This is a site redesign and I'm still tweaking it. I would appreciate your feedback, especially on font size (is it too small?), ease of use and navigation. Would you buy from a site like this?

For those for whom I've written hard to take reviews this is your chance to get your own back, so give it to me straight!


The correct link is http://www.janetperry.co.uk

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Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. Aristotle (384-322 BC)

Your link doesn't work. That may be the first advice I can give you.

Ok, I'm going to just tell you my first impression.
The intro is clean, but too white, almost too symetrical.
The links, I love the effect on your thumbnails. Howevere, there is a lot of empty space at the bottom of your site that you need to take out. I believe it's on every page.

Your tags :Simply Beautiful Jewellery... you may want something more catchy while keeping the keywords. Same for your title, logo, etc.

Jewellery vs. jewelry ( I didn't know you could write it 2 ways... you might want to make 2 pages for that typo)

You might want to hide the link to http://www.sitemeter.com/
Also make sure it links to a new page so you don't lead your visitors out of your site.
-- Can't you get detailed statistics on your server? It may be more professional.

I also find the buying experience a little confusing at first. I think you need to add color. It's hard to see the links, it's too small, also. You must be using the smallest font. Go up an inch. My eyesight is good and i have trouble. Imagine the old ladies...

You may want to separate the text:
"The system is completely secure so you can buy in confidence. Click on Buy next to the item. Click on any View Order to view your order at any time or to complete your order. Online payment is by Debit/Credit Card only. To pay by cheque see the contact details. All prices inclusive of UK mainland postage and packaging. Currency Converter."
and also make it larger, and more simple in regards to the order part. It's confusing. Say all that in 1 sentence. People don't read much, mostly small characters like you have.

Commissions - You may want to replace by something more catchy like "Unique Custom Jewelry".

I also think you could work on the text of the site. You can embellish the content and use more keywords, more attractive sell pitches to win the heart of the women who will buy the jewelry.

That's all for now. I just brainstormed my personal judgement. I wish you great success in your endeavour and am happy to return your favor. You have helped me tremendously in redesigning my site, and I am very thankful. Now, I hope some of my comments will help you make yours better. I will come back to see how things are going.

Have a nice day,

Katia Bordy

INTERNATIONAL ROOTS COMPANY, INC.
RARE COLLECTIBLES ART GALLERY
Tel: 954-458-1557 - info@internationalrootscompany.com
http://www.internationalrootscompany.com

cannot get to your site... perhaps the link is incorrect???

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Mary Ann
Affordable Websites Designed - www.m-goret.com

Hello Katia,

Thanks for your feedback.

With regards to the white space at the bottom of every page, that's because the Contact link in the nav links to an anchor and space is needed to place the contact info towards the top of the screen. We specifically wanted a light and minimalist feel so that the focus is on the photographs.

Jewelry is american spelling, jewellery is not a typo.

With regards to the style of the text. Janet and I do not want 'sell pitches to win the heart of the women' believing that the jewellery should sell itself. The keyword count is already high on each page.

I think you're probably right about the text size, it's x-small and should probably be just small (xx-small is the smallest but doesn't work on Macs). we tested at a variety of resolutions on 3 monitor sizes, although we can read it I can understand that some might have difficulty. I'll increase it soon and review the inline links to make them clearer.

I'll talk to Janet about your other comments and see if we can rationalise the order instructions.

Thank you for your time, it's much appreciated.

I can't give you any technical advice. Personally I really like the photos and they really pop against the clean white background. I would buy from a site like this because I like the jewelry and I feel it is well displayed. The "commission" button is slightly strange from an American point of view. Perhaps "Commissioned Work" or "Custom Designs" seems better to me. I hope this is helpful, like I said I am no technical expert, just a shopper :-).

I loooove your site. I think it looks extremely elegent. I do like simple contemporaty sites like this and think it sets of things your selling really well. The picture move is a very interesting effect as well.

It's difficult to comment on would I buy as I am not into your product but was certainly fascinated with the site.

Really must take that site meter off though. Spoils the site. I run at high resolution and most of the pages fit really nicely into my screen but I still get the scroll bar to go down to where the meter is. Without the meter (and what use is it anyway) it would look perfect.

I would definately use the typo as a keyword. I have a friend who does martini recipes and everyone spells recipes wrong but he is number one for the wrong spelling without loosing much on the proper spelling.

As the pictures aer so artistic, espcially the zoom, would it possible to do like a gallery option where you can look at all the pics in bigger size with less text, almost like an art gallery. Just a thought as they are lovely to look at so possibly make a feature out of them? Maybeeverything on one page that ok is a big load but lots of lovely pictures to browse and capture the imagination (and possibly wallet) of someone playing with the zooms like I did.

All in all frankly I love it so can't really pick it. SPending too long browsing it :D

Hi,
I think this is a very nice site: simple and elegant. I have a few suggestions, some of which have already been mentioned.

1. The font size is kind of small. I would bump the size up by 1 pixel.

2. In regards to the link down to the contact information, I would create a contact page. That way, you can remove all of the white space at the bottom of every page and limit the amount of scrolling.

3. On the product pages, I would bold the title of the product and "Price:". I would also change the color of the Buy and View Order links to make them stand out from the rest of the text. You may also want to bold the "How to buy:" line at the top of each product page.

4. On the Profile page, you may want to make the titles of each section (i.e. Awards, Exhibitions, etc.) larger and possibly bolder and/or a different color. After doing that, bold the years. I think that will help break up the text and make it easier to read.

5. Lastly, I would make it so the site meter isn't visible. I think that most visitors to the site will either not know what it is or not care.

Overall, the site is great. I hope that my suggestions will be of some help.

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Jeff T. Severson
J.T.S. Design, Inc.

Hi Janet,

I did sell Tiffany Jewellery years ago on ebay so I understand a little about the market place. When I first came to your site I loved the pictures. I would advise that you need at least 1 strong colour. Each colour has different meaning and makes people feel differently towards your company e.g. BP is green for environmentally safe.

Things to consider:

· Your text gets lost in the website as you have chosen such light colours I would look at your USP (unique selling points) what are they? Put these in a more prominent colour look at http://www.tiffany.com – they use red straplines to describe their products. Red signifies immediate purchase to the consumer.

· You are award winning! Think of your strap lines : Award Winning Designer Exclusively for you! Exclusive Award Winning Jewellery!

· I would change the copy on your home page: the customer does not really care about you– sorry. What can you offer them? Why are they coming to your website? Are they getting married? Birthday? Etc START WHERE THE CUSTOMER IS!

· The copy is around you. What do you have to offer?

· I really like the images but why not have a featured item each month like Tiffany? Get a good digital camera and feature 1 item on the home page and rotate each week – with a white background.

· You really need to add some colour so choose a corporate colour which will complement your site and you need a more prominent logo for your branding – as you build yourself up this will become more important – the worst thing you can do is change it while you are building yourself up.
· I also think that you need the images on a white background (sorry) Tiffany spend ages on perfecting their pictures this can be easily changed in Photoshop. The pictures are the key to getting sales. I do like the way your pictures stand out of the page and your navigation.
· You need some ‘secure’ buying logos so people feel you are not just a one man band

Hope this was helpful in return I would appreciate your thoughts on my refreshed website http://www.getintouni.com which I launched yesterday.

Kind regards – Good luck

Elaine

Hi again Bootboy!
I figured I should come back to heck on you. I read the other posts and am happy to see that most comments are simple to change.
You should take off the white spaces at the bottom of your pages like yesterday. I hate it, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. When you scroll, you expect more...
The jewelry (forgive the typo:) is fabulous. I wish you great success. I hope you will add more items soon. It's lovely. Are you going to create a link page? And out of curiosity, what do you use to calculate your keyword popularity and page ranking?
I'm always on the look out.
Oh, and if I were you, i'd make sure I rank high with the typo "jewelry" if you want to reach the US market. Take care!

Katia Bordy

INTERNATIONAL ROOTS COMPANY, INC.
RARE COLLECTIBLES ART GALLERY
info@internationalrootscompany.com
http://www.internationalrootscompany.com

I think the site is great.

Why do you need so many view order links? Wouldn't be better to put 1 main view order link on the top navigation bar?

Buy links should be more prominent.

It may be a good idea to remove the "how to buy" & "roll over image" text information and place them on another page dedicated to help information.

Can you remove tim & william from the front page? Unless you are tim?

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Herbalife Products - ShapeWorks

Typo on the profile page - the title says jewelly instead of jewellery.

The text is tiny. I have excellent eyesight and i can't read it. The wording is all from the point of view of the artist. i.e I am xxx, i live here, this is what i do, this is how to order / buy, these are my awards etc.

Try to think as if you are a buyer, visitor. They care little about you , they care about their own needs and wants.

What do you sell, why should they buy it, how will it improve their lives, how easy is it to order, why order from you and not another jeweller. The wording on the site does not address this.

Payment info is top and bottom of almost every page, seems a bit pushy, you could have one "Order Info" page from the navigation bar. I see no info on do you ship overseas, by courier, mail. My first impression is that sales are to the UK only.

I think that some colour is needed. The site feels a bit bland. The white space at bottom is annoying.

People who buy artist designer jewellery like to know about the artist, where is your artist statement ? Place it at top of the profile page. Why do you do this work, why do you live where you do, does it inspire you, do you use the sea to influence your work, what is your passion, what are you working to achieve, why do you use your chosen materials etc ?

You are selling YOU, you are the BRAND. I want to see a photo of what you look like. Why are you unique ?? This is what the customer looks for.

I can tell that your work is good, but the photos need more impact, photoshop them a bit more to get more impact, saturate the images more or punch up the contrast. Your photos are what will sell the work

I am rewriting my own site which is in the artist jeweller field and have been working along these lines to improve the marketing feel of it.

Good luck, I see that you won the platinum award a couple of years after I won it.

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Portraits hand carved on gemstone for unique cameo jewelry from your photographs.

Visit my Artists blog for up to date info.

Thank you for your positive and constructive reviews.

I have made some preliminary changes, more are on the way. We had already planned to have monthly updates of the index page text and new photographs and there will be a new gallery page, again updated monthly, with lots of examples of Janets custom jewellery. The first page has barely changed since I made the site 3 years ago. We are doing the updates in small stages as Janet is understandably very busy.

I'm amused and intrigued by the american problem with 'commissions'. In the UK we commission artists to make art, architects to design buildings, scientists to undergo studies etc.. it's the way we ask professionals to do something specific for payment. What does commission mean in american? Why is 'Commissioned Work', 'Custom Designs' or 'Unique Custom Jewelry' preferable? Please let me know.

The SiteMeter logo has gone (yippee!). I add the counter to most of the sites I make because the graphical presentation of the stats is comprehensive and easily accessible and understood by clients. Only the free version is visible and in most cases is not a serious distraction, in this case I agree it was distracting and frankly is the main reason I persisted with the contact details with accompanying work-a-round white space at the bottom, just to hide it.

I thought the font size might be be a problem, hence the reference in my post. My main monitor is very high resolution and 96dpi so it looked even smaller than on most, but I could still read it but I have just got new spectacles! I've bumped it up to small and agree it's better.

Thanks again to all for your time, I really appreciate it and believe the site is better for it.

Onwards and upwards,

Tim (yes bhwebby, I am Tim and William is William too ;-)

Hi Bootboy:
"Commission" to me refers to payment the owner of the website gives to people who sell their products or services - as an affiliate. When I clicked on "commission", I expected to see that type of information.

You have "jewelry" spelled several different ways in your site and I find that offputting.

I like your site overall but feel it needs a bit more color. Yes, it is elegant but also bland in appearance. IMO, too understated. I would like to see some color to liven it up.

If I purchased jewelry online, I would consider buying from your site if you added some personal information.

Cordially,

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Terri Arnold
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*Affordable UNIQUE High-Quality Content for Your Website*
www.professional-website-content.com

Thanks for the 'commissions' explanation amberstar702.

I had corrected the typo that Gareth spotted before you posted but can't find any other versions of jewellery. Where are they?

Cheers,
Tim

Nice usability and function. However, if I'm being honest, I think you should look into two things to give the site some polish:

BRANDING AND IDENTITY
In designing an e-commerce site it is critical that visitors understand that people are buying from you and your product is popular. Communicating this from the home page will make visitors more willing to click through and research your product. If your logo and taglines are HTML text it sends the message that you are not invested in the company or you don't have the cash. Neither is very positive when you are trying to get people to buy from you. I suggest creating a graphical masthead/banner across the top instead of the HTML text.

HERO SHOTS OF PRODUCT
I saw your comment regarding the fact that you want the product to stand on its own but at the same time not have a graphically intense site. I think you're half right. A good approach for marketing your product is to make a hero of it by using large shots of it with very little text. You have an opportunity at each main entry point to create sort of an advertisement. Your current design is very utilitarian and assumes visitors will find something. This is a long way of saying that I recommend implementing some kind of "user push" that takes users by the hand and puts the product in front of the noses.

One way to do this is by starting with the home page and selecting three or four main categories of popular products (keeping all lines in your global navigation across the top like you have them already). Spotlight these areas in a more billboard type layout like this example http://www.neimanmarcus.com/. Then emulate this "hero shot" on the main page for all your categories. Selecting items you know people are interested in or extreme discounts.

Just some thoughts for you.

I'm on a Mac this morning using IE and the first pic hangs down lower than the rest. In Netscape its fine. thought you may want to know.

Otherwise I love the site....simple and sleek....like a little black dress with pearls.

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ObieTemp

Hello Janet. your website is coordinated and lovely but I don't feel the vibe to buy... what about placing your pieces on a hand or give a ruler for sizing...

oh conditions is spelled incorrectly,,,

There is a lot of text... pair it down...

Instead of Buy ring why not "in shopping basket"?

bold your buying methods Pay by..."bold font" makes it easy to buy right?
Your name is lovely - use it try scroll font fact or script... bring elegance into your product line with your name...

Your have a slue of awards! Show some off on your homepage to add an element of credentials like...

Janet is the recipient of "several awards" and make the text link to your awards page... ok I am done. I love pearls by the way - are they real.....?

josee - Best of Luck - although with that list of credentials you will be just fine!

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Josee Morin
Director Health and Safety,
Strategic Employee Testing Corporation
http://www.setcorp.ca

Just a correction, dear - "jewelry" is not "American" spelling, it is correct English used world-wide. "Jewellery" as you spell it is used in Britain only, at least that is what my English dictionary says. However, if your intent is to sell soley to the UK, then you are doing just fine there! Most Americans that I know click out of sites that appear to have misspelled words.

I like the overall feel of the website and those photos ARE beautiful. The only thing that bothers me is that the very top section just seems TOO light to me. To the point of distraction and annoyance. Even if you put the gray color that you use over the nav bar all the way to the top of the screen, that would help some and still keep it "minimalist" as you want it too. But right now, it almost seems unfinished as it is. It would look so much sharper with the logo being a separate font and actually looking like a "logo" instead of text.....

Text is not too small, I think your layout is excellent. You must have fixed the white space because I don't see that.

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Kristin