We have made some changes, please let us know

ESLI · #1 (**permalink**) 01-04-2008, 10:11 AM

I will get right to the point. We have made several changes to our site and would love for you to review it. We are looking for comments on….

Ease of use
Layout
Load times
Use of “white space”
Overall content (did we offer you enough information for each product)
Color scheme

We have always valued comments posted on webproworld and appreciate any and all suggestions.

Thank you
Michael
Surveillance, access control, covert & counter surveillance

shyflower · #2 (**permalink**) 01-04-2008, 11:24 AM

The first thing that comes up is the green thing. Is that your country or area?

I'd take the double outline out of your logo to make it look more contemporary.

I'm not to hot on your roll overs. Navigation should be simple and to the point to help the visitor access his/her areas of interest. Your graphics right of your logo are especially what Vincent Flander's calls "mystery meat navigation" on Web Pages that suck. You don't know what they are until you roll over them.

The rest of your design looks a bit 90's, but it will probably work because you do have a good display of product there.

However, I would move the tagline presently in your footer to the top of your content page to further introduce the site and its purpose to your visitor.

I'd also take the indents out of your web sales copy paragraphs.

I see what you're doing with the three column, two column products, but I'd make each column of the two columns the same width and each column of the three columns the same width:

--------- | --------

----- | ----- | -----

--------- | --------

----- | ----- | -----

or put your featured item at top left with the other two items in that tier on the top right.

I'd also put the three items with little description (now positioned at the top of the page) last in the product flow and add a 'details here' link or price them as you have the others on the page.

The load time was very good.

Your side nav is good except for your scroller. I use fire fox and it's increasing in its Market Share. I don't know what the problem is with your scroller that it won't work in any browser other then IE. That's something I would definitely fix.

Dubbya · #3 (**permalink**) 01-04-2008, 11:30 AM

Hi,

What follows is a machine gun description of the issues I think you need to address. They're in no particular order, listed as I came across them.

In FireFox, the page is a little too wide, by about 80 pixels. It places a horizontal scrollbar at the bottom of the browser window that, when scrolled to the right, reveals a bizarre looking column.

It scales and collapses fine in IE.

The products are easy enough to find and add to the cart, however, after choosing to continue shopping, how do I get back to the cart to check out? Where is the mini cart telling me what I've selected and the dollar value???

I was able to mouse around and deduce that the tiny graphics in the page header hold the "View Cart" link... it's a major mistake not to have labeled it more clearly. In terms of usability, the text on all of those links should be visible at all times, not just on mouseover.

You might consider removing the first line of your about us content which reads "is a women owned business that". In addition, a few of the services need a little more clarification to be beneficial in terms of keywords/keyphrases.

If you want to play up the "woman owned business" angle, talk about yourself and list your experience. Post your photo(s) with your name(s) and tell your prospective customers why you're their best choice.

Try this and read it out loud:

Quote:

EyeSpyL.I. Surveillance distributes, designs, & produces CCTV video surveillance equipment, covert surveillance systems, access control locks, access card readers and counter-surveillance equipment.

Delete " (hence the name EyeSpyL.I.)." It adds nothing of value to the sentence.

"In 2002, they started" Write in first person... "In 2002, WE started"

Some of the content uses white backgrounds.. other pages don't. From a readability perspective, it's not very good. You'd do well to have a uniform design here. Dark text, light or white background. Easy to read, easy to print.

Mission Statements are oldschool. Passe' in today's web. No body reads them and they're easily integrated in the "About Us" page content. They're no longer of any significant benefit outside your organization.

Some of the links unnecessarily spawn new windows for site content. Not good.

The site lacks breadcrumb navigation. I've no idea where I'm at when I've clicked on a link. Look at it this way. Click on the "About Us" link and minimize the window. Answer a phone call, send an email and after about 10 minutes, come back to the page. Would you remember where you were? Most wouldn't.

There's nothing there to tell me I'm on the "About Us" page. Not the page title, no heading, no bolded menu item, nothing. Make sure users always know where they are.

The search feature needs to be at the top of the page. Top left or right is where it belongs. Don't kid yourself, people use the search feature instead of navigation, especially if it works well.

Change the "Contact Us" Mailto: link and replace it with an anti spam email form. Users hate the email client popup and you're opening yourself up to copious amounts of spam. It's simply not professional.

What's the purpose of the "Secure Shopping" graphic? It doesn't do anything when clicked, doesn't link to anything, why's it there? If you want to build credibility and establish trust, get a BBB Online logo, join the BBB and have their logo link to your BBB profile on their site. That will help establish trust and credibility.

Get rid of the extraneous meta tags. They're of no real benefit and they decrease your text/code ratio, making your content less relevant in the search engines. BTw, you've got duplicate "y_key" verification meta tags... remove the extra one.

Your copyright should be the current year.

At present, you've got a javascript in your meta tags.. get it out of there.

You've got too many keywords, your homepage can't possibly be relevant for all of them. Pick your eight most valuable keywords/keyphrases and optimize your page for those. Tackle the others in another page.

Your product pages can each have their own keywords/keyphrases as well, so use them where they'll be most relevant.

Your meta description reads like a stack of keywords. Make it a short, descriptive sentence compiled of a few targeted keywords that will entice users to click on your link in the SERP's.

Code:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
<meta name="description" content="GPS tracking, CCTV equipment, spy & nanny hidden cameras Access Control Magnetic door locks, DVR's and cctv surveillance.">
<meta name="keywords" content="cctv, spy, surveillance camera, magnetic door locks, gps vehicle tracking, video door phone, nanny cam, access control, digital video recorder, dvr, endoscope, hidden camera, covert, security, keyless door lock, biometric fingerprint, long island, new york">
<script type="text/javascript" src="flashobject.js"></script>
<meta name="copyright" content="2008 EyeSpyL.I.">
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico" >
<meta name="verify-v1" content="YTd5kafWPirb6VBPkR9gm3pFiT1UH0AsUa+FyYvq9kE=" >
<META name="y_key" content="5fb97f5cf630671a" >

I see you've used FrontPage to create the site. Not the worst decision in the world, but be mindful of how it adds extraneous code to your page. All the "webbot bot" code, <font></font> tags.. etc.

I see you've used an image based navigation system. It looks like a CSS menu, but it's not. It could and should be a CSS menu. You'd be much better off in terms of accessibility and search engine placement to rectify this. The site would load more quickly because your code would be significantly reduced. Again, the site would be easier to update as well.

Clean up the code and rely on CSS styles in your external stylesheet. You're reduce the page code, help the site load faster, make the content more relevant and make your entire site easier to update.

.02

ESLI · #4 (**permalink**) 01-04-2008, 11:49 AM

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for all of the suggestions. This is why I like coming here. I get strait answers and great suggestions. We will start working on them ASAP. Some should be little or no problem but others like our Roll Over’s are going to be a little bit more challenging.

Again, thanks and I will get back when we have made some changes to see if we are on the right track. I want to especially thank Dubbya for all of you in-depth work. Gee I couldn’t have asked for more. You really dug deep.

Thanks again all

Michael

**mjtaylor** · #5 (**permalink**) 01-04-2008, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ESLI

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for all of the suggestions. This is why I like coming here. I get strait answers and great suggestions. We will start working on them ASAP. Some should be little or no problem but others like our Roll Over’s are going to be a little bit more challenging.

Again, thanks and I will get back when we have made some changes to see if we are on the right track. I want to especially thank Dubbya for all of you in-depth work. Gee I couldn’t have asked for more. You really dug deep.

Thanks again all

Michael

That is so nice to hear ... I love being a part of a community that gives so much! You might want to add to the Rep of those who helped ...

Cheers, MJ

ESLI · #6 (**permalink**) 01-04-2008, 12:44 PM

OK we have changed the following

To Dubbya

We are working on “labeling” the Icons on the top right (i.e. shopping cart, sitemap etc) so it’s not a guessing game.

We removed the "woman owned business" angle and replaced some of the content

We deleted the (hence the name EyeSpyL.I.).

We changed the “in 2002 They” to “We”

We are working on changing some of the page (blue) to look more uniform.

We removed the mission statement from our links (we are going to keep the page since in is all search engines and we would windup with a dead link)

Tell me more about why we should not have a new window open on some links

We have started to add a page description on each page (Like our “About Us” page)

We moved our search further up the page

We are working on Keywords (having a hard time on the ones we should keep and the ones to get rid of.
-----------------------------------
To Shyflower

We cannot take the double outline out of your logo since it is on all of our trucks, storefronts, warehouses, etc.

The green thing shyflower is a map of Long Island NY (our Headquarters) and part of our logo again on our trucks etc

We mover our tagline from the footer to the top

Why should we remove our indents?

We did move the “three Colum” to the bottom

Finally, (taking a breath) we are looking into why the scrooler does not work in Foxfire

shyflower · #7 (**permalink**) 01-04-2008, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ESLI

OK we have changed the following

To Dubbya

We are working on “labeling” the Icons on the top right (i.e. shopping cart, sitemap etc) so it’s not a guessing game.

We removed the "woman owned business" angle and replaced some of the content

We deleted the (hence the name EyeSpyL.I.).

We changed the “in 2002 They” to “We”

We are working on changing some of the page (blue) to look more uniform.

We removed the mission statement from our links (we are going to keep the page since in is all search engines and we would windup with a dead link)

Tell me more about why we should not have a new window open on some links

We have started to add a page description on each page (Like our “About Us” page)

We moved our search further up the page

We are working on Keywords (having a hard time on the ones we should keep and the ones to get rid of.
-----------------------------------
To Shyflower

We cannot take the double outline out of your logo since it is on all of our trucks, storefronts, warehouses, etc.

The green thing shyflower is a map of Long Island NY (our Headquarters) and part of our logo again on our trucks etc

We mover our tagline from the footer to the top

Why should we remove our indents?

We did move the “three Colum” to the bottom

Finally, (taking a breath) we are looking into why the scrooler does not work in Foxfire

Most pros agree that indented text should be reserved for literary offerings. It's quite uncommon to see web sales copy paragraphs with indents. IMO, it looks amateurish. It also looks mis-aligned when you have text flowing around the bottom of an image as you do in some of your product notes.

From what I can tell, the scroller is full of MicroSoft proprietary code which isn't parsed by other browsers. That's why it only works in IE.

As dubbya said, as long as you are using Front Page to create your site, you're going to have the problem of proprietary code and unfortunately superfluous code that only degrades your page load and presentation.

You could probably make that scroller in javascript, but it would be near impossible to take it apart from the "webbot" code that is part of the Front Page "magic".

Overall, the site did load okay and it does look better with just the changes you have made.

davebarnes · #8 (**permalink**) 01-04-2008, 06:03 PM

Well, it has been over 3 minutes and the site is still doing something with search.yahooapis.com
I don't know what.
I don't see any images except the weird, creepy, green Long Island eye. Way too much valuable vertical space is being wasted by this creature from the green lagoon.
This code

Code:

<script LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
function click() {
if (event.button==2) {
alert('Function Disabled. All information is copyright protected!');
}
}
document.onmousedown=click
// -->

is silly as it does not work.

ESLI · #9 (**permalink**) 01-04-2008, 06:31 PM

First to shyflower, Thanks! We made the changes addressing the indentations. I had no idea. That’s why we asked experts like you. In regards to the scroller, we are probably going to get rid of it. Again, shyflower thanks for you help.

To davebarnes, we are not to sure what you are talking about.
First, what is search.yahooapis.com?
Second, you do not see any images. At all?
Third, the code you are showing is to disable the right click key.

Is all this taken place on our home page or a different page? What browser are you using? We are very concerned about this since this represents all of are locations under one website.

Thanks again davebarns for helping us. If you don’t mind can you please give us a little more info?

Thanks again to all

Michael

paul_foss · #10 (**permalink**) 01-04-2008, 08:12 PM

I find the blinking text in Contact Us page bit childish. No need for that. I agree that the icons to Home, Contact and all the others need text description. Very confusing. I am sure you think this is great, but for the purpose of navigation, it's not. Change copy rights to 2002 - 2008. We have now a new year. Yeas time flies. The script to disable right click is not working, so either fix it or dump it. what you affright of if I right click anyway? The green thing is like a monster to people outside US. I understand you like where you live, but to the world it does not matter. You are selling product, not a place, so saying Long island is a beautiful place does little to sell your stuff.
I must say though, you offering products suited today's fear filled environment and should do well. just make the web more pro looking. If you have such world wide deals, get a pro designer to redesign your site. Bells and whistles do not sell serious products. Your web could be very simple and to the point. Hope you not offended, was not my intention. As I said, I like your product.
Paul

ESLI · #11 (**permalink**) 01-04-2008, 09:10 PM

Thanks paul_foss for your help. (“Hope you not offended”) Not at all, your comments are why we are using “WebProWorld”. This gives us a chance to see our website through others. Some advice we take some we do not.

We have no idea about blinking text on our contact us page. We do not see it, can you tell us what is blinking? In addition, what browser are you using? We will definitely get rid of it.

We are working on changing the top icons and adding text descriptions.

We are changing copyright dates to reflect the “current” year

Again, we are using IE and all pages have the right click disabled. We are going to download Firefox and see if that makes a difference. Can you give us a page that is not working. Some areas we want the customer to use the right click.

Sorry about the “green” thing, but since we service the New York area (NYC, Queens Nassau County and such) the Island logo is important. If you look-up any “Long Island” business the map is some place. Very big in the Hamptons. In addition, since about 90% of our income comes from installations equipment & service and our website only contributes 10% it has to stay.

Hope to hear back from you on a few of the questions, and thanks again .

Michael

paul_foss · #12 (**permalink**) 01-04-2008, 09:15 PM

I was using Firefox and the blinking text is in your Contact page. if you open it in Firefox you see what I mean. I could be one of your customers one day. Hope you still in business then. Paul

ESLI · #13 (**permalink**) 01-04-2008, 09:31 PM

Well we hope we are as well, WOW! we downloaded Foxfire and they (blink) are gone! That was bad. Thanks

If you ever need something Just place "WebProWorld" in the checkout page when it ask you for a code number and we will give you a 5% discount.

We do not see any of our top navagation using firefox, IE is no problem. Do I need to turn something on in firefox?

Michael

davebarnes · #14 (**permalink**) 01-04-2008, 10:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ESLI

To davebarnes, we are not to sure what you are talking about.
First, what is search.yahooapis.com?
Second, you do not see any images. At all?
Third, the code you are showing is to disable the right click key.l

Michael,

1. I have no idea what search.. is. I just know that your website hung on "loading content from search..."
2. I saw no images. Subsequent visits are working OK.
2. THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT. The code does not stop anyone from right-clicking so get rid of it.

,dave

shyflower · #15 (**permalink**) 01-05-2008, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davebarnes

Michael,

1. I have no idea what search.. is. I just know that your website hung on "loading content from search..."
2. I saw no images. Subsequent visits are working OK.
2. THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT. The code does not stop anyone from right-clicking so get rid of it.

,dave

Even if it did work, those who want to copy and paste your text or images know enough to "view source" in their browser and do it from there. If you're worried about content theft, use copyscape.

Dubbya · #16 (**permalink**) 01-07-2008, 02:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ESLI

Tell me more about why we should not have a new window open on some links

Opening new windows to display content from your own site is completely unnecessary and annoying to the user.

Users are accustomed to new windows opening for external links (to visit a different site) but I found a few internal links that spawned in new windows. (Sorry, I should have provided the links for the problem pages.)

I've had a quick poke around to see some of the changes and they're really coming along nicely.

ESLI · #17 (**permalink**) 01-07-2008, 09:14 AM

Thanks dubba, we are trying to make the changes.

When we downloaded FireFox and looked at our site what a difference. Things were missing and such. It may not look as nice as the other but it is more functional.
We are also working on getting all of the "new Window" settings off.

Thanks again everybody for the help. We hope the improvements work.

Michael

davebarnes · #18 (**permalink**) 01-07-2008, 11:17 AM

Getting better.
Glad to see you killed the creature from the green lagoon.