Website Review and Suggestions

#1 (permalink)

Just finished redesigning this site for a local wallpaper distributor who offer the largest collection online, around 15,000 patterns I'd love some feedback on the navigation as my main goal was to make the site more user-friendly.

Select Wallpaper

If anyone reading this runs an interior design based website or blog you're welcome to contact me to discuss a link exchange, or contest sponsorship if you have a fair amount of traffic.

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#2 (permalink)

Looks pretty good.

A few points.

Navigation is nice but I dont like the way the column
does a little "dance" when you mouse over. Should fix that.

Loose the cutsey little : )
Believe it or not, many people will not understand
what those mean and just assume them to be
punctuation - which will lead to even more confusion.

You can loose the "Hello". Nobody is interested
in greetings from a web server.

You said that you offer the largest collection online.
But it says that......nowhere on your site!
That should be your marketing tag - currently you dont have one.

Just an idea:
You sell physical wallpaper of course but why not change up the
background wallpaper on the website to match various products.

Have like a Wallpaper of the Week.
Its easy to do with CSS and would add some variety
and interest to your site.
The rest of your site is basically in neutral colors
so I dont think you'll have any color clash issues.

Something to think about.

#3 (permalink)

Many thanks for the feedback TWD, lots of great suggestions and ideas for me to think about

I'm in two minds about this one. Whilst I don't like the "dance" I do like having the larger font when hovered, I'm looking at ways to get around the menu from jumping by using extra padding.

Agreed, the thought had crossed my mind that some may not understand this. Not everyones a geek like myself

Not sure I agree on this one, nothing wrong with being polite to our site visitors

Agreed, this is now mentioned in the opening sentence, thanks.

I'm playing around with this idea on localhost now, a nice idea thank you!

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#4 (permalink)

Quote:
Originally Posted by TWD
You can loose the "Hello". Nobody is interested
in greetings from a web server.

You can get into a really good debate about this with other web designers.

For the record, Vincent Flanders (www.webpagesthatsuck.com) lists
"Web pages that start with 'Welcome to...'" as one of his FATAL design
mistakes.

I'm not sure I would agree that its FATAL. But at best I think its probably
just a waste of valuable screen real estate and extra visual "noise".

I would like to find some research on that.
Thanks to Google Website Optimizer you can always try testing yourself
and see which version does better. PLEEEZ let us know if you do

#5 (permalink)

Nice simple looking site, but not too simple. I like it.

However, I would change the logo on the top. That seems too.. generic and simple. Otherwise, you're on the right path.

#6 (permalink)

I, personally, hate that style of navigation. Always been against it though. Other than that I really like the site. Good work!

-LNC