Wedsite launched: feedback welcome
Discussion
As regular readers will remember I've been having difficulties with the web-design company building my website (the advice you guys gave has been helpful: thanks).
Well the site has finally gone live, and they have said they will give me a copy of the code. I'd appreciate people having a look & giving me some feedback, as long as its not too technical: this is the first web-site I've had and I don't understand lots of the technical stuff!
Does it work reasonably well & is it fit for purpose?
Have I been had?
Will I be able to add/develop it in future?
I was disappointed that it sits in the middle of the screen, like a page, rather than filling the screen, but they assured me this was the way to build it so it would work properly on any computer.
Its almost all CMS so I can ammend text & images as much as I like, which is better than I'd expected.
Not sure if I should put link here
http://www.everydayclassics.co.uk/home
or rely on people going to my profile, but no doubt someone will put me right.
Thanks
Ed
Well the site has finally gone live, and they have said they will give me a copy of the code. I'd appreciate people having a look & giving me some feedback, as long as its not too technical: this is the first web-site I've had and I don't understand lots of the technical stuff!
Does it work reasonably well & is it fit for purpose?
Have I been had?
Will I be able to add/develop it in future?
I was disappointed that it sits in the middle of the screen, like a page, rather than filling the screen, but they assured me this was the way to build it so it would work properly on any computer.
Its almost all CMS so I can ammend text & images as much as I like, which is better than I'd expected.
Not sure if I should put link here
http://www.everydayclassics.co.uk/home
or rely on people going to my profile, but no doubt someone will put me right.
Thanks
Ed
To be honest it looks a pretty good job.
Everything works as it should and it is a size that will fit any size of screen. Better than a lot of "so called" web designers (i think there was another guy on here that had a website designed bigger than 1024).
The only thing i would change, is that when you click a link, it reloads the whole page rather than just the pane that is in focus. The trade off is that you dont have a different header pic on every page, but it will definitely improve the "clickability" of the site.
You seem to have a lot of useful info on the site. The mistake a lot of people make is thinking that the look is more impressive than the site. All the successful sites have decent content and make that content "quickly" accessible.
Apart from that, it is actually a pretty good job.
Everything works as it should and it is a size that will fit any size of screen. Better than a lot of "so called" web designers (i think there was another guy on here that had a website designed bigger than 1024).
The only thing i would change, is that when you click a link, it reloads the whole page rather than just the pane that is in focus. The trade off is that you dont have a different header pic on every page, but it will definitely improve the "clickability" of the site.
You seem to have a lot of useful info on the site. The mistake a lot of people make is thinking that the look is more impressive than the site. All the successful sites have decent content and make that content "quickly" accessible.
Apart from that, it is actually a pretty good job.
randlemarcus said:
Good luck with the very very restricted warranty though - there are a fair few threads about the Sale of Goods Act and cars....
How is it very restricted? The Trading Standards advice for purchasers of used cars says
"When you buy from a trader, you have the right to expect the car to be:
* of satisfactory quality;
* fit for its purpose, including any particular purpose made known, and
* as described.
The law defines goods as being of ‘satisfactory quality’ if they meet the standard that a reasonable person would regard as satisfactory – taking the description of the goods into account, the price (if relevant) and all other relevant circumstances. So, when you have bought a used car, you must consider its age, the price you paid, the description which was applied to it and anything else which is relevant when deciding whether it is of satisfactory quality. Your expectations should be different when you are buying a low mileage, two-year-old car than when you are buying a high mileage, ten-year-old one, for example. However, it must still be:
* fit to be used on the road;
* in a condition which reflects its age and price, and
* reasonably reliable."
http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/cgi-bin/calitem...
I would have thought my warranty was pretty generous in the circumstances.
I have seen reference to used car dealers being obliged in law to offer 3 months warranty, (although I can only recall one instance when I have been offered that in the past), but I don't know where that idea comes from, given the advice above from Trading Standards. Any clarification would be appreciated.
Thanks
Don't get me wrong, I think yours is quite generous, but that three/six month thing is a quite widespread belief. I think it mostly stems from the use of the word reasonable , such that if a part like a wishbone goes two months later,it is reasonable to assume it was failing when sold. In your case,you are making quite a strenuous effort to explain the difference between a Hotpoint washer and an MGBGT, so the best of (well-restored) British luck to you.
edmason said:
I have seen reference to used car dealers being obliged in law to offer 3 months warranty, (although I can only recall one instance when I have been offered that in the past), but I don't know where that idea comes from, given the advice above from Trading Standards. Any clarification would be appreciated.
Thanks
It's EU directive 199/44 EC and the main bit that causes the concern can be summed up neatly as:Thanks
Anthea Worsdall, editor of Motor Law, told MotorTrader the directive would offer European consumers “an extended right to reject persistent problems”.
She also claimed it would not be implemented in the UK in January (2002) because the government was still working on draft regulations which would be followed by further consultation. “The UK government is attempting to blend it in – it might be sorted by the end of the first quarter.”
She said the most important change under the new law would be “the reversal in the burden of truth”, which would place the onus on the seller to prove goods “were satisfactory at time of sale” for six months after purchase. At present the buyer must prove fault.
Hope that helps
Chris
I like it, looks good, but, I would move 'stock' up the menu. It's nice that you've got lots to read, but ultimately most people visiting your site will be looking for a car, so I think the stock button should be second on the list after home. Also I would move most of the text off the home page and move the featured cars up the page, if you didn't want to get rid of the text prehaps move it round, so the cars are near the top, I had to scroll to see them, and probably would have missed them had I just been casually browsing the site.
Get rid of 'recently sold' and 'to order' in the stock section at least until you have sold a few cars, I hate clicking links and getting nothing back, also you might want to explain 'to order'. Also having nothing 'recently sold' would make we worry that you are not very well established.
You could also do with optimising your images, especially those in the stock pages, I managed to get one of your pics down from 144k to 44k with no noticable difference. Doing this will make the pages load much quicker and possibly bring down you bandwidth charges.
Your Image - 144k
Compressed Image - 44k
Get rid of 'recently sold' and 'to order' in the stock section at least until you have sold a few cars, I hate clicking links and getting nothing back, also you might want to explain 'to order'. Also having nothing 'recently sold' would make we worry that you are not very well established.
You could also do with optimising your images, especially those in the stock pages, I managed to get one of your pics down from 144k to 44k with no noticable difference. Doing this will make the pages load much quicker and possibly bring down you bandwidth charges.
Your Image - 144k
Compressed Image - 44k
Looks good Ed.
As has been noted - there is some good info on there, may well bookmark and reald later myself, and stock menu item needs to go up the list.
Only point i've noticed -
a) On the what we do page - the red mg image was 500k. May be fine on fast broadband connection (i could see it loading on a 1mb line) but heaven help anyone on dial up. If you have access to the images (presumably they're in the same directory) take a look at the sizes. There's no ecuse for a 500k image unless you click for a hi res version.
If you can, try an view the site on dial up to see if there are any ultra-slow pages
Overall though site looks nice
ETA just seen bingbongs post - hadn't spotted that - it even has pictures in it doh!
As has been noted - there is some good info on there, may well bookmark and reald later myself, and stock menu item needs to go up the list.
Only point i've noticed -
a) On the what we do page - the red mg image was 500k. May be fine on fast broadband connection (i could see it loading on a 1mb line) but heaven help anyone on dial up. If you have access to the images (presumably they're in the same directory) take a look at the sizes. There's no ecuse for a 500k image unless you click for a hi res version.
If you can, try an view the site on dial up to see if there are any ultra-slow pages
Overall though site looks nice
ETA just seen bingbongs post - hadn't spotted that - it even has pictures in it doh!
Edited by Fetchez la vache on Monday 12th May 12:16
bingbong said:
I like it, looks good, but, I would move 'stock' up the menu. It's nice that you've got lots to read, but ultimately most people visiting your site will be looking for a car, so I think the stock button should be second on the list after home. Also I would move most of the text off the home page and move the featured cars up the page, if you didn't want to get rid of the text prehaps move it round, so the cars are near the top, I had to scroll to see them, and probably would have missed them had I just been casually browsing the site.
Get rid of 'recently sold' and 'to order' in the stock section at least until you have sold a few cars, I hate clicking links and getting nothing back, also you might want to explain 'to order'. Also having nothing 'recently sold' would make we worry that you are not very well established.
You could also do with optimising your images, especially those in the stock pages, I managed to get one of your pics down from 144k to 44k with no noticable difference. Doing this will make the pages load much quicker and possibly bring down you bandwidth charges.
Your Image - 144k
Compressed Image - 44k
Thanks Bingbong, that's helpful. I can't take the Recently Sold & Coming Soon links out from the CMS, but its a good point & I'll ask the developers.Get rid of 'recently sold' and 'to order' in the stock section at least until you have sold a few cars, I hate clicking links and getting nothing back, also you might want to explain 'to order'. Also having nothing 'recently sold' would make we worry that you are not very well established.
You could also do with optimising your images, especially those in the stock pages, I managed to get one of your pics down from 144k to 44k with no noticable difference. Doing this will make the pages load much quicker and possibly bring down you bandwidth charges.
Your Image - 144k
Compressed Image - 44k
As for image sizing the developers did raise this as an issue but haven't given me very clear advice. They seem to think its just one of those things I should automatically know about! Sadly I didn't. I have reduced the size of the images of the green roadster to 640 x 480 (which means from about 600Kb on the camera to 70kb) using Ms picture re-sizer, but I hadn't done this with the red Midget. Do you think the images of the green roadster are a better size? Thanks.
Fetchez la vache said:
Looks good Ed.
As has been noted - there is some good info on there, may well bookmark and reald later myself, and stock menu item needs to go up the list.
Only point i've noticed -
a) On the what we do page - the red mg image was 500k. May be fine on fast broadband connection (i could see it loading on a 1mb line) but heaven help anyone on dial up. If you have access to the images (presumably they're in the same directory) take a look at the sizes. There's no ecuse for a 500k image unless you click for a hi res version.
If you can, try an view the site on dial up to see if there are any ultra-slow pages
Overall though site looks nice
ETA just seen bingbongs post - hadn't spotted that - it even has pictures in it doh!
Yes, I'm beginning to understand now. The web-designers just asked me for pictures, and I supplied them. In the light of your comments they really should have told me what size images they wanted, or re-sized them before loading them. They seem to have just dumped what I gave them in, without checking or re-sizing them. Guess I need to go back and do that image by image. Its a pain but the feedback is helpful. ThanksAs has been noted - there is some good info on there, may well bookmark and reald later myself, and stock menu item needs to go up the list.
Only point i've noticed -
a) On the what we do page - the red mg image was 500k. May be fine on fast broadband connection (i could see it loading on a 1mb line) but heaven help anyone on dial up. If you have access to the images (presumably they're in the same directory) take a look at the sizes. There's no ecuse for a 500k image unless you click for a hi res version.
If you can, try an view the site on dial up to see if there are any ultra-slow pages
Overall though site looks nice
ETA just seen bingbongs post - hadn't spotted that - it even has pictures in it doh!
Edited by Fetchez la vache on Monday 12th May 12:16
There is a difference between resizing images and compressing them, compressing will leave the picture the same size on screen, but the file size will be smaller, there are loads of tools that will allow you to batch compress images, so you can do a load in one go, I've just had a quick look for some free software that will do it for you and it seems picasa has just what you need, select the images you want to compress, then go to file > Export picture to folder and you will see this window,
Change the quality to 'custom 85%' and that should do the trick, around 85% should give the best trade off between quality and file size, the lower % you go the smaller the file, but you will start to lose quality, much below 70%. If you want to you can also resize the actual size of the file from the same window.
Make sure you make a copy of the original files before working on them though, it should be straight forward, but it pays to be cautious.
Change the quality to 'custom 85%' and that should do the trick, around 85% should give the best trade off between quality and file size, the lower % you go the smaller the file, but you will start to lose quality, much below 70%. If you want to you can also resize the actual size of the file from the same window.
Make sure you make a copy of the original files before working on them though, it should be straight forward, but it pays to be cautious.
bingbong said:
There is a difference between resizing images and compressing them, compressing will leave the picture the same size on screen, but the file size will be smaller, there are loads of tools that will allow you to batch compress images, so you can do a load in one go, I've just had a quick look for some free software that will do it for you and it seems picasa has just what you need, select the images you want to compress, then go to file > Export picture to folder and you will see this window,
Change the quality to 'custom 85%' and that should do the trick, around 85% should give the best trade off between quality and file size, the lower % you go the smaller the file, but you will start to lose quality, much below 70%. If you want to you can also resize the actual size of the file from the same window.
Make sure you make a copy of the original files before working on them though, it should be straight forward, but it pays to be cautious.
Well what do you know - I've actually got Picasa on my PC but didn't know what it was! I hadn't twigged the issue about compressing files, & will do that in future. When I went back through the site there were a few images that were 500kb+ so I've re-sized them. Thanks againChange the quality to 'custom 85%' and that should do the trick, around 85% should give the best trade off between quality and file size, the lower % you go the smaller the file, but you will start to lose quality, much below 70%. If you want to you can also resize the actual size of the file from the same window.
Make sure you make a copy of the original files before working on them though, it should be straight forward, but it pays to be cautious.
Gazzab said:
It comes across as being an MG only site. That would put me off. Add a lotus, porsche etc pic and I might start to be interested.
Yes I know. That wasn't my intention at first, but this is a new venture, and MGs seem like a fairly safe bet to test the water. There are lots of them around, spares are plentiful, and they're easy to service, and cheap to run, so I think it may be easier to persuade people who haven't had a classic before to go for an MG than something more exotic. If I can build up with MGs I'll look at a wider range of cars. Thanks for the feedback anyhow.mc_blue said:
The images of the What We Do page need to be resized. Couple of little minor things but very easy to fix. Overall I like it.
Thanks for pointing that out. Don't know what happened, but I've done a quick fix. May go back & tinker some more later, bur at least its back on the page!nice site and first thing was the whois check
The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their address omitted from the WHOIS service.
Thought the site was about buying cars ?, not that hard to put the address of the dealer on the whois form, unless the web coder also owns the website, which might be a bad move when it comes to proving ownership
whois on the webcoder also suggests they do not trade at all
nice site btw
<meta name="KEYWORDS" content="" /> suggests no keywords and unless someone knows your site, searching for it might take a long while for passing trade to drop in as it were
The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their address omitted from the WHOIS service.
Thought the site was about buying cars ?, not that hard to put the address of the dealer on the whois form, unless the web coder also owns the website, which might be a bad move when it comes to proving ownership
whois on the webcoder also suggests they do not trade at all
nice site btw
<meta name="KEYWORDS" content="" /> suggests no keywords and unless someone knows your site, searching for it might take a long while for passing trade to drop in as it were
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