Site critique please

Hi,

I'm setting up a web store for a friend that sells embroidery crafts
for baby, kids and adult. It's at the point where it is functional
but I would like to have some critique or advise on the whether I
should continue with the same design or I should consider changing
it. Please have a look http://www.cutestitch.com and give me your
honest opinion.

Thanks!

Thank you for the very helpful suggestions. I will work on fixing
those issues. How about the layout itself? Is it appealing at the
first glance?

On 2007-05-01, iisonntviaie (AT) gmail (DOT) com wrote:

Hi,

I'm setting up a web store for a friend that sells embroidery crafts
for baby, kids and adult. It's at the point where it is functional
but I would like to have some critique or advise on the whether I
should continue with the same design or I should consider changing
it. Please have a look http://www.cutestitch.com and give me your
honest opinion.

The text is too small for me to read. Do not put text in an image.

--
Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
================================================== =================
Author:
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)

iisonntviaie (AT) gmail (DOT) com wrote:

http://www.cutestitch.com

I don't know if there is a problem with your server, or something you're
doing on the server, but it's taking up to 4 minutes to finish loading
any one page. And I'm on broadband.

Then after that 4 minutes goes by, the page gets mashed around like this:
http://www.bergamotus.ws/screenshots/cutestitch.png
Note that's a maximized screen, 1600x1200, I just shrunk the image by
about 35%.

When I went to the Girls page, I even got http headers shown in the
browser for the first 2 minutes or so:
http://www.bergamotus.ws/screenshots/cutestitch2.png
That's a pretty normal size browser window for me, btw.

Something is very broken.

You really must do better optimizing your graphics, the photos in
particular.

As for the design, I truly dislike pink, but I suppose it's fitting for
your target audience (mostly moms with small children?). I don't like
all the different colors for the text. It reminds me of some cheesy DIY
web page from the 1990's. Pick a color and stick with it. I suggest
black for text.

--
Berg

Hi All,

Thanks for the excellent point on making everything more dynamic to
accomodate different screen size. Now that I'm looking at it again,
it is too pink. I'll work on a better theme. The suggestion to not
embed text in graphic and optimizing them is well adviced. I
appreciate all the suggestions.

Hi Berg,

Can you tell me the browser and version number you used when the
display problem occured? I've tested the site with IE6,7 FF 2 and
Opera 9.2 and none did I see the problem.

iisonntviaie (AT) gmail (DOT) com wrote:

Please have a look http://www.cutestitch.com [...]

The cutest itch?

--
jmm (hyphen) list (at) sohnen-moe (dot) com
(Remove .AXSPAMGN for email)

iisonntviaie (AT) gmail (DOT) com wrote:

Hi Berg,

Can you tell me the browser and version number you used when the
display problem occured? I've tested the site with IE6,7 FF 2 and
Opera 9.2 and none did I see the problem.

My everyday browser is a recent nightly build of Seamonkey, but Firefox
should do just as well since it's basically the same browser, just a
different wrapping. Have you tried zooming text at all? My default text
size is set to 20px, 17px minimum. I'm sure that's larger than you
intended and a likely cause of the layout going wonky.

--
Berg

I see what you mean. I can duplicate this problem. What can one do
to fix this type issue? Testing in FF, pressing CTRL+ would increase
just the text, images remains the same which make the layout out of
wack but with IE, it actaully increase the whole page so it looks some
what legible.

iisonntviaie (AT) gmail (DOT) com wrote:

I see what you mean. I can duplicate this problem. What can one do
to fix this type issue?

re: http://www.cutestitch.com

You "fix" it by making a design that adapts to the visitor's settings
better. Expecting everyone to use a particular font or type size is
unrealistic, and not how the web works.

In the case of the content area getting pushed off to the right, that's
a result of floating the navigation links. The table that follows the
navigation doesn't automatically start below it unless you specifically
tell it to via clear:left.

You really should rethink the way the whole design is constructed,
though. It's an ugly combination of external CSS, inline styles, and
HTML presentational attributes. Very messy, and is destined to become a
maintenance nightmare.

BTW, there is still something wrong server-side because each page still
takes several minutes to finish loading. It's not likely to be related
to the broken layout. Are you doing anything like browser sniffing? That
would be A Bad Thing.

Testing in FF, pressing CTRL+ would increase
just the text, images remains the same which make the layout out of
wack but with IE, it actaully increase the whole page so it looks some
what legible.

That's the difference between text zoom and page zoom. You cannot force
your visitors to do one or the other. You now see what can happen when
you don't accommodate variations in browser settings.


BTW, if you are going to use that awful google groups, then please learn
how to use it properly. Figure out how to turn on automatic quoting,
then quote the parts of the message you are replying to.
http://web.presby.edu/~nnqadmin/nnq/nquote.html

Getting a real newsreader would be even better. AIUI, even Outlook
Express is tolerable if you can't find anything better.

--
Berg

re:http://www.cutestitch.com

You "fix" it by making a design that adapts to the visitor's settings
better. Expecting everyone to use a particular font or type size is
unrealistic, and not how the web works.

In the case of the content area getting pushed off to the right, that's
a result of floating the navigation links. The table that follows the
navigation doesn't automatically start below it unless you specifically
tell it to via clear:left.

You really should rethink the way the whole design is constructed,
though. It's an ugly combination of external CSS, inline styles, and
HTML presentational attributes. Very messy, and is destined to become a
maintenance nightmare.

I've been reading the basics on utilizing css for presentation at
csshark. I now have a better
understanding of what everyone is suggesting. Rework the web site is
inevitable.

BTW, there is still something wrong server-side because each page still
takes several minutes to finish loading. It's not likely to be related
to the broken layout. Are you doing anything like browser sniffing? That
would be A Bad Thing.

As you may already know, this is my first attempt at coding so the
pages on cutestitch is a mash of things
I've read from here and there and put together. I'm not doing any
browser sniffing so I'm not sure what
causes the slow loading. I'm using free web service from godaddy for
now and have notice slow down occationally.

Testing in FF, pressing CTRL+ would increase
just the text, images remains the same which make the layout out of
wack but with IE, it actaully increase the whole page so it looks some
what legible.

That's the difference between text zoom and page zoom. You cannot force
your visitors to do one or the other. You now see what can happen when
you don't accommodate variations in browser settings.

Yup, that's a important lesson I've learnt and will pay more attention
to from now on.

BTW, if you are going to use that awful google groups, then please learn
how to use it properly. Figure out how to turn on automatic quoting,
then quote the parts of the message you are replying to.http://web.presby.edu/~nnqadmin/nnq/nquote.html

Getting a real newsreader would be even better. AIUI, even Outlook
Express is tolerable if you can't find anything better.

Thanks for all the informative suggestions. Really appreciate it!

--
Berg