Site Review Request

[Tread42]

http://www.bruckens.com

Notes: Due to clients request all links needed to say "Click Here" or direct user due to novice user base.

Black background/Blue must stay.

Everything else probably needs some adjustment? It's one of my first. I tried to keep everything in a table that was 95% then another table 100% inside it, but it really didn't look good on the aboutus and contactus so I had to modify.

Thanks in advance, I always love the TT group's frankness.

Regards,
Tread42

 

[ChrisHunt]

Clients, don'tcha just love 'em. What makes them think that their site will be the one of the first ones people ever visit?

Oh well, it looks pretty good within the constraints you have to work in. I think you should left-align the title image on the front page - that's how it seems to be on the other pages.

Just putting a copy of the sales flyer online really doesn't work - it looks awful, and there's nothing I can do about it if there's something I want to buy. Similarly, I'm not sure how those "internet specials" are supposed to work - I order one by sending an email to some hotmail account, but how do I pay? how do they deliver? If they want to sell online then some kind of shopping cart system is a must, even if they don't you should consider using a database to store/display product details - ideally one the Bruckens folk can maintain themselves through HTML forms. Oh, and you must get some better product photos!

On the email signup form page, you need to put a bit more information - if I'm signing up for an email list, why do you need my snail mail address? Are you going to sell my name on to spammers? - cos you don't say you won't!

Looking under the hood, you really need to get into CSS - you've got a zillion <font> tags all over the place, but I see you're using FrumpPage so that's hardly surprising. Amongst other things, it'll let you define a rollover colour for text links, and chage their other colours too - a purple visited link is quite hard to see on that black background.

Make sure your images all have an [tt]alt[/tt] attribute set - especially the ones used in the navigation bar at the top, e.g.:
[tt]
<img src=&quot;b_aboutus.gif&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; alt=&quot;About Us&quot; title=&quot;&quot; name=&quot;aboutus&quot; width=&quot;89&quot; height=&quot;21&quot;>
[/tt]

Frank enough for you?

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.extracon.com

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk

 

[viol8ion]

I agree... you need better product photos... and tellt hem to get rid of the hotmail account, they own the bruckens.com domain, use it for email, too!

When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[Tread42]

Thanks for all the feedback. I will take a look at this today. And they do use the bruckens domain for email. I had my hotmail account in there for testing and forgot to take it out

Thanks again

Regards,
Tread42

 

[tmphuskers]

Believe me I have been in your shoes. Not easy on the first one.
I am not so sure about the white on black text. I think you should have a shadowed box with black text inside. Make it stand out a little more.
I like the photo on the front page. I am sure the client is trying to show off his choice models. But maybe you can color it up a bit. But there is no dimension. Try photoshop, you can do some cool thinks with it. Professional of course, but be careful of size, too much fancy will make it too large to load for the dialupers.
I like the logo and nav bar. But make the other “we have everything for your kitchen” stand out a little more. Embross that puppy.
My suggesting is to leave the contact info on the contact page. Or just have phone number and email link at the bottom of ever page.
Good luck man!

 

[ChrisHunt]

A couple of more general points I just thought of:

What is this website intended to achieve? Are you looking to attract more customers to the shop, or are you trying to sell products directly from the site? If the latter, as noted above, you need to use a much more sophisticated &quot;shopping cart&quot; approach. If the former, you should make a lot more of the shop - pictures of it inside & out, a custom-made map that takes account of local landmarks.

You also need to be clear who you're selling to. Can ordinary members of the public get stuff from these people or is it strictly trade-only?

On reflection, I think you should try to get your clients to reconsider that black background. It makes the site really gloomy, it doesn't fit the subject of the site (how many people do you know with a black kitchen? I've seen lot's of white ones!), and it really ties your hands with regard to presenting product pictures. Most product pictures seem to use a white background, if your site's white too the product appears to sit on the surface of the page, if it's any other colour you have a blocky white box around each picture. I note that they don't use a black background for their paper flyer, why use one for the cyber version?

Change their minds by producing an alternative, white version of the page - just make sure you use enough of tmphuskers' graphical tips to make sure it looks better than the black one!

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.extracon.com

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk

 

[Tread42]

Thanks again everyone.

Chris to answer some of your questions.

The client isn't wanting a full scale catalog. They are coming off an issue of dumping a ton of cash for one that fell on it's face. So they only want their sales flyer and the ability to have a couple of specials. They don't see too much exposure coming from this channel. Really just keeping up with the local competition. The ability to capture email for updates of the flyer and specials is all the more &quot;interactive&quot; they want to go at this time. Their target audience are a good bit of small mom and pop restaurants who they feel don't have the time or expertise to pursue the items via the online medium. But they want this out there for the select few clients that do. So that's why it's only dumping to a hotmail account.

The dreaded flyer:
Here's where my real headache's occur. The flyer the develop is made in MS Publisher. So the only option they are giving me is an export from Publisher. So they take the raw MS Publisher file and do an &quot;export as website&quot; to the directory on the webserver. That's why the images are horrible and the catalog/flyer section looks completly different. Since Publisher numbers all the pages index, then page2,page3,etc. All I could think of doing is creating a frame page with the page numbers and then loading the Publisher files into the main body.

On the same note, The pics they have of the products are only from the publisher export as well. So that's why they are grainy and in B&W. I have advised against this but as of now it's the only option.

Any ideas on how I could handle this differently?

I will most certainly look at the other graphics I can control and wish they would move away from this black look but it's an uphill battle to the point where they are becoming frustrated at it's mentioning.


I work with the web in my primary job and have done some sites for local sports orgs in the past, most have been flexible. But this client has kind of caught me off guard. They have in their mind what they need and only want me to develop that. I don't really have a problem with that but it doesn't do much for the creativity side of the design. But whatever they want I guess a developer should deliver, after all it's their cash. I just can't get over the feeling of not delivering a more &quot;up to date&quot; site. At this point I'm hoping to get this baby launched then they might come back for an update down the road.

I love doing business with them, but it's a little slow and frustrating right now.

Sorry so long, I just value the input you have given me so far and didn't want you to think it was being ignored.

Regards,
Tread42

 

[ChrisHunt]

That's fine. At the end of the day it's their money and their funeral. If you give them your professional opinion and they ignore it then you've done all you can. The only further strategy I'd suggest is the one I mentioned in my last post - build another version of the front page the way you think it should be, and get them to pick the one they like the best.

As to the flyer/images, the Publisher export shouldn't (I think) degrade the images like that, are you sure they start off looking better? Quite likely they're copying them out of their suppliers' B/W catalogues. If there is something odd about the &quot;Export to Web&quot; function, see if there's some other format they can use - Word, for example. You need to get good images, at least for the specials page.

You're right to think about an upgrade path - code with this in mind, with room for expansion and new features, and try to build a long-term relationship with these clients. There's potential for a really good site here.

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.extracon.com

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk