November 27, 201213 yr Hello everyone I am currently working on an eCommerce website run on OpenCart, and the idea is for it to sell specialist teas through your letterbox. This is on a freelance basis, and do other work as well. [End of Plug] It's fairly close to being ready to launch, but I'm currently working on sprucing it up in terms of the aesthetics. There is still a fair amount to do, but I believe I've come to a creative brick wall. I know it doesn't quite look right, but then I can't work out what it is that's pulling the rest down, if that makes sense. I also have a few elements across the site that I'm genuinely unsure of, but don't know what to do with them (mainly colors and layouts) If you guys/girls could visit the site, and let me know what you think would look better, I would appreciate it! The website is http://theteabox.co/index.php . The root URL is just a basic landing page at the moment, so what you see on index.php will be the actual homepage once it goes live. ----- EDIT: The homepage isn't looking great at the moment, and the quotes box at the bottom won't be there. Instead, there will be a fancy-looking 'tea of the week' banner, which is being drawn up by our creative department/girl. I'd also like critique on the product pages, as they are what I am putting most of my focus on at the moment. I would really appreciate it if you could have a click through some of the product pages as well. Thanks ------ Also, don't hold back. One of the most interesting parts of freelancing is getting feedback on my projects, because more opinions and thoughts are very important. Something that I think looks amazing could look horrible to everyone else. So, pour it on! - Tristan Edited November 27, 201213 yr by Tristan Bacon
November 27, 201213 yr I'am no-where near a designer, but hopefully I could add some assistance here! First opinions The website just doesn't scream "tea" to me. Looking at tea company websites, they all revolve around their branding (obviously) but this one appears cold and bland. It seems like a generic website that could be used by anyone. I'd expect to see warm colours, such as http://www.websitetemplates.bz/images/tea_house_website_template_0681m.jpg I know that it's a template, but their use of warm colours makes it feel cosey (no homo). Maybe not that much use of orange, but I hope you get where I'm coming from? One website I like the look of is http://www.londontea.co.uk/. Everything on there is aimed at tea. It's use of images instantly tell me that it's a tea company website. The one that you are showing could be for a cafe, or sandwich shop. Just my opinion and the designers of this place will definitely help you out more. Also, there is a lot of drop shadows on there, maybe tone that down abit
November 27, 201213 yr Background is horrible. Looks like cheap and nasty plywood. Remember tea is a very organic (natural) thing, so try and keep the site fresh and organic. shopping cart and login text are mis-aligned I believe in an eCommerce site should always have a contact number above the fold (pref in the header) search box is too big. Best of luck
November 28, 201213 yr Author I'm going to keep my responses brief, as I wrote a very long reply just now, but Chrome decided to have a hissy-fit and crash! Jason, The website just doesn't scream "tea" to me. Fair enough. I've asked the girl in charge of the creative stuff to come up with some ideas on how to spruce it up. We'll be adding some twitter feeds, customer photos with their tea and such, similar to the London Tea Club you mentioned. a lot of drop shadows To be honest, I've always been a fan of drop shadows, but having tken a fresh look at it with your comment in the back of my mind, I realise that I went a bit crazy and drop-shadowed pretty much everything with a border. I'll definitely need to tone it down a bit! Thanks for the advice Jason ----- Teodora/Jamesosix, search form is huge Ok, that's a fair point. Like the drop shadows, it seemed like a good idea at the time to make it huge. My reasoning was so that it's easy to find, but to be honest, most people know that the search bar will be at the top somewhere. I'll probably reduce the height down to 60% and reduce the font size. Thanks Teodora ----- Jamesosix, Background is horrible. It's funny you should say that. I was never a fan of it myself, but the rest of my team fell in love with it, for some unexplainable reason! I originally used a light wooden plank-type texture, but they didn't like it, because it looked like one of their bedroom floors.... I lost the majority vote, but I will bring it up with them again, and stress how tacky it really looks. I'll use this post as evidence shopping cart and login text are mis-aligned Thank you. have a contact number above the fold Interesting point! Any suggestions as to where in the header? (In my opinion) If it goes in the middle, the header will become to crowded and grid-like. If I put it between the Cart/Account section and the Search bar, I worry that it will look crowded as well. The main contact details will be going in the footer, in place of the (currently) 4th footer column, and we will also be making use of a Twitter-based customer service system, which we hope will improve our social media efforts at the same time. Best of luck Thank you for taking the time to give some feedback ----- Rallport, Using the default theme I understand that me using the default theme is bad practice. The reason I used it was because I attempted to duplicate the Default theme, and rename it to our own template. When I tried this, I had never used OpenCart before (used to use ZenCart and Prestashop), and so when (what I thought was the right way of doing it) didn't work, I gave up and just played around with the default theme. I was in a rush to get it set up and get the groundwork down, but in hindsight, I shoud've taken a step back and goen through the steps more thoroughly. Is there a way to copy the Default template that I've modified, rename it (and the necessary sub-files) and then just re-upload the original copy of the Default theme from my hard-drive? The only changes I've made have been to the Default theme, not the models or controllers. the site doesn't scream "tea" at all - seems a bit vague and generic to me, flat. Ok, fair enough. As I mentioned, I'm going to work with my creative designer and make things look busier, with a wider variety of colours. Once we get the promotional banners drawn up, it should begin to look a lot more lively anyway. But I'll bear in mind that it needs to step up a gear in the 'radical' department Thanks for the advice Rallport ------- Guys, thank you so much for your feedback so far. You've all mentioned some pretty important aspects that need serious work, giving me something to do whilst I ponder on which direction to take the website, creatively-speaking. I'm so glad I signed up for this forum. I can't understand why this wasn't part of my web design process before! Thanks again everyone Edited November 28, 201213 yr by Tristan Bacon
November 28, 201213 yr HI there, The site looks a little to much like a template to me. The background and colours and images aren't really tea related so its hard to be sure instantly what the site is aimed at. In fact with the single line tea-quote makes the site look like a tea trivia fan site or something. I'd ditch that in favour of some SEO friendly description of your business and who you guys are. I'd remove the about us, meet the team, my account and home links from the navbar and replace them all with each category name, black-teas, flower teas etc... Your front page should tell me everything i'm likely to want to know about what this website is about and if I want more info like meet the team I'd go look in the footer or header for some utility nav links. And your category links will help scream what the site sells and are a much more direct way for customers to find what they are looking for. The shopping cart icon and search box and the clip board icon aren't really to my taste. It all looks too childish, like a childs toy, big icons! Big search box! The redeeming feature for me is your logo which I think is quite clever and looks quite nice. I could totally see that logo on a really sexy looking tea selling website. Good luck with it!
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