New Design, New Feel And New Features: 4allmykids.com

[Guest]

Well, after a couple of weeks managing what our company needs and wants from the website, I finally move out of the development phase and into the marketing phase for our site. I have added a good number of modifications, but primarily the amount that we need.

 

Here is the url: http://www.4AllMyKids.com/

 

I am pretty happy with the google response, within two weeks it has really taken in a good amount of pages compared to other sites I have worked on (forums including). I pushed SEO, using such contributions for SEFriendly urls and dynamic meta tags.

 

Unfortunately I had to stop midway and start from sratch when I found out we were going to be including multiple vendors with our products, and the MVS mod was way to big and got confusing with other mods that were installed. So I started from scratch one night and built her up to now.

 

I have a couple of things to clean up on I believe, including the main banner and some of the small stock images that need to be changed. But besides that I am pretty pleased with the progress.

 

Reason why I chose this software: I am very familiar with modify php scripts, I started off with phpBB yearss ago and moved generally into smf which I use for other sites. So with that, I like having the flexibility of modifying a script to meet our needs instead of staying with a stock bones site. After referring someone to this software already after reading reviews, I decided to run this pitch with my company and got the go and I am very happy with that choice.

 

So please take a look and let me know what you think. I do know that the design is not radical, and I have done so with other sites but my thoughts on this site should stay functional for the time being, and leave the flexibility to change core points of the theme with different seasons (spring, summer, fall, winter) as with some sites I know do. Leaving it at this edge I do not have to worry about totally redoing 20 different boxes every time I have to change the theme - design is a very important aspect which is why I gave it a functional look but I will also be head of sales, marketing, reports, etc for the company. My resources to say the least will be limited at best. But I always allow room for change.

 

Thank you all.

-Jon

[Andrew Yuen]

A very stock osCommerce look and feel. I have to admit the header of your site is very unprofessional looking but you may be going for that kids look and feel. I personally would get rid of the number of request in the footer as well as some of the infoboxes to the right and left. To many infoboxes in my opinion clutter the page and makes it confusing to the customer. Finally, I bleive the UPS logo and link is unnecessary in your header as there is a link to package tracking in your information infobox.

[Guest]

Well, after getting very familiar with this software, I went ahead and redesigned the whole site. I have been getting very used with the programming aspect side of this software. The store runs off of two inventories, neither of which is the default inventory. I did not really like the default, and I did not like the fact that is shuts the status of a product off in checkout process. So I got rid of that, and only use it as a default field. The two inventories are connected also on the admin end, so if I delete an order it will re-stock an item back in. Its complicated why I need to use two inventories, more or less a trade secret, but its something that I had to implement.

 

I found that a lot of the contribs offered here are great, but some of them don't go all the way to offer what I need. With the time I have spent, I have been able to learn how the coding works, what function is connected to what, and have been able to modify them myself to suite my needs (and apparently others who have needed such an add on where other people would say its not available yet).

 

I run two stores, the other and heavily modded as well.

 

Now, to the design. I looked at the STS modules, and so forth - but then are not really what fit my needs. So I went ahead and modified everything manually to fit what I need to be done. This layout will be constitution a summery grass scheme (with our lounge chairs) and is very customizable on different seasons. I am one who changes designs a lot on other sites, so I would say its very dynamic. I have to update the banner, I just have not had time with the programming I have been doing with my latest update.

 

Another reason I got really into the programming aspect is when you add a contrib in, a lot of times it conflicts with other contribs. So, you have to either merge it and cross your fingers or edit everything to work the way you need to do, and thats what i have been up to.

 

There are always thing I would like to update, fix, etc. otherwise I am bored lol. So please critique and let me know if you see anything that should be fixed, etc.

 

I am also of thinking of the mod so customers do not have to register, for the people who have this how has this been treating you from a before and after view?

 

Okay, to the link: http://www.4allmykids.com

 

Please let me know what you think, and if there is anything I should take a look at to fix (other then the banner, I have to go ahead and update that).

 

Thank you all,

-Jon

[Guest]

Well I totally forgot that I had this thread started a while ago.. I submitted a new thread a couple of days ago but this will do the job even better.

 

Anyways, I redesigned the site. When I started working with OS, I was to unfamiliar with the coding, how the core ran, etc. After working with it for quite a while now, I have gotten very heavy into the coding and have been developing mods to suite my own needs (like a dual inventory system separated from the stock inventory, which works much better for our needs) and other modifications that I either added on to pre-existing mods that were lacking features, or designing and building my own mods (like Simple Visitor Newsletter with HTML support).

 

But anyway, back to the store. With a very successful run from the start, and being very familiar with the core I decided it was time to design the site to my own needs. I saw there was a couple of template systems, but I like designing to specs of my own in which I did in this case. I tried to steer away from stock look as possible, and I may still need to tweak the info box for shop by price a little more to fit a better design of it.

 

I must say out of this system (which as I always say I am always learning) I am very intrigued with the tep functions. I have worked with other php systems (like help desk) where there is really no protection to the injections, and I am being more tempted of studying the tep functions even more to get even more of an idea to implement in other programs.

 

But anyways, the one thing (which I am doing today) is adding more to the banner (I consider it a default banner for my design as I quickly designed it to get an idea for the layout), and also maybe work with a lighter peach color background maybe to offset the green.

 

Please, your comments on this. Especially the color differences, what would one recommend?

 

Thank you all for the comments above, and to come.

-Jon

[rommany]

Hi

 

I would change the bright lime green as it horrid, other than that i quite like the site.

 

Good Luck

[Guest]

Hi

 

I would change the bright lime green as it horrid, other than that i quite like the site.

 

Good Luck

 

Hello,

 

Yea I was thinking the same thing as well as my colligues discussed. I'm trying to figure out a good color scheme that will match the site as well as bring attention.

 

Thank you for the comments!

-Jon

[abra123cadabra]

I had a quick look around and I totally agree, that the lime green partially has to go. Within the product pages it's just too much and is hard on the eyes.

 

I recommend checking your site with other browsers (I'm using Firefox on Windows). There is a nice website to get screenshots of your pages on different systems and browser versions. http://www.browsershots.org

 

Just take a look at http://www.4allmykids.com/catalog/rocking-...raffe-p-88.html

 

On this page most of the boxes are out of place in Firefox. Overall I would recommend to decide either to go for a complete rounded look or a right-angled boxes look. Right now your product tabs don't look right.

 

In general the text on your buttons is out of place, your infoboxes/ads in the left column don't look the same. The bottom two lack the left border line and have some cut off shadow.

 

Text with shadow in one of the boxes makes it very difficult to read.

 

A closer look at the downloaded images actually reveals that you must have intended the position of your coloured boxes in the header. Same for above mentioned infoboxes. Sorry, but unless you are currently working on them to make them look the same, it's absolutely unprofessional. If this happens due to wrongly positioned elements or incorrectly repeated background images, that's not nice but it happens (especially with IE) but to create images with these mistakes, that's not good. Either get some graphic designer to do it or work on your photoshop skills.

 

I don't like the dropdown navigation with the links being underlined on hovering over them. The font is too small and the on/off underline is very distracting. Once a category is chosen, the grey category background doesn't match the rest of your site.

 

I'll leave it for now, there are lots of things to start with. Create a pleasing but not blinding colour scheme and rethink your rounded boxes and headers.

 

I'm not a professional myself and I know it takes a long time and perseverence to get the site to look as you want it to. Don't give up.

 

abra

[Guest]

I thankyou for taking the time to look at my site, and for the valuable website. I am currently running it on the page you specified, as I have been designing with firefox and then using IE to make sure they both are compatible. I have not been able to duplicate the errors that you specified on a wide range of computers running Firefox. May I ask what version are you running? Firefox/2.0.0.1/ff24 if I am viewing the correct person.

 

As for the images, they are still being designed. I do not use photoshop, never have. I use fireworks - but either the case, the small left images are being redesigned as we speak, with a new color scheme. I plan on redoing the shop by price infobox, as I have not been happy with the design.

 

Could you please clarify on the header navigation buttons, as I do not understand what you mean.

 

Thank you again.

-Jon

[Jaide]

I had a quick look around and I totally agree, that the lime green partially has to go. Within the product pages it's just too much and is hard on the eyes.

 

I recommend checking your site with other browsers (I'm using Firefox on Windows). There is a nice website to get screenshots of your pages on different systems and browser versions. http://www.browsershots.org

 

Abra, thanks for the link to browsershots.org, very nice!

 

The lime isn't pleasing, but I don't find it too distracting. I'd suggest maybe soft pastel colors since it is a kids site? That or primary colors would work well! I do like the basic layout of the site :)

[Guest]

Abra, thanks for the link to browsershots.org, very nice!

 

The lime isn't pleasing, but I don't find it too distracting. I'd suggest maybe soft pastel colors since it is a kids site? That or primary colors would work well! I do like the basic layout of the site :)

 

I do agree, what I am thinking of doing is taking a screen shot of the next color scheme so I can get a quick response on it before I full go through with it on the site. The soft pastel colors idea is excellent, we are currently working on a soft look like that at the moment. We are thinking of something that match's the alphabet collection on that theme.

 

Thank you for taking the time and commenting!

 

Btw, when you guys submit a query to that browsershot.org, how long does it usually take for it to complete?

-Jon

[Guest]

Well I did a full browsershot of all the available browsers, and only saw three which were out of wack, but one of them was a linux distro version where java, css, etc is not supported, another was an old version of IE that just did not display the tabs but still did (with the tab support for browsers which cannot support that) so that was fine and last was another distro on a linux which had the same result (showed the tabs in sections down the page, I would say without looking at the coding at the moment its a failsafe).

 

So I could not reproduce that problem. But I must say, the new IE7 where I have my phone number listed - it puts a little button for the end user so they I guess can add the number or call, pretty cool.

[abra123cadabra]

I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.4 (ff24). Here is a screenshot of what I see and where things look wrong or out of place to me:

 

 

1) + 2) The boxes are 2 or 3 px further down than the navigation tabs between them.

3) + 4) If you imagine the dark green to continue horizontally underneath the category navigation, it doesn't come out at the right point in 4).

5) Difficult to read text with the shadow underneath.

6) + 7) Existing and missing border.

8) Tabs are missing distinction between Features, Specs, Shipping Information and there is a gap between the dark green bar and the lime green box.

 

Sometimes those tiny things make a design look out of sync. Same goes for the rounded corners. If your navigation tabs in the header have a rounded right bottom corner, why is the search box mirrored to this but then lacking a rounded left bottom corner?

 

Your shop by price box has different roundings at the top left and bottom right.

 

Sorry, it's very difficult for me to put it in words what feels wrong with your design. Another example is the white line underneath the header navigation. It should have the same height but it is higher between the navi tabs and the category navigation than between header navigation and cart box and category navigation.

 

Those little things irritate me very much.

 

I hope I could clarify a bit what I tried to say before.

 

abra

[Guest]

I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.4 (ff24). Here is a screenshot of what I see and where things look wrong or out of place to me:

 

 

1) + 2) The boxes are 2 or 3 px further down than the navigation tabs between them.

3) + 4) If you imagine the dark green to continue horizontally underneath the category navigation, it doesn't come out at the right point in 4).

5) Difficult to read text with the shadow underneath.

6) + 7) Existing and missing border.

8) Tabs are missing distinction between Features, Specs, Shipping Information and there is a gap between the dark green bar and the lime green box.

 

Sometimes those tiny things make a design look out of sync. Same goes for the rounded corners. If your navigation tabs in the header have a rounded right bottom corner, why is the search box mirrored to this but then lacking a rounded left bottom corner?

 

Your shop by price box has different roundings at the top left and bottom right.

 

Sorry, it's very difficult for me to put it in words what feels wrong with your design. Another example is the white line underneath the header navigation. It should have the same height but it is higher between the navi tabs and the category navigation than between header navigation and cart box and category navigation.

 

Those little things irritate me very much.

 

I hope I could clarify a bit what I tried to say before.

 

abra

 

 

Thankyou for the screenshot, I was going to ask for one to see what you meant. Most of those areas that you picked are being finished as I work on the color scheme. I originally though that you meant something totally different that scared me, lol. But I know what you are talking about and are being fixed with the new color scheme (most of those items were like that due to the new design which we have been testing to get a feel for the colors as well).

 

Thank you again for taking a second look and the screen shot, and I must stress again thank you for the link to the browsershot that is a very useful tool!

-Jon

[abra123cadabra]

That's why I made the screenshot. *lol*

 

I usually work with positioned images and boxes and then I get weird results with IE calculating the width of a box differently than Firefox. browsershots.org really helps. Found that about a year ago but, as you realised, you need a lot of time for the shots to be taken.

 

I'm curious how your next layout will look like.

 

abra

[Guest]

I must say that site does help, because we all know how the browsers like to act differently lol. Well, I will be working on finishing the the design this weekend or next week, have been putting a lot of time into some on the contribs that I have been working on as well.

 

I will prob take a screen shot first and throw it up here to get comments on the color scheme and etc, I again thank you all for your great comments.

-Jon

[Guest]

Okay everyone, I have took some advice from the comments here about the design and decided to go another route. I got this tab idea from a site I saw on that browsershot site, and figured I would take it for a test spin.

 

The new design is here on my beta server:

http://4allmykids.structuralnet.com/catalog/index.php

 

Old server but still can hold some stuff.

 

Please don't mind if some features are not working, or if there is product pictures missing, that site does not have all the enhancements I have made to the live server, no real big deal. I believe it won't even go through the checkout procedure because MVS gets messed up on it. No big problem though, since its more just to test the design.

 

Please take a look, let me know what you think and feel. I could use some tips on what to do on some areas, as I am stuck in the mud on a couple.

 

Thankyou,

-Jon