Website Review

bagit_ie

Hi all

I thought there used to be a stickied thread for website reviews, but I can't find it now. Please move me to the right place if necessary

But would just like some feedback on my site. It's my first site, which I'm hoping to be fully ready in the next few days.

I've tested it on all the major browsers (I think) and seems to be ok, though may not be fully compatible

www.bagit.ie

Thanks

curious18

Hi there,

Very professional... hope you do well out of it.....

bagit_ie

thanks Curious

Any other feedback would be appreciated

curious18

Hi there,

Just one other point - very small problem. When i go to Contact Us, there is an error on the bottom left of page with a scroll bar? I can send you a printscreen if you wish.

tricky D

Slow to load for me.

Some of the white text on the whiter end of the blue to white background gradients are hard to read. Contrast is your users' friend.

Put your postal address and other info (phone, email, social media etc) in your contact page also.

Double-clicking on the individual product photos to get them to blow up is not intuitive. SO much so that you actually have to give instruction on how to do it which can be missed at first. Use a highslide or lightbox popup instead.

You would be better treating the free delivery as a star-type badge in a different colour (red/orange would be good).

Your email addresses are not linked as mailtos.

Some of your spelling, punctuation and grammar needs to be poofread properly and if your main market is European, don't use American English.

Search Terms is better descirbed as tag cloud, wasn't sure what that link was going to lead to. It's also something I'd expect on a homepage only imo.

The forms layout could be changed to left align all input elements and put your submit/login buttons under the form not down and to the right ie. out of context.

I can buy as a guest, thanks for that. Requiring registration is a pain and a significant percentage bail out if it's required.

Some sort of motif in the logo would be better.

bagit_ie

Hi Tricky D

Thanks a million for going through all that. Responses below.

Slow to load for me.

Can you tell me what browser you're using? As I've tested it against other major websites (google, facebook) and it's only very slightly slower (~ 1 second).

Some of the white text on the whiter end of the blue to white background gradients are hard to read. Contrast is your users' friend.

I see what you mean, will work on them (I take it "best sellers" on the left column and "half price fragrances" in main ad are what you're referring to)

Put your postal address and other info (phone, email, social media etc) in your contact page also.

Actually I thinking of getting rid of the Form in the Contact Us page altogether, as personally I don't like filling out those forms on other websites. This is cause I presume they're ignored, and because as a customer I prefer to send from my own email account so I have a record of it. What do you think? Or maybe I completely wrong and people prefer to stay on the page?

Double-clicking on the individual product photos to get them to blow up is not intuitive. SO much so that you actually have to give instruction on how to do it which can be missed at first. Use a highslide or lightbox popup instead.

Am trying to figure out how to change that but no luck yet. Will keep trying.

You would be better treating the free delivery as a star-type badge in a different colour (red/orange would be good).

Do you mean the banner on the top? Or when you're checking out?

Your email addresses are not linked as mailtos.

Done! Thanks


Some of your spelling, punctuation and grammar needs to be poofread properly and if your main market is European, don't use American English.

thanks.

Search Terms is better descirbed as tag cloud, wasn't sure what that link was going to lead to. It's also something I'd expect on a homepage only imo.
Ok, would have been more familiar with "search terms" myself, but will take this on board.

The forms layout could be changed to left align all input elements and put your submit/login buttons under the form not down and to the right ie. out of context.

Not sure what you mean? You're referring to checkout right?


Some sort of motif in the logo would be better.

The simpler the better imo. I'll mess around with some motifs and if I come up with a good one, will put it in. But, not going to force it in there for the sake of it. Thanks for the suggestion though.

bagit_ie

curious18 wrote: »

Hi there,

Just one other point - very small problem. When i go to Contact Us, there is an error on the bottom left of page with a scroll bar? I can send you a printscreen if you wish.

Thanks Curious

Just noticed this when I'm using Safari, can't see it when I'm using other browsers.

Can you confirm if you're using Safari?

tricky D

bagit_ie wrote: »

Can you tell me what browser you're using? As I've tested it against other major websites (google, facebook) and it's only very slightly slower (~ 1 second).

FF6 on eircom 8MB

bagit_ie wrote: »

Actually I thinking of getting rid of the Form in the Contact Us page altogether, as personally I don't like filling out those forms on other websites. This is cause I presume they're ignored, and because as a customer I prefer to send from my own email account so I have a record of it. What do you think? Or maybe I completely wrong and people prefer to stay on the page?

NO. Do not get rid of the form. Users might not have their email client available so need the form. Also beware of overiding users'needsd with your own preferences. Almost always it's user prefences which come first.

bagit_ie wrote: »

You would be better treating the free delivery as a star-type badge in a different colour (red/orange would be good).

Do you mean the banner on the top? Or when you're checking out?

Something like

bagit_ie wrote: »

The forms layout could be changed to left align all input elements and put your submit/login buttons under the form not down and to the right ie. out of context.

Not sure what you mean? You're referring to checkout right?

Eg. Your contact form would be better laid out with Email moved between Name and Telephone. The Submit button should be aligned flush left under the comment field as opposed down and way over to the right, off the grid.

bagit_ie wrote: »

Some sort of motif in the logo would be better.

The simpler the better imo. I'll mess around with some motifs and if I come up with a good one, will put it in. But, not going to force it in there for the sake of it. Thanks for the suggestion though.

I very much agree with less and simpler is more with logos. I was just thinking a bag outline might be apt. 50/50 margin call though.

Lastly, you're not using the title (on some pages) and description (on most pages) tags for SEO. The description controls the text Google displays in results instead of it making a best guess.

hth/gl

VMotion

bagit_ie, take a look at your fav icon. You loose it on dark backgrounds.
On the front page it looks as if you are missing the fourth column or why did you push all your products to the left?
Central banner is stripy, if you want to put gradients there save in higher resolution.
Overall you need to bring up brightness and contrast. Good effort but a lot can be improved.

Keep going!
Best of luck with your project.

bagit_ie

tricky D wrote: »

FF6 on eircom 8MB

NO. Do not get rid of the form. Users might not have their email client available so need the form. Also beware of overiding users'needsd with your own preferences. Almost always it's user prefences which come first.

Something like


Eg. Your contact form would be better laid out with Email moved between Name and Telephone. The Submit button should be aligned flush left under the comment field as opposed down and way over to the right, off the grid.

I very much agree with less and simpler is more with logos. I was just thinking a bag outline might be apt. 50/50 margin call though.

Lastly, you're not using the title (on some pages) and description (on most pages) tags for SEO. The description controls the text Google displays in results instead of it making a best guess.

hth/gl

I've sorted out a couple of the minor issues you mentioned, and have started working on improving contrast. I'll try to get the contact form AND contact details together on the same page.

Hopefully will have gotten through everything by Monday.

Will be back here again when I'm finished.

Thanks again for you help, truly appreciated!

bagit_ie

VMotion wrote: »

bagit_ie, take a look at your fav icon. You loose it on dark backgrounds.
On the front page it looks as if you are missing the fourth column or why did you push all your products to the left?
Central banner is stripy, if you want to put gradients there save in higher resolution.
Overall you need to bring up brightness and contrast. Good effort but a lot can be improved.

Keep going!
Best of luck with your project.

Thanks for taking the time to have a look VMotion.

The contrast problem was mentioned by trickyD above also, so it's clearly an issue (and one I hadn't noticed myself - must be my screen settings). I'll get working on that. Will get rid of some of the gradients, and maybe use a bluer blue on the nav bar.

Re: 4th column on the front page - yes that's an issue that's driving me mad! I've tried everything to get it sorted, and have gotten all sorts of suggestions from the CMS creators (Magento) but nothing has worked. I'll keep trying though.

Central banner is stripy - will get that sorted

favicon - thanks, will have a look at that too.

Overall, thanks for the help guys. There's certainly some things there that I never would have noticed myself