Hi there, Gina :-) Welcome to the forums.
The first thing that strikes me, looking at your site, is that although
you have some fun fonts, they`re just a little bit too crowded. If
you`re using script, for example, you`d be better served by increasing the line height,
because all the swirls and curlicues get lost in each other.
The main place I saw this is in "Go Shopping," which I couldn`t read
and thought said "Ga Shopping," or "G Shopping." Then below that, because of the colors
and font, the list of items seems cramped and crowded. Pink on black is
hard on the eyes, but it`s doable IF there`s some extra room.
You`ll likely need to use CSS to increase line height and left margins
for that list of menu items, and I`m hoping you can do so with whatever
you`re using.
The colors are "intense," but that`s actually okay, as far as I`m
concerned. They remind me of Good `n` Plenty, the old candy from the
50s, but also some of the lingerie sites and ads I`ve seen in the past.
With your young model wearing a tee shirt, the overall feel of the site
now becomes "teens" and "girls." Is that your intent?
I clickede "rugged little boys," saw no pictures, and so the
contradiction came into play. I don`t see this site as being "boy" or
male oriented at all. Even so, if you`re selling to moms of little
boys, then there surely should be some fun and cute pictures of your
age-group boys wearing or using your product.
On the navigation, particularly in the Information area, your links (in
FireFox 1x) are blacking out when I hover over them. That`s not
elegant, and makes it hard to read what isn`t there. You might also
have them change color or highlight them in some way when I`ve reached
the destination page.
For example, if I choose "Web Site Links" from some page, then when I
arrive at that Web Site Links page, the menu item should be highlighted
to remind me of my current location on the site. Make sense?
As I move around the site, the main issue has become consistency and
the lack thereof. You`re using mixed fonts and that comes across as
further confusing and abrupt. On your home page, you have something
like Comic Sans in the headline, then for the text and on your shipping
page you`re using Times of some sort. I`d try to maybe stick with one
font family, and vary the size, weight, and colors. But that`s a
personal style option, so it`s just my own particular taste.
Ah...I see. When I click to a page like "Manly Men" (which is a turn
off, as far as sales), I see a list of items. Only when I click the
link do I see pictures as yet another click. I`m thinking you`ll be
much stronger if you immediately show thumbnails on the top destination
page, then allow for drilling down to more detail by giving each
product its own page.
Someone just recently mentioned a 3-click rule, meaning that a visitor
should be able to get to anywhere on the site within three clicks. I`m
not sure if that`s true, but I do believe that the fewer clicks, the
better. If I want to see "Manly Men" products, I want 1 click, then to
see the products. I don`t want an "extra" click to see each one, plus a
"back" click to return to a sub-page.
The colors fail completely for male-oriented products, so either drop
those products, change the color scheme, or re-target the items.
Instead of "Manly Men," you might call it "Gifts for Him." In other
words, if you`re targeting women, then only women will be interested
and reading. They`ll have a man in mind, perhaps, or they`ll have a
stereotypical image of a "manly" man in mind.
All in all, it`s not a bad store, it just needs a "brand." Take a look at a topic Janie just recently posted, about the
Unique Selling Position (USP). The two immediate things I`d fix would be:
- Make the hover coloring highlight in the "Information" block conform to that of the "Go Shopping" block of menu items.
- Remove the lead-in page to each of your product categories, and
consolidate all the ensuing thumbnail pages as one group of categorical
thumbnails.
Determine your core target market, and refocus your text, item names,
and "tone" to that group alone. If you want to keep the colors, then
I`d suggest dropping men as part of your demographic.
Finally, try not to over-use "Miss Gina." Replace it with "us" and
"we," when possible, and perhaps use the Miss Gina only once on each
page. Otherwise, it really gets tiresome, in my own opinion. :-) "Let
us custom embroider a golf towel....." for instance, instead of "Let
Miss Gina Designs custom embroider a golf towel."
CraigL2008-9-10 23:10:48
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