Nita Creations.com Redesign

In Opera 8.5 I get an error message saying that your site wont' display properly before the page loads. The page actually loaded after that but I thought it wasn't going to. If I was a regular user I would have left at that point. Honestly, stuff like that just annoys me. Opera users have brains. We made the choice to use this - let us live with the consequences (if there are any - most of the time there aren't and people just block you for no reason).

Will post a better review tomorrow. I am finding this to be a little overdone and fussy, especially in the header. The main layout is a little to CMS-ish looking for a posh jewelry store. I sort of feel like I'm shopping for jewelry in walmart or something.

Looks good, but text is cluttered. I like Flash header; the navigation on the new site is diffuclt, not as easy as the old. There seems to be just too much stuff scrunched together, it needs to be opened up. The text is a little small for 1024x768, and is hard to read with its current color. Maybe something darker? I do not like the "Nita Creations" font in the header, otherwise you've got a great new site!

P.S. I would scrap the "Current News/Events" from the page, and stick with email based announcements.

I cant read the site, fonts are too small, the flash thingy isnt really necessary just to show the rings glitter, I dont know where to look first too... the site is confusing, the attempted design is great, the color scheme also great but take the quirks out...

The text is way too small, and not bold enough. A light gray against white is not a good choice. The logo can simply be a still image. There is no need for the flash. The layout is a good idea, but not executed correctly. It's hard to choose where to start, and I feel as if I'm missing something.

The three tiny buttons in the upper-right hand corner have no form of identification and I have no idea where they are going to take me. Also, the phone number displayed near them is a bit odd. What is this number for? Customer Service? Ordering? There isn't any way to tell just by looking at it...

I'm not sure I understand your need for a forums system. You have a helpdesk set up, and besides support, I can't see what a forum would be used for on a site like yours.

My two cents...

In an attempt to make the text bigger, I increased the text size on the main page so that nothing on the page is below 8pt. The issue is when I increase the text size the design gets messed up To address the three tiny buttons with no identification, I added the name to where each goes (home, sitemap, bookmark). To address the forum system issue it is under development and will have threads that relate to jewelry discussion in the future. If navigation is hard or if you don't know where to start I have created a clearly visible sitemap section as well as functional site search. As for the Opera issue, I have just opened the site on Opera 8.5 on my computer with no errors. If someone else could let me know if they get errors when opening my site in Opera I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks to all that have posted comments thus far.

Firstly, does what you have in flash really need to be in flash? I'm sure you can just have it as a simple image.

Your text is still a bit too small. Try giving your objects on the page a bit of breathing space, I find that it's a little too crowded.

Also, try putting some visual feedback on the rest of your links, maybe a colour change like you have in the navigation.

Hmmm... it's detecting that I"m running an early version of IE or Netscape that's weird. I'll try to remember to check this out at home sometime. Weird things have happened in other sites recently too (like the TWF navbar up above the logo here has gaps in it and I don't know why - it doesn't do that at home.).

Rethinking my earlier message- maybe it's good for this to look a little less elegant. If you go into a jewlery store, and it looks all fancy and posh, but the prices are low, what would you think? I'd be suspicious. Still, this is a little too cheap looking. I would at least redesign the headers so they don't look so CMS-ish.

The navbar text on the left is small. It's making it harder to find what I need.

Surfing around a bit - the bridal section should be labelled "bridal and engagement" or "wedding and engagement" - engagement is probably a popular thing to look for. The text underneath the images on that page should be bigger and more obivous. 8pt is way too small for a default, and point sizes shouldn't be used in the first place. Use relative font sizes like % or ems so people can resize it if needed. If the design gets messed up with a larger you've got bigger problems - your users should come first! Why make it more difficult for people to browse your site?? You should be able to increase the size on the left navbar with few problems, same with the main body text on the product pages.

Back to browsing - "engagement" should show up under "diamond" as well as "bridal". Or, maybe "bridal" is a common term - I don't know, I don't shop for jewelry. You should be using the same terms as most of your competitors really, and cross-listing sub items could be helpful.

The larger images that link from the product pages should be a lot clearer and sharper. Remember that people are making a pretty significant purchase here and they'll want to see as much detail as possible. Actually, multiple views would be more helpful than bigger here. I'm thinking there should also be some sort of statement of authenticicty or something, just to reassure people that this is legit. I don't see anything of that nature on the site.

Overall I didn't find it too hard to find anything on here. It was easy to navigate. The design leaves a lot to be desired though.

What's with the pages that link from "diamonds" and "information"??? Is that the old design??? It's much nicer. Except for the tiny grey text that is almost impossible to read.