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Guest tbladecki

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Guest tbladecki

Here is a link to my site that I have been working on it is still bebing work on and tested and I have not loaded all the products and images yet, but I am really looking for suggestions on layout and over all "feel" of the site. I have to add the actually site docs and I need to give links from the fourms back to the store (these things I already know) but what so you think, and please feel free to hit me with everything as this is going to go live very soon and I need to make sure that it has a good impact!!!

PS I still need to have a logo created.

Desert Coral Aquatics

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That block of centered text in the Welcoming message is difficult to read. Text centering is not diffcult to read as a caption, or a block that spans only 30 or so characters and does not exceed two lines. But centered text paragraphs introduce a hurdle. I chose the word "hurdle" as fact, not metaphor

Think about how the eyes of a reader functions. Those short centered cpations can be read as a single glance with little or no eye movement. But blocks of text are read differently.

The reader's eye comes to the end of a line. The trained tendency of the eye is to jump to the same starting place at the left, one line down. Centered text makes this impossible. After the second line, the eye of the reader no longer is functioning automatically but must make a deliberate seacrh for the start of the next line. With centered text, this changes with evey line.

It sounds minor but it's not. It quickly becomes annoying, the eye becomes tired - and the reader stops reading. Why annoy a potential customer?

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I don't know how you'd do this but I would like to see more of the header and less of the nav bar. That Killer nav bar really detracts from the site IMHO and your header is probably very pretty although I can't say for sure because I can't see that much of it. Underwater images are so pretty I'd like to see a rotating header or banner with more images. Also change the titles of the boxes to something less cubecart-ish like instead of 'Featured Product' something like Latest in Underwater Life, you get the idea.

Best of luck.

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Guest tbladecki

Thank you for the comments, I agree the centered text is somewhat annoying, I will modify that.

Roban, I would love to have a banner type header, unfortantly I am not very good, in fact I do not really know anyhing about graphics. I will have to see what I can find.

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Guest sunshine

Hi Tbladecki,

You're on a logo mission so I want comment amount the header banner. To the mid-right should it say DCA Forums or Fourms? As for the PHPBB Community, is it a "Let's Discuss coral" Community? I would replace the gif with a reef pic or something, salt water fish or whatever is appropriate to the community. Some might disagree, but i think the first things someone should see when clicking on your site is an attention grabber focal point. Could you do a an insert of marine life pic into your intro with the text wraparound. An idea. I like the clean look but be sure to have a balance of text/image or slightly more image/text. You'll have some beautiful products, don't let someone have to squint to see them.

BTW i had a salt water fish tank for about 4yrs. it was one of the best things I ever purchased - Beautiful! No live coral though; that takes an expert to keep the balance. Sadly, the upkeep got to be too much for me.

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Definitely get rid of the counter. It shouts "amatuer business."

If you are usintg the counter for your own information, get your site hosted someplace that gives you free graphic stat packages such as Urchin or Awstats. A simple counter is virtually useless but a traffic stats program is an essential tool in managing an online business.

If you can't find hsot that provides them, ask me in a PM.

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Guest tbladecki

OK I have made some changes, see what you think.... I am going to have to hire someone to work on the grafixs with me, I am not haveing any luck with them at all.

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Guest tbladecki

Thanks roban, I did figur it out but I was not able to get it using the css file, I had to add the image manually ot get it to work but it did work.... thank you for your input

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Guest RubySlipper

It is looking good.

From a purely visual point of view, it looks abit bare.

I think of a shop selling aquariums, fish, live coral and I see lots of colour, images of the fish, beautiful underwater scenes to grab the viewers attention and attract them to look further.

You can purchase very cheap images of fish, tanks, coral etc from www.istockphoto.com which could help you with design inspiration if nothing else.

Please PM me if you have any questions on this.

Mel

Ruby Slipper

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Guest tbladecki

I plan to add alot of images and pictures, unfortunatly I am not real good with them as far as getting them on the site and such, but I have signed up for "afksky" free design service here on CC, so I hope with the assistance of somone that does website design I can get my site up and running with a great visual impact..... This is my first attempt at not only CC but at selling online with my own site, so it has been very intresting. Thank you for your comments, I really do need them from everyone in order to make sure that I have a site that will "pop" the compettion is very strong and most of them have been in buisness for years, plus that fact that I operate in the middle of a desert :wacko:

Thank you again and keep'em coming....

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I found a set of 5 cd's of photos for $19.99 at Fry's here in California. I would imagine that the inventory of the store in Vegas is the same. Do you know where the one on the strip is south of the Luxor, and North of Blue Diamond? Vegas is my second home.

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Guest sunshine

Hi TBladecki,

Needed a few tries to access your site. IE says DNS Error.

Desert Aquatics is really coming along. Your product photos looks great agains the layout.

That Arrow Spider still freaks me out.

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