Critique request, please...

[mimages]

Would it be possible to ask for some advice on ho to make my site more user friendly and perhaps more popular? I am just now getting back to working on it after a long break, and thought that by now I would at least have some more hits.

 

The link is http://www.moltenimages.net

 

Thanks.

[GraphicsGuy]

First, let me just say that I really liked the overall look you gave your site.

 

I browsed through it (didn't go into account setup or shipping/payment options) and really only have one suggestion.

 

In view of the type of business you are presenting (high ring decorative collectibles), you may want to consider adding one of the gift registry contributions. I'm not referring to wishlist (although it is a good feature and I am setting it up in my store that I am building) but rather a full function gift registry. There are two out there that I am aware of:

 

http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1226 is a full featured gift registry to function entirely within your store.

 

http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1823 provides registry functionality via a gift registry site.

 

Good Luck!

[Guest]

I would say to lose the background (the wavy stuff)...makes it not look as professional

[Guest]

one other thing... your images look a little out of proportion

[AlanR]

I don't know if it's costing you customers but you need to look into your image sizing. There's several ways to take care of this but you've got 9 images this size http://moltenimages.net/catalog/images/M.I...gTime%20(2).jpg on your front page. The load time on dial up must be killer.

[GraphicsGuy]

I would say to lose the background (the wavy stuff)...makes it not look as professional

I would have to disagree. It all depends on your target audience. When selling high ticket art and collectables an artistic environment is beneficial. Consider the difference in the environment in a Thomas Kincade Gallery vs. a Best Buy store.

 

If you Google "collectable plates" you find that many of the professional dealers have backgrounds. Broadband connections are prevalent in this demographic.

 

Also high quality images with all pertinent angles of view are critical (although you can use smaller compressed jpegs on the page, then larger high quality ones in the popups). Keep in mind that if this customer was physically in the store they would be looking at the item closely and carefully from several angles of view.

[johnk]

I like the big print, but it does cause a couple of problems on a 800x600 monitor. The category tree tends to get a bit messy in that collectables is on one line and the quantity on the next. You could either widen the side boxes a bit or make categories appear in the next smallest font. Also, some of the infobox headings go to two lines and this makes the corners all funny. May I suggest you set your monitor to 800 x 600 to see what I mean. Even though higher resolutions are available, many people still use 800 x 600 and all good sites should be designed with this in mind.

 

I agree with GraphicsGuy that people in this market have a thirst for detail. Thus the big popup pics are fine by me.

 

Other than that, it's a nice site and I wish you luck.

[MysticBlues]

Your entrance page is attractive, but that background detracts from your interior pages. I am also confused because after seeing your entrance page I was surprised to see what you are selling in there... (ie all hummel on main page) I think you would do good to replace new arrivals section with a category section first so visitors can see at a glance the variety you are offering. I also agree that with items such as this you cant have enough detail in your product images.

 

Good luck!

[mimages]

Thank you all for such great replies. I have definitely been thinking of changing my background, but creating tiled images is such a pain. Any suggestions on a program or method (using Core PhotoPaint, for example) that I can use to create better graphics?

 

I agreethat the category tree needs ork. I have to work on the style sheet, I believe.

 

brayden, on the images, I would love to hear advice on how to make them proportional, as well as how to setup a system that automatically creates thumbnails, as I understand PHP can do. I'd hate to have to go back and convert my images one at a time, and have to create a second link to each for the popup.

 

Thanks again for advice given, and advice to come.

[bluepony]

You may want to stop some of your folders from being indexed. For example: http://www.moltenimages.net/catalog/images/

[mimages]

Sorry for the naivity, but can you elaborate on how to best go about that?

 

Thanks again.

[mimages]

OK, I found another post by you, bluepony, where you give similar advice, and state the following:

 

You can use .htaccess with the 'Options -Indexes' option. Or just create a empty file named index.html in that folder.

 

I'll have to look into that first one, but an idea occured to me. I like to periodically look in this folder and pick a file to play with, or just to show someone I'm conversing with. Is there a quick login script you can recommend so I can put it into an index.php file and allow myself to see the files while rejecting others? Additionally, it would be nice to get a hit counter that perhaps writes to a text file in the same folder. I could hope to store the user's IP addres and a timestamp.

 

Thanks again.

[bluepony]

Look on the web for .htaccess. There are many tutorials out there. You can add a valid-user option which would allow you to login to that folder with a username/password while keeping others out.

[mimages]

did it. Thanks for the advice. Still going to try and script a login for the index.php to allow me to view the files directly.

 

Thanks again.