PP new site design

[Hanaleimom]

Three observations: 1. rank by price doesn't really work -- try rank highest to lowest, nothing happens; 2. I once linked to PP website from an old link and it throws out an error message -- think it should link to the homepage; 3. For something like the Tahitian special, is it possible to add a "previous item" and a "next item" link to make navigation easier.

I use firefox.

I found error #1 and a few others. But Jeremy did mention they will correct or add links, etc. one at a time. They are very busy now. Those will probably be taken care of after the Mother's Day rush.

 

[jshepherd]

So we have made some changes to the colors as most of you've noticed. We are going to continue testing it for the next week, but I think we may stick with it.

We have also spaced items slightly in the search results (and category) pages and instituted a hover-over popup. The hover over is going to be tweaked a bit - it does not work quite the way we had hoped, but it eliminates the need to click on each item to see detail.

http://www.pearlparadise.com/Pearl-Bracelets-White.html

Thoughts?

 

[MsT]

I love the hover over, but can the popups be larger?

 

[Hanaleimom]

The hover pop up looks quite nice, especially on the Tahitian page. Yes, larger pop-up, please.

 

[jshepherd]

Not really. We only have two choices. The same size as the regular image on the detail page or the same size as the extra-large image. The latter would be overwhelming on the page. In order to go somewhere in between, it would require editing every photo on the Web site which would probably take about a month.

 

[Hanaleimom]

I like the FW pages. The regular photo themselves look larger, and necklaces seem wider than the Tahitian page.

 

[jshepherd]

The images are the same size. It is the angle of the photograph that makes them look smaller. We can change this, however, over time. Instead of shooting the image head on, we can shoot them horizontally and then have the bust shot and other directions in the popup under alternative views. That was the original idea with the alternative photos. But in order to get hundreds of Tahitian strands up in time for MD, we really could not take that many shots.

 

[pattye]

It has been interesting to see the reasoning behind and feedback about these changes.

 

[jshepherd]

It has been so great to have such immediate feedback here. In the earlier testing we had to assemble groups every time we wanted to play with one thing or another. Hopefully the last wholesale changes will be finished by next week because we are going into a 1-1.5 month code freeze very soon for another large but publicly-invisible change.

 

[Hanaleimom]

That's what I thought, Jeremy. It is really time consuming for multiple views. I like seeing Tahitian strands on the bust. Certain colors look different when they are in horizontal positions versus vertical position (bust shot).

When we were selecting certain pearls for my husband's leather necklace, I saw one that shows more peacock overtone when it's vertical, thus better in a pendant (husband just wants traditional style: pearl sliding horizontally on leather). He lost out on that one, because I kept it and had it made into a pendant.

 

[jshepherd]

Yes, Tahitian pearls always look different from different angles. In a perfect scenario we would have had multiple photos for each Tahitian strand. There were four of us working on getting them all up; me on descriptions, Natalie on photographs and two people on editing and uploading. Even now we are adding about a dozen each day and still have not made it through half of them. When we return to normal we will start doing different shots.

 

[imanit]

To me the changes you did are making a huge difference. Now I focus on pearls !! Page looks cleaner, more sophisticated. I love the popups !! ( and it makes me worm and fuzzy inside that BIG SHOT JEREMY took our humble opinions seriously... )

 

[SpaceNeedle]

New mouse-hover functionality is a nice improvement, at least to me. With AJAX technology, a non-essential post-back is not considered user-friendly.

Jeremy - Do you include color-blind users in your test users group?

 

[jshepherd]

Actually yes, one. But an interesting question. Why?

 

[SpaceNeedle]

All public web application developments that I was involved in the past always included color-deficient users as test users. This was just to ensure that someone who was color-blind could properly view the sites.

 

[ShashiRatna]

Hello Mr. Shepherd,

All in all the new website is good.

But, I have one suggestion regarding the new website - might not be all that important.

It would be nice if we could see if the items are available or not before we click on the item. Maybe we could have a pop up window with the info.


Cheers,
ShashiRatna