First web site

[Guest chele4557]

This is my first attempt at a web site. Any and all feedback is appreciated.

Hearth Glow Candles

[Guest chele4557]

Could some one please give some (any) feedback on this site. Thanks!

[Guest Bongo's Basement]

Hi Chele,

I think it's a great start. I'm not very informed in the candle scene of things, so my comment would be a product shot of the items or even a generic product shot and a bit more of a description say size, areas of best use. eg since I know nothing about "Jelly Jars" whats the difference between that and a regular scented candle?

I hope these comments are ok.

Regards

Bongo

[Guest ballesdegolf.fr]

Hi there - I am very new to this - but it looks good. My only comment is that in Firefox and IE "Shop by Catagory doesn't fit in the box

Good luck with the store

Jim

[Guest chele4557]

Hi there - I am very new to this - but it looks good. My only comment is that in Firefox and IE "Shop by Catagory doesn't fit in the box

Good luck with the store

Jim

Thanks for the compliment and comment. I have been working on this site for months in what little spare time I have, it seems. You must be talking about the actual list of product such as the "Apothecary Jar Candles". I have tried to get it to fit but gave up. I'll just shorten it up and leave out the "Candles" like on Home page and see how that does.

Hi Chele,

I think it's a great start. I'm not very informed in the candle scene of things, so my comment would be a product shot of the items or even a generic product shot and a bit more of a description say size, areas of best use. eg since I know nothing about "Jelly Jars" whats the difference between that and a regular scented candle?

I hope these comments are ok.

Regards

Bongo

Thanks for the comment. I am new to all this so I need all the comments so if there is something to change, I'll try to do it. I will be working on redoing my home page to include pics and more info. Thanks again!

[Guest ballesdegolf.fr]

"Thanks for the compliment and comment. I have been working on this site for months in what little spare time I have, it seems. You must be talking about the actual list of product such as the "Apothecary Jar Candles". I have tried to get it to fit but gave up. I'll just shorten it up and leave out the "Candles" like on Home page and see how that does."

No I meant that the Title " Shop by Category" on Firefox on my machine doesn't quite fit. Once I have clicked through from the homepage on an item under"products" the box which replaces it on the next page is " Shop by Category" and the y in category doesn't fit in the box.

But hey this is small stuff compared with all the good work you have done - so don't beat yourself up over it. You went much further than I have with my first site (see the list in this section I am not far away)

Good luck

Jim

[jerseyjoe]

In general, it's a pleasing design, albeit, the color scheme offers a certain coolness to what I think of as a warm cozy product environment. I suggest you look into a warmer color palate. Try these color scheme tools for help in finding a warmer set of tone . . .

http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html

http://www.steeldolphin.com/color_scheme.html

and here's an ur-site that links to many dozens of helpful color management web sites.

http://www.colorschemes.org/

For particulars, - and always with sincere supportive intent, although I usually speak plain to be brief and to avoid mis-understanding . . .

The banner introduces three problems.

1) it is too wide (876px) meaning it pushes the entire site off the right side of the screen of a still common 800 wide display - and to no noticeable benefit. Re do it to something like 750px wide so it will breathe against a background.

2) at 138 px high, the banner is too high, again without any special benefit over one that is, let's say 90 px high. Keep in mind that not only is 138 px a serious bite out of the typical mail slot that many people's browsers are defaulted to, with tool bars and banner bars and Yahoo bars and candy bars and cocktai bars.

If would be a wonderful world if everyone knew the pleasures of the F-11 key but the truth is, those keys above the row of numbers may as well be sharks teeth for popular willingness to touch them. My experience teaching basic computer skills to classrooms of adults tells me that most will go from cradle to grave without ever touching them.

Therefore, we must design layouts for what people see, not what we hope they see.

Here's a site I have under construction (stuck waiting for client photos and product descriptions) using a 90px high banner. Is it any less effective than one 138px high? It certainly is a lot less intrusive and wasteful of the most visible real estate on a site.

See: www.itsgreektomejerseycity.com

3) your banner comes in at well over 32kb. Mine on the restaurant site is not even 1/3rd of that, meaning it downloads 3 time faster than yours.

Still in the banner, and despite your high byte count, it appears, from the degradation around the letters of the words in "Hearth Glow" that you have tried to optimize the graphic. Perhaps you built the banner in larger dimensions and then shrunk its physical dimensions - and strippedd out the excess bytes - but a bit too aggressively. I'd go back, literally to a digital drawing board such as Photoshop or Elements. Start fresh with height and width dimensions no larger than your goal. Then when you optimize, you may lose that degradation.

Moving on . .

Your nav menus are not consistent in appearance from page to page. Some are double spaced, some are single spaced. The graphics and font and even the wording varies from one to the other. It made me disorientated. I wonder about its affect on a prospect.

Offering all those shipment tracing boxes is not only excessive, but way premature, and therefore distracting from the "buy me" mentality you want to instill. Its prominent (every page???) and quintuple-entry presence introduces the idea that a shipment will go astray, even before an order has been placed. When was the last time you went into a retail store and was confronted with the lost shipment policy on the display case of every item while you were browsing?

Put package tracing once, maybe on the shopping cart checkout page - or better yet - limit it to being a link in the order acknowledgement email that the buyer gets.

In general on too many pages, you have centered the text. Centered text is much harder to read than text that is justified left. The eye must find the start of the next line in a new location for every single line. It quickly becomes tiring (tiresome?). To learn more about such issues, go Google (in spearate searches) such key words as "legibility" and "readability." Look in the results for studies that tell you how text layout affects the user experience. Limit line width, too, to something like 70 characters whenever possible.

On that same point of readability, and referring again to the color scheme issue, the contrast between your text and backgrounds is less than optimal. Both are too close to each other on the dark end of a spectrum when contrast is what you want. The legibility and readability studies on your Google search will enlighten (take the pun if you like it) you.

Refernce site content, product information, etc. . . .

Your selling proposition makes prominent claim in the banner that yours are "soy candles" but that's the only time it is mentioned. If the feature deserves space in your valuable banner, why not explain the benefits of that feature in your FAQ? I know nothing about candles and therefore, if soy makes them more expensive but longer lasting while avoiding toxic fumes of traditional beeswax, I would never now that and might come away - without buying anything - based on an the impression you are overpriced.

It may well be that your soy candles are the best value proposition in the world of sticky wicks, but you have not helped me learn that.

Finally (assuming you are still with me here and have not "kill filed" me) the comment made elsewhere in this thread about your lack of candle images is right on the mark. Your thumbnails are evocative but then fail, on subsequent click-throughs, to deliver what they evoke. You need product shots and much larger, too. I'd want something like 350px wide by the time I've come to the "more" screen - and a much more satisfying text to put me into the "candle mood."

Sell sizzle, not steak.

Good luck and best wishes for having made a good start. Keep on goping and learning.