SITE REVIEW: www.wireart.ie

Hi All

Please let me know your opinions on the following : http://www.wireart.ie

Its a online shop selling Handmade Jewellery, Wall Hangings, Stationary & lots of other handmade items.

Its a customisation of OSCommerce, which I think is still one of the best online shops available!

Thanks for your feedback
H

First impression - nice and clean. I don't like the font used in the header though and specially its shadow ( photoshop standard setting).

As it is oscommerce, it doesn't validate. Much worse indeed is the absence of permalink structures that are search engine friendly. You might consider adding some rewrite rules.

I wonder if the listing of the products is very good, as they are listed one below another, taking up a lot of space, as the images are first and below all other information. Maybe it's better to float the text left, and the image right beside it?

Im afraid I have to agree here, but the font used in the logo is the clients own, so I couldnt change it im afraid.



Can you explain this a bit more?



Again, this was a request of the client. Original design had the images at the same level as the product descriptions, however due to the minute nature of some of the products, she felt that a larger image would be better, thus putting them above the descriptions was the only alternative that I could think of! I did explain to her that clicking into the product would allow the user to view a larger image, but this was a non-runnner also. She wanted impact visually at the product list level.
I have to say however, that I can understand her point of view.

Thanks for the feedback ecuador.
H

You're welcome , well if it is customers wish to have it this way, you can't do anything.

Concerning the permalink structure - let's have a look at one of the links on that page: http://www.wireart.ie/index.php?cPath=43

You see, it has the name index.php and a parameter ?cPath=43. This is SEO unfriendly, as search engines do not like such php parameters. I am not aware if oscommerce has a method to change the permalink structure, but if, and if the server it runs on, can handle the mod_rewrite module, you can change the link structure in a way that it represents more the content of the requested page.

Your link could then look like this: http://www.wireart.ie/Wall Hangings instead of having this ugly php parameter.

Additional info on that can be found here and here

cheers
Frank

Thanks Frank, actually I was aware of all that, I just hadnt heard it being described as 'permalink structure'.

And it handt dawned on me till you mentioned it here that I could apply it to this site. There are a few oscommerce contributions that I may try out to see if I can get the permalinks working correctly. Ill try out those two links you supplied also.

Thanks for the suggestions and advice!

H

I agree with the fact that those products underneath each other make the page too long ... maybe you can do it like this ...

Where the green blocks are is where your columns are right now ... now you can put two products next to each other where the red ones are, and then it will look more organised, and the bigger pictures can still be there ... (just my suggestion), but because you're working in tables, that may take quite a bit of coding ...

The site looks real nice and clean further ...

One thing about your top image ... I see that some of the images (photos) have black borders on the inside around the physical image, and some not ... Is it possible that you add it to all, or take it away from all of them ...

hi righteous_trespasser

thanks for that, well spotted on the top image, i hadnt noticed that and don't know why i did it on some and not others!

Regarding the layout, i like your suggestion, and ill give it a go, i agree the page is too long, but its using the same template as in the product lists in each category.

I def can change it on the homepage, but in the rest of the site i dont think i can, because of the left and right columns.

Thanks again for your input!
H

Yeah sure ... It would be possible on the other pages aswell, but you'll have to put in some useless info in the center top green block first ... haha, or you can put in the first product in there and the rest like in the red blocks ... but that's up to you ...