March 7, 201115 yr www.blludog.com/preview Review this site please going live 2 days! You can even buy a t-shirt if you fancy it haha Thank you
March 7, 201115 yr Loving the header! The navigation is really clear too, I like it. However, the loading time is a pain in the ass; in the time its taken me to write this sentence, its still downloading in the background. Gzip the website if you haven't done, and optimize the images. Homepage I always like the addition of the twitter feeds, but I feel that in this case, it is taking up too much space on the main section of the website. That is valuable website real estate and is taken up by something that really isn't importent to my experience (It enhances it, but isn't vital). I see that the main text box has a 'Read More' button, but I click it and I'am taken to another page (Frustrating in itself) but there is nothing there? I'd migrate the twitter feed to the right, or maybe into the footer? and stretch the content box to fill the space. The fading images on the homepage is a nice touch, but what if I want that t-shirt? I cant click on it, how do I get to it? It would annoy me if I saw an awesome t-shirt, but then had to scroll through those 5 pages to find it. (Make the images line up as well) Shopping Great way of displaying your products, and you have some nice stuff on there, but there's 5 pages for me to scroll through. If I don't see anything on the first two pages, then i'm not really that fussed and with the poor loading time, it's definitely something I don't want to do on this site. Gallery Not much you can do until you have more photos, but it did take a while for the images to load fullsize. Found it difficult to close the larger image down as well. I was randomly clicking until it finally disappeared. Contact Format your contact page to make it more fitting with the website, I'm assuming you just added the contct page and haven't done any work to it? I just think a big contact area, nice clear fonts will finish that page off. Misc Text formatting. Edit your links in the CSS file, along with the list's used to display product categories to make it look more 'professional' (Not a fan of the generic-looking link formatting). Some of your links appear to be broken, but when I place 'preview' in front of them, they work. All in all, after a little rambling by me, I think you have a good site. I really do love the header and clear, bold, attractive navigation! Some sweet look tee's as well. I think if you tweak a few of those suggestion, it'll be a great website
March 7, 201115 yr Author Thanks for the detailed feedback! I would love to know more about 'Gzipping' a website? I have tryed to optimize as amny images as possible. The client wants a twitter feed there I cant help that, but check the url of the page with you click 'read more' then add /preview/ 'I'am taken to another page (Frustrating in itself)' Im going to add a '...Click here to go Back' link on that page now! The slideshow.. I know I cant make it click to the link but it will do for now! thats something ill update later on with a product slider instead! and i will also sort out some of the css for text/lists.
March 7, 201115 yr I'm glad you welcomed the feedback, I went off on a huge tangent but it's good that you kept up with what I was going on about! With the twitter thing, then there's nothing you can do I assume? Many time's had to bite the bullet and go with what the client says. They're putting bread on the table at the end of the day. Gzip simply compresses the website on the server side, and then decompresses in the browser. You add some simple code to your .htaccess file, and it can compress css, javascript, images, html and a numerous amount of other files that you'll use on your website. Google 'GZip' (I can't add links yet) and there's an article titled 'How To Optimize Your Site With GZIP Compression | Better Explained' which is a great start.
March 7, 201115 yr I would love to know more about 'Gzipping' a website? http://www.gnu.org/software/gzip/
March 7, 201115 yr Author I'm glad you welcomed the feedback, I went off on a huge tangent but it's good that you kept up with what I was going on about!With the twitter thing, then there's nothing you can do I assume? Many time's had to bite the bullet and go with what the client says. They're putting bread on the table at the end of the day.Gzip simply compresses the website on the server side, and then decompresses in the browser. You add some simple code to your .htaccess file, and it can compress css, javascript, images, html and a numerous amount of other files that you'll use on your website. Google 'GZip' (I can't add links yet) and there's an article titled 'How To Optimize Your Site With GZIP Compression | Better Explained' which is a great start. Yeah the cleint is always right? mostly. Im going to check that out now cheers http://www.gnu.org/software/gzip/ Nice 1 ! Edited March 7, 201115 yr by kingy da killa
March 8, 201115 yr wow.. this site took a while to load on the internet i am on here I quite like it though
March 9, 201115 yr I like the site on the whole. The major concern for me would be the loading time, as has already been mentioned. At the moment the main background image is like 850kb. I just took that into photoshop and managed to get the file size down to around the 250kb mark using the "save for web" function. This alone would increase the load times. Also, moving all the jquery scripts (I see most of it already is though) to the bottom of the page should help. Kyle
March 9, 201115 yr Hi, dear friend! I think you got detail critique of your work in previous replies.I can add you made professional web site and I like everything.
March 9, 201115 yr Hi Kingy, On first glance there is a lot going on for sure. I don't think the background works at all. The user focus should be directed towards the content and not the background and there is too much conflict imo. I think the page structure is all wrong. You have a welcome blurb and a twitter feed above the fold, which is ideally where you should be promoting the stuff the client intends to sell? I would have thought that showing off the tshirts would have been a priority. Things like twitter feeds are nice to have but not as the main focus on an e-commerce site. The overall finish in general is sub-standard imo. There are padding and alignment issues all over the place. Even things like styling the links in CSS so they're not default blue would be nice. An ok start, but I wouldn't be happy presenting that to a client. Hope this helps.
March 9, 201115 yr change the header image to a jpeg (no need to be a png) stereotype is one word, no hypen favicon text needs more padding centre column is hard to read with background image main background image against the blue background could be toned down so it doesn't distract nice nav pale blue box doesn't expand with text
March 9, 201115 yr You should try and correct your coding errors and get your page to validate http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blludog.com%2Fpreview%2F
March 9, 201115 yr I know it might sound a bit critical, but I have to agree with jay. I think theres too much going on and a potential customer doesn't know what to look at. I'll list a few things I think could be improved. 1. Too many different 'themes'. The logo/header makes me think grunge style, but then the icons in the nav bar and the gradients seem a bit web 2.0 If put the rest on this screenshot
March 9, 201115 yr Hey pal. I agree with most of the comments above, especially about the links. Your links need to be styled in my opinion. They just feel 'basic' and unloved (go on, give them some lovin' ) Another concern I have, a little bit major in my opinion is this graphic: What happens when the owner of the site wants to add another feature story to the homepage? Will they have to get the photo editor out to edit the title? Maybe you could have a non-titled graphic, and put html/cufon font over for the title etc. Other then that, the website is coming on great
March 10, 201115 yr Looks like a well-functioning site. A bit slow, unfortunately, as mentioned. The nav bar also doesn't seem to fit the theme of the rest of the site and the products that you are offering. It looks a little basic and almost too happy for the rest of the site. Just sticks out as an awkward mood change. Hope this helps!
March 10, 201115 yr Author Hey pal. I agree with most of the comments above, especially about the links. Your links need to be styled in my opinion. They just feel 'basic' and unloved (go on, give them some lovin' ) Another concern I have, a little bit major in my opinion is this graphic: What happens when the owner of the site wants to add another feature story to the homepage? Will they have to get the photo editor out to edit the title? Maybe you could have a non-titled graphic, and put html/cufon font over for the title etc. Other then that, the website is coming on great bloody brilliant idea! Ill get that sorted, never done cufon before but im sure its easy
March 10, 201115 yr Author I know it might sound a bit critical, but I have to agree with jay. I think theres too much going on and a potential customer doesn't know what to look at.I'll list a few things I think could be improved.1. Too many different 'themes'. The logo/header makes me think grunge style, but then the icons in the nav bar and the gradients seem a bit web 2.0If put the rest on this screenshothttp://www.screencast.com/t/mIiWgn51XJya Looks like a well-functioning site. A bit slow, unfortunately, as mentioned. The nav bar also doesn't seem to fit the theme of the rest of the site and the products that you are offering. It looks a little basic and almost too happy for the rest of the site. Just sticks out as an awkward mood change. Hope this helps! You both mean the same thing really, and I see what you mean.. thanks for the detailed reciew asek aswell.. all these tips will help me with my next site!! i will do a few of the ideas mentioned! (dont want to overwork myself for no reason so a few will do! lol) edit: about speed issues, i gziped the site and made the background image no repeat so hopefully that helps make it load faster :/ ALSO ANY HELP GIVING ME AN IDEA ON WHAT TO DO WITH THE LINKS??????????????????? Edited March 10, 201115 yr by kingy da killa
March 10, 201115 yr Use font-face instead. Your font looks like Museo, I think there is a kit at font-squirrel
March 29, 201115 yr Im just curious why you decided to use a wordpress engine for a eCommerce site when there are plenty of free eCommerce software packages available which would help you and save you hours of wordpress coding , especially for the products page ? I assume there are eCommerce plugins now available for WP ? A few things which I think you should fix are - I can't see the far right category list the background t-shirt is to bright - The pictures of the two t-shirts £17.95 when clicked nothing happens. - I like the Blue but I think you are using to many different types of blue. - The navigation icons looks like those smiley pop-ups you get. - Page links need styling still using the default blue unless that's your intentions. If you take a look at existing online retail / shopping sites such as Next / Marks and Spencers you will notice the products stand out and most of the site content is basic , this is because people want to see the products and not the design. Maybe to developers and designers but to everyday customers they want to see real pictures of the products , using Jquery and Slideshows you can create a real professional simple e-commerce site without the stress of playing around with wordpress templates. You have also designed the price on to the graphics , I presume the prices will change sometime in the future so stick to using CSS and Floats to display products prices , if they look to formal use Cufon for that font effect. I do like the header font with the background
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