www.sublimebikinis.com - review request

minky · #1 (**permalink**) 01-13-2004, 06:21 PM

I'd appreciate any comments on the design of my website.
I'm particularly concerned with the catalogue section - are the images too big, and is the loading time too long?

This site sells lingerie and bikinis, so there is partial nudity - but nothing offensive!

All comments are welcome,
Thanks.

Sualdam · #2 (**permalink**) 01-13-2004, 07:13 PM

Generally speaking you want the index page to load quickly so people see something. The image on your index page is 70kb - that will take about 15-20 seconds to load.

You could get it down by quite a long way - but probably not to your satisfaction as far as the text it contains is concerned. JPGs don't compress well visually when they contain text, and especially fancy text like that.

Notice you have a gallery picture about the same size but it is only 21kb. That's more like the size you want.

I would suggest you think about having some of the text as a separate GIF. If the main text needs to overlap the image I can't see how you can get the size down with a JPG.

Under product information you have an image at 41kb. Similar sized ones elsewhere are around 20kb.

Work on the principle that dialup users get about 3-5kb a second. So a 30kb image will load in about 6-10 seconds.

You might want to tidy up your fabric samples and colours page a little (centre the images in the table cells, change the text colour when the fabric colour is light, and so on). Perhaps put text UNDER the image instead of ON TOP of it? It is hard to get text to show up on a black and white polka dot fabric :)

Tidy up your navigation and provide back buttons where necessary. When I went to fabrics I got lost because I wasn't paying attention :)

Website Biz · #3 (**permalink**) 01-13-2004, 11:12 PM

Needs more bikinis.

EJRS.COM · #4 (**permalink**) 01-14-2004, 02:28 AM

I would say, invest in a gif and jpg software. You can try the free version at http://ejrs.com/optimizers.html The free version helps you to compress images a bit but it doesn't cost much to buy a lifetime membership of the softwares. Might wanna consider that. Afterall, if you are gonna be making other cool sites, it's an investment.

My motto is:
If I won't invest in myself, why should anyone else invest in me?

vwebworld · #5 (**permalink**) 01-14-2004, 10:03 AM

Well, I agree about your pictures. They all should
be resized (smaller) anespecially on the catalog page(s).
The catalog would be faster loading if the pics were thumbnails.

While your splash page (openning page) is nice...
(certainly a lovely picture), you should ask yourself
what purpose does it serve? To splash or not to
splash is something all web sites should consider.

At the very least, if you keep the splash page, you
need to add appropriate META tags... as well as
rework the picture (because of it's size 70K). What
do you think your viewers do upon reaching your
splash page? My guess is they (drool a little) then
try to find out how to get into the site. Some may
not - some may just leave.

Your openning page should communicate the message
you want the viewer to receive (first). It should,
in your case, move the viewer to go you your catalog
and buy.

Thinking of "splash pages", you could do a cool
thing - splash... swim suits - get it?

~Roland