www.cashelscovecrafts.com

Beth9 · #1 (**permalink**) 01-14-2004, 07:52 PM

Have a look at this site I did a couple of years ago. I have another one I did lately as well. Both are retail sites which do not have online purchasing. Maybe in the future. I am an amateur in this, and I did the best I can. I will do a reciprocal review in return. It would be nice to get some unbiased opinions. Thanks.

Elite Skills · #2 (**permalink**) 01-14-2004, 08:13 PM

It's a good job ;). I think you should stick with regular font. It's less of a burden for people to read it. Try not to use frames. The search engines aren't going to grab any keywords. If you do use frames add metatags in the index page and add a noscript tag with the site description.

Sualdam · #3 (**permalink**) 01-14-2004, 08:45 PM

The picture of the bride is nearly 100kb - that'll be close to a 30 second download for a typical dialup user.

There's a slight jump on your navigation when I mouseover an item. Actually, any mouseover change causes the page to jump - not just the nav part.

It is nicely laid out inside.

The bigger images that appear when a thumbnail is clicked are also too big - one of the shoes is 140kb, definitely over 30 seconds download time for some. You could get those down well below 30kb I think.

Holy Cow! One of the dresses is over 0.5MB. That's several minutes download. People won't wait, so you definitely need to pull those right down. I also think they're physically too big. They take up 3/4 of the screen height on my 2048x1536 display, so over 90% of the people who visit your site will definitely not see the whole picture in one go.

I'd also do a bit of touching up in the graphics package you use. I can see they are images scanned from a catalogue (they're a bit grainy), so you could make them look better. Is the text on the images necessary for your site? Actually, I can see it is, but I'd airbrush out the existing text and put something in that has your identity/design with it.

Also, it would be much better if you could open those in a separate window, and ideally one sized for the image. At the moment, they open with a non-white background which isn't in keeping with your otherwise tidy layout. And people are forced to use the back button, which isn't a good idea.

Personally, I hate Comic Sans font. In a site like this I suppose it is a toss-up between informal and business-like impressions. That's your call.

I didn't look at every page but I guess all those comments apply throughout.

I don't think you really have too much hard work to do to get it perfectly functional, except sort out those images. That's just irritation, because you have quite a few :)

Beth9 · #4 (**permalink**) 01-14-2004, 08:56 PM

Thanks to you both for your comments. The picture size is something I am aware of. Some pictures are scanned from the owner's collection and I will definitely make effort to get some dig pics asap. Two thumbs down on the comic sans font- will give that some attention as well. I really appreciate all advice.

Sualdam · #5 (**permalink**) 01-15-2004, 07:05 AM

Of course, it helps if I review the site you asked about rather than the one that's on your WWW button (and discussed in another thread). Sorry about that.

Similar comments about http://www.cashelscovecrafts.com/ re: the pictures. Not quite as big as the bridal ones, but still too big.

I don't think the table on the left works - the border/cell borders are too close together and the text is squished between them.

I'd lose the borders and change the font style (to sans serif) and colour (to white) so it worked against the ornage background. Maybe darken the orange a little as it is slightly aggressive on the eyes at the moment.

The page resizes freely with the browser. I'd fix it for 800x600. This would mean your thumbnails are too large pixel-wise - but I was going to mention that anyway.

I'd go with sans serif font throughout.

I see you take Mastercard and Visa, but don't do online ordering. You're a small step away from being able to do that, so I'd consider it if I were you.

phkgirl · #6 (**permalink**) 01-15-2004, 09:14 AM

What a lovely selection of crafts you have! I could spend hours just gazing at the details.

Personally though, the orange is a bit much for me, reminds me of halloween year around?

As for the pics, would it be too hard for you to just place thumbnails that could be clicked to show a larger scale pic up close? That would be what I would do. Just my 2 cents as always.

Best of luck with your business, and god bless.

Beth9 · #7 (**permalink**) 01-17-2004, 03:23 PM

Thanks to you all for your tips and comments. I am taking your advice to heart and will be making some changes very soon.

janeth · #8 (**permalink**) 01-17-2004, 03:32 PM

Very nice work. The only thing I would add is you need a nice looking logo. You have some great products.

kimbecker1 · #9 (**permalink**) 01-17-2004, 05:58 PM

ditto to the advice above :)

I love the products.

seafoam · #10 (**permalink**) 01-18-2004, 12:46 PM

You definitely have some nice work for sale.

My main criticism is the navigation bar. The blue on orange just doesn't lend itself to readability. The titles of some of the links aren't exactly informative either. I would make the Catalog link stand out much more, and encourage visitors to that page, which could be enhanced with brief product descriptions, rather than just lists of items. With such a broad and diverse product range, you need to make it easy for your visitors to find something they might like.

I also get the impression that you could benefit by doing some search engine optimization. If the hits counter is correct, you just aren't getting the visits your site deserves. A good starting point would be to change the page titles. Using your URL is a waste of time! The page title should describe, briefly using keywords, what is on that page. That would be a good start.

Derek Andrews

Beth9 · #11 (**permalink**) 01-18-2004, 05:54 PM

Thank you Seafoam for some specific tips on this site that I can follow up on. I have learned alot in the past few days since I joined this forum.

modjadje · #12 (**permalink**) 01-18-2004, 08:27 PM

Hallo Beth,
I am very new here, this is my first review ... I am also very humble, because I am a total amateur. I want to offer some input on the overall impression, first.
Lovely products, nice artsy feel, friendly to navigate.
I agree with another poster that the background color is hard on the eyes ... how about a gentle dove grey like what is echoed in the crafts pictures?

And for your logo, perhaps you can leave the first line of the title in Tempus Sans Comic, and put the second line "Fine Newfoundland Art and Crafts" in a different, plainer font. This may make it look more like a logo.
Lastly, I looked at the Source Code for the home page and there are no meta keywords and no meta description. Now remember that I am a total greenie, but I've been reworking mine for a week because I was under the impression that these are very important. (You pros, jump in and educate me if I am under the wrong impression).
I hope you will go have a look at my site too, I started a thread for it. Like yours, mine is very heavy with pictures, of necessity. I noticed that one of your reviewers suggested thumbnail pics, I will give that some thought too.
Hope my input was helpful,
Modjadje, amateur webmaster of http://westcoastcruiserexports.us