Website Review and Suggestions

**robthebuilder** · 02-16-2007, 12:17 PM

Hey,

I wouldlike some comments both positiive and negative on my first full website found at www.activeelectric.net. I would like you to tell me about overall navagability, design, order ease, and other helpful comments.

As far as ordering, I do not have your typical "shopping cart" for several reasons. First, I use Yahoo Web Hosting

which isn't easy to configure for OS shopping carts. Second, Yahoo provides a Paypal button, which messes up shipping when you go to checkout. So I made my own.

If you know a good shipping calculator program (free or paid) please suggest one as well. Thanks for all your imput

.

**RanaD** · 02-16-2007, 01:32 PM

Well, I like the logo.

On your home-page, linking the specific brands to pages which lists what you have for that brand could help. Let's presume your client is some mechanic somewhere looking for something he can't find elsewhere, or maybe just looking for a good deal. Let's presume this guy spends more time in his workshop than on the internet.

With those presumptions, you don't want to frustrate a potential client knowing what he's looking for by letting him dig for the information. He's looking for something he knows goes under the brand Dayton, so give him the option to just go to things you sell that is made by Dayton.

You could put your guarantee below the listing of parts on your parts page. It's not half as important as knowing how to order or having access to the parts.

You should reduce the file-size of your images of parts. And strongly consider having thumbnails of them instead of just a picture of a camera on the actual page.

Your credits page: what on earth have those sites got to do with motor parts?

You used a template for the site, which I don't believe to be a good idea. Your code is very messy, with CSS between the code all over the place.

Your code also fails on 75 errors at W3C's validator.

It will probably work for now, but you should invest the time in learning to code HTML by hand. It will help you build much better websites in future.

**robthebuilder** · 02-16-2007, 01:39 PM

Thanks. Hey good hearing from someone finally on it. Yes, I would like to learn a little more html, its was kinda a quick throw together and my boss liked it.

Quote:

On your home-page, linking the specific brands to pages which lists what you have for that brand could help. Let's presume your client is some mechanic somewhere looking for something he can't find elsewhere, or maybe just looking for a good deal. Let's presume this guy spends more time in his workshop than on the internet.

With those presumptions, you don't want to frustrate a potential client knowing what he's looking for by letting him dig for the information. He's looking for something he knows goes under the brand Dayton, so give him the option to just go to things you sell that is made by Dayton.

I will experiment around and try to work on it in the near future.

Quote:

You should reduce the file-size of your images of parts. And strongly consider having thumbnails of them instead of just a picture of a camera on the actual page.

I don't the the little cameras, probably will update those, too.

Quote:

Your code also fails on 75 errors at W3C's validator.

Does the validator offer suggestions on how to fix it?

Thanks again.

**RanaD** · 02-16-2007, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Does the validator offer suggestions on how to fix it?

Yes it does

**robthebuilder** · 02-16-2007, 02:04 PM

RanaD, I was thinking about doing some pre-fill magic to use as my shopping cart. For example, if the customer were to press the purchase button, the item name and price would be automatically filled in to the order page. My problem is that is they were to order a seperate item, would this overwrite the first?

The pre-fill magic is javascript, of course.

**t4tom4** · 02-16-2007, 02:19 PM

Hi - Ok... firstly, it's a good start, but need a few adjustments

I'd recommend making the logo a bit bigger - it's fairly small and could perhaps be a little more prominent.

Secondly, I'd recommend changing the font. Times New Roman is pretty dull and would recommend something like Tahoma or Trebuchet MS

Good Luck

**RanaD** · 02-16-2007, 03:49 PM

Hey Rob,

I've never really used JS, never had to, never wanted to. I think you're best off asking on the JavaScript forum about that..

If you're considering a font-change, keep in mind which fonts you have which others may not have. Personally, I like Arial at 14px.

**robthebuilder** · 02-16-2007, 03:55 PM

Yeah, I tried to implement some better fonts originally, but ran into the problem that others might not have those fonts, so I stuck with the old "tried and true" Times New Roman.

**t4tom4** · 02-16-2007, 04:13 PM

Hi - Everyone will have fonts like Tahoma, Trebuchet MS even Arial will look better

**robthebuilder** · 02-16-2007, 04:17 PM

Unbelievable, I'll see how it looks, no gurantees though,lol.

**RanaD** · 02-16-2007, 04:42 PM

You can define a font-family. Such as: "Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"

This way, a user who doesn't have Arial, but does have Helvetica installed, will see the site in Helvetica. Should the user have neither Arial nor Helvetica installed, a sans-serif font will be displayed.

You currently have:

Code:

<style type="text/css"><!--
BODY {font-family:"Arial"; font-size:14;}
P {font-family:"Arial"; font-size:14;}

This only leaves the option of Arial.

You also have:

Code:

<span class="text">
<font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
<span style="font-size:18px;line-height:22px;">We also perform

So changing the font-family in your style definition at the top will have no effect.

Have a look in the CSS forum for some CSS tutorials.

**SittingBull** · 02-17-2007, 04:08 PM

In Firefox the search box on the main page is askew and encroaches on the main content. Other than that I think RanaD is giving you some good hints and with the addition of some CSS and font changes things should begin to look better and more professional!

**environment** · 02-17-2007, 04:16 PM

Looks Good to me.

**robthebuilder** · 03-01-2007, 02:44 PM

I still don't have a shipping calculator figured in yet, still in the process. I've updated my site, please give it a fresh look over and your comments are more than welcomed.

**Insensus** · 03-01-2007, 02:52 PM

First thing I noticed, as always

, is the Times New Roman font.
I'd really change that to Arial or Verdana.
I'd also make the Red border Blue because that's more in your site's color line.
Everything else looks very good and it's easy to move around, although your pages load a little slow.

Regards,
Insensus

**toinkzzz** · 03-01-2007, 03:42 PM

for me,, i dont think the background image fits to your site.. make it plain and simple... center align your contents in the page...

**boldstepdesign** · 03-01-2007, 09:59 PM

1. May I suggest using CSS to layout your site.
2. Bland, just white, blue, and some yellow/orange. use color.
3. Design, Over all the design doesn't look very good, I'd suggest getting ride of the background and do a CSS based navigation, and maybe a few stock photos relating to what ever you do

**goheadtry** · 03-02-2007, 11:27 PM

It looks a little bit to plain I mean It is way to simple it needs maybe some web graphics to jazz up your website and maybe something gradient like a lot of modern site also Try using different h1 h2 text styles .

**PJDev** · 03-09-2007, 02:15 PM

The background kind of clutters the text. Nice logo.

**stockmillionair** · 03-09-2007, 03:37 PM

Looks like an amature did it i would just pay some one a hundred bucks at elance.com do make you a decent layout then you can edit it jmho