups?

Cianos

Hey folks,
I'm having a site built soon, and I'm doing all the design work to save on costs. As you can see from the pics, the site is for a bike shop.

We'll be stocking only two different bikes in the beginning, so there's no need for an extensive catalogue website.

The name of the site isn't "bicycle-shop.de" btw, that's just a stand-in name for the design process.

Front page;
Aim is to highlight the two main products for sale and give them plenty of front page room. The price is important so I've made that quite big. Each product is given a short description on the front page with a link to read more (pics will be clickable too).

The wide image at the top of the homepage is going to be a flash slideshow.





Product Page

Fairly simple showcase of each type of bike. Changeable main image and thumbnails to show details of bike. More room for more detailed description. Link for customer to click and buy.



Any advice and criticism about what I've done so far on any aspects would be really helpful

Liam Byrne

On a netbook, above 50% of the visual area of the page is the logo and menu.

Navigation font graphics are also hard to read.

I'd make the logo smaller and go for a horizontal menu beside that, so that it wasn't taking up so much space.

Other than that - not bad.

I'd also consider allowing (somewhere) for "related" sales or highlights - e.g. an Argos or Amazon style "You might also with to consider...." because if you're buying a bike then an easy link to helmets, lights, etc would be useful.

Cianos

Liam Byrne wrote: »

On a netbook, above 50% of the visual area of the page is the logo and menu.

I'd make the logo smaller and go for a horizontal menu beside that, so that it wasn't taking up so much space.

I spotted the layout on a template website and quite liked the concept because it gives room for a big logo and makes the page look a bit more interesting than the standard horizontal navigation menu. I get what you're saying about the amount of space it takes up though so I'll see about reducing the size.

Navigation font graphics are also hard to read.

I love the font but yeah, will probably have to change it eventually

I'd also consider allowing (somewhere) for "related" sales or highlights - e.g. an Argos or Amazon style "You might also with to consider...." because if you're buying a bike then an easy link to helmets, lights, etc would be useful.

By this do you mean affiliate link to amazon or something for related products, or our own stock? I hope to eventually stock things like helmets and lights but for now we're just focusing on the bikes themselves, but linking externally could be a good idea?

Thanks for the help!

p

I'd go with a more traditional horizontal navigation. There's no reason to innovate here, you're not getting any advantage.

Also, I would suggest putting real text into all your mockups. When you put fillter text in there it tricks you into ignoring some important details.

Add breadcrumbs navigation in there too.

jmcc

As p said above - a horizontal navigation is better. Breaking up the navigation to the left and right of the logo breaks the visual cues and has the user's eyes glancing from the left to the right to try to find where to go. If you really want to get into the user interface ideas and web usability, get a book called "Don't Make Me Think".

Regards...jmcc

Liam Byrne

Cianos wrote: »

By this do you mean affiliate link to amazon or something for related products, or our own stock? I hope to eventually stock things like helmets and lights

I meant internally - the top navigation has "Accessories"

No point linking to somewhere else that people can buy stuff.

Cianos

p wrote: »

I'd go with a more traditional horizontal navigation. There's no reason to innovate here, you're not getting any advantage.

Also, I would suggest putting real text into all your mockups. When you put fillter text in there it tricks you into ignoring some important details.

Add breadcrumbs navigation in there too.

When you say real text do you mean instead of the lorem ipsum stuff?

Also, could anyone recommend a web-safe font that would compliment the overall design?

Will add the breadcrumbs, thanks for the suggestion.

Any opinions on the logo?

As p said above - a horizontal navigation is better. Breaking up the navigation to the left and right of the logo breaks the visual cues and has the user's eyes glancing from the left to the right to try to find where to go. If you really want to get into the user interface ideas and web usability, get a book called "Don't Make Me Think".

I get ye. I still quite prefer the visual style of what I have, but I'll experiment with conventional menu and see how it looks.

I meant internally - the top navigation has "Accessories"

No point linking to somewhere else that people can buy stuff.

lol, of course - I had put in the Accessories link because we'll have it eventually but kinda forgot about it ever since cuz it's not part of our initial plans!

Thanks for the suggestion, will keep that in mind.



Thanks very much.