Wife's website set up by JamesUK28 !

[chris watton]

Just thought I'd recommend the above mentioned, as we now have our website up and running, which was set up by that nice fella james, for a very reasonable cost.
I have spent many, many hours adding stuff and sorting out categories,images and text, I am about half way there I think.

What do you think?

our site

Cheers,

chris

Edited by chris watton on Sunday 4th May 14:55

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

It's really 'wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiddddddddddddddddddddeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee'.

Target 1024 pixels as a good width.

[chris watton]

Cheers

Sorting out the optimum size has been a nightmare, as I'm working on a 22" monitor with native 1680x1050 resolution - looks great on mine, but maybe not so good at much lower resolutions.

[shadowninja]

You could supply all visitors with a free TFT and graphics card upgrade, of course.

[FunkyNige]

Having a different url to the site name seems a tad odd. Also, it's a bid confusing having two languages on the same page, and what's IVA?

[chris watton]

FunkyNige said:

Having a different url to the site name seems a tad odd. Also, it's a bid confusing having two languages on the same page, and what's IVA?

I am still waiting to have the proper URL registered to the new domain, or something like that.. (The URL is essentially a 'stop gap' until I can have our proper domain name registered)

The site is set up primarily for Italian customers (IVA is the Italian equivalent of VAT), but so we seem to have customers from every country BUT Italy!

I may take off the Italian, as more than one person has mentioned the dual language..

Thank you

Edited by chris watton on Sunday 4th May 16:07

[Kinky]

Need to make it narrower. I miss all the stuff on the right of the screen and some of the text in the centre.

IMHO it needs to be a max of 1024 wide (less with the scrollbar).

Also, the rollover navigation is difficult to read and use (on FF).

K

[chris watton]

Kinky said:

Need to make it narrower. I miss all the stuff on the right of the screen and some of the text in the centre.

IMHO it needs to be a max of 1024 wide (less with the scrollbar).

Also, the rollover navigation is difficult to read and use (on FF).

K

Cheers, I will narrow the picture.
I don't think there's anything I can do about the rollover navigation, not sure if the CubeCart tools allow me to change them.

[ukvoyager.info]

I disagree with the width comments. I cant stand sites that limit the width of a page. If you want to view it smaller, make your browser window smaller!

[Boosted LS1]

I think it looks really good. No problems with width on my pc.

[shadowninja]

ukvoyager.info said:

I disagree with the width comments. I cant stand sites that limit the width of a page. If you want to view it smaller, make your browser window smaller!

That's not the issue, though. Anyone with a "smaller" (mine's 1280x1024, so hardly small) resolution isn't going to see anything and will go to a competitor site.

[Kinky]

My screen is 1024x768 and I still miss all the navigation on the right and some of the text and image from the central part of the screen.

ukvoyager.info said:

I disagree with the width comments. I cant stand sites that limit the width of a page. If you want to view it smaller, make your browser window smaller!

You've clearly never sat in customer focus groups where this very topic is measured and tracked. You'd see that any homepage that needed scrolling across and down do not work and turns customers off. And considering that the purpose of the specific website is to sell, then I would personally suggest that perhaps the width of the page was at a maximum the width of the users screen.

Just my tuppence worth.

K

Edited for correction

Edited by Kinky on Sunday 4th May 18:38

[chris watton]

Thanks very much guys for the comments, I greatly appreciate them. I have reduced the main picture on the homepage, so hopefully people will be able to see the whole page without scrolling sideways.
I even took the 'latest products' items off the homepage because they were everywhere, up the side of the main pic and on the bottom; I thought having a nice overview of product pictures would look more attractive for the homepage, than a few bits and pieces.
Postage in italy (home country) is very cheap, but quite expensive to other countries using the standard post, but UPS are stupidly expensive!
Are there any other carriers we could use?

Edited by chris watton on Sunday 4th May 19:21

[ukvoyager.info]

shadowninja said:

That's not the issue, though. Anyone with a "smaller" (mine's 1280x1024, so hardly small) resolution isn't going to see anything and will go to a competitor site.

Kinky said:

My screen is 1024x768 and I still miss all the navigation on the right and some of the text and image from the central part of the screen.

You've clearly never sat in customer focus groups where this very topic is measured and tracked. You'd see that any homepage that needed scrolling across and down do not work and turns customers off. And considering that the purpose of the specific website is to sell, then I would personally suggest that perhaps the width of the page was at a maximum the width of the users screen.

It looks like I made a critical assumption. I thought the style sheet was done on % terms and not fixed with. I eat my words. Get the style sheet changed ASAP to work either as a proportion of the page or scaled to 800x600. I wouldn't go to 1024x768 as some old monitors wont cope and as Ninja said, they will go elsewhere.

[ukvoyager.info]

I forgot to add, download the web developer toolbar for FF and it comes with a handy resize tool so you can simulate different screen widths.

[chris watton]

ukvoyager.info said:

I forgot to add, download the web developer toolbar for FF and it comes with a handy resize tool so you can simulate different screen widths.

Thanks for that, it would be good if I had a resize option for some of the images, they seem to be stuck at one size. (I am VERY new and have never done this before now) That toolbar needs Firefox, and I have IE7, how easy, and is it worth changing to FF?

Cheers

[shadowninja]

ukvoyager.info said:

I forgot to add, download the web developer toolbar for FF and it comes with a handy resize tool so you can simulate different screen widths.

Handy!

[LDNrevs]

You can also see your site in all different sizes AND browser brands at www.browsershots.org - great way to see how others are seeing your site

[dilbert]

I like wide. I have widescreen, and some sites are like a narrow column of text, almost like a newspaper column.

Could you not just make it so that your middle column expands to fit the space available? It's really best because someone somewhere will still be running 800x600. You never know it might just be people who are more interested in making models, than those who are interested in computers.

[jamesuk28]

The page width can easily be changed be using a different skin, The site was originally narrower, yet due to the sheer volume of products we decided to increase the width.

The reason the main shop is set up under a a different domain nmae is two fold. First Chris had just registered his domain name when we set everything up. We cannot transfer domain names into our hosting for 60 days from initial registration. To save any delays we purchased another domain name to install the store files to. The original domain name has a .htaccess forwarder on, and we plan to add a CMS to that name with a link to the store.

We may at some stage transfer the shop files into the original domain name. Its a functional site using a popular ecommerce package with lots more features in the pipe line, and I think its good value costing considerably less than £1000.

Its an easy system to administer and play about with for the site owner - Chris, which after all is part of the fun of running an on line store.

ETA the reason there are two main languages throughout is because the site is run from Italy.

Edited by jamesuk28 on Monday 5th May 09:38