Review Request: Sarvi Hosting's new under development design

I think I liked the old one better. Why did you take it offline? I can't compare now.

I really don't like those graphics on the right side. Those buttons look too big and rounded and dont seem to go with the look and feel of the rest of the design. The photos also look dingy and uninteresting. The woman in the middle is okay, although there shouldn't be margins around the edges of that. I somehow don't find her to be a believable client, but whatever...

The logo here is pretty dull. Not very noticable with the black on grey there, and the drop shadow seems to big. Again, the styling doesn't seem to match the rest of the design.

What's standing out in this design is the pictures and the lower half, not the logo and navigation area. I feel that the logo and navbar should be the most prominent part of a design in most cases - everything else should be secondary (visually speaking). What I want to know when I visit a site, in order of imporatnce, is 1) who you are (logo) 2) what you have (navigation) and 3) other content. Here my eye is drawn towards the bottom right side of the screen which isn't helping your branding.

Checked the web hosting page - font very tiny here... giving me headache. It might be simpler to list all the common features - things included with every plan, separately and just use the chart for things that change across plans. it might be easier to read that way.

Could you put up the other one again just for comparison?

Here's the old one... The reason we decided to change is not that it was a bad design, we just grew tired of it and wanted a change.

http://www.sarvihosting.com/old/

I agree with what Megan said. The old one is better.

There's something about the new design that screams "overused". I can't put my finger on it. Maybe it's that navbar, and those photos on the side, plus the dotted lines, the basic layout, or a combination of it all. :\

The old design, I feel, is a more unique look. Very professional, clean, and elegant.

Quote: we just grew tired of it and wanted a change

Make smaller-scale changes to the old design. Move the guy, change the text, shift around some bits, re-work the nav... or something. You may get tired of seeing it, but I'm sure your clients (potential ones too) aren't. Why fix it if it ain't broken?

Quote: Originally posted by zollet
Here's the old one... The reason we decided to change is not that it was a bad design, we just grew tired of it and wanted a change.

How long has the old one been there? Do you feel that it is working for your business as well as it should? I think that the old one is much better. I think that the only reason any business site should consider a redesign is if the old one isn't working for whatever reason (bad design/outdated design/poor usability etc.) or if it's been a really long time since the last redeisgn (2 years or more). As Ahbi said - if it's not broken, why fix it?

In this case there is nothing wrong with the old design and for the sake of branding and customer loyalty it might be a better idea to keep what you've got for the time being. The logo in particular is much better in the old one and I feel that overall it would work better for branding than the new proposal.

I'm sorry but I have to agree with the others that I prefer the old one! I'm not overly keen on the new one because it looks dull, the logo is boring and the photos look too muted. I agree with Abhi that maybe you should just look at changing slightly the old one.

Wow! I guess I'm the only one who likes the new design better.

We were using the old design for about a year and we can't use the old design anymore because it's been sold. I know the logo on the new design is not the best, but it's not final and neither is the site.

What do you guys think about the packages and pricing?

the date is wrong you using php? use javascript

It's a little slow to load on 56k (I want cable waaa)

do you have a background colour or is it grey? (my default colour)

I perfer the old one too, it had a nice balance of flow and colour, this new one seems very dark and blunt

Thanks for the new year wishes. Same here to you and yours.

I like the old one much much better zollet. The beta isn't as inviting, clean or fresh looking. The beta just sort of looks thrown together to me.

I do like the image of the woman better than the man with his feet on the pillow though. The woman image looks more computer related. The man image looks like he may be trying to sell pillows and beds. hehe

Not sure about the new price page. I like the little check marks that you used on the old one but the new one is good too.

Really, if I were looking for a host, I would buy from the old site before I would buy from the new one.

Sonia

P.S. I think it is the dark colors that I don't like. Especially the color that you have used for the order buttons in the beta one.

I agree about the colours - the old design was much brighter and fresher looking - this one is rather dingy.

I've changed the color theme to a much brighter one (as requested ) and it looks a lot better now IMHO. The first page still needs some work, perhaps the logo as well.

http://www.sarvihosting.com/beta/

Please let me know what you think.

That's better! You are right about the logo though, maybe bigger?

Much better. I like the addition of the purple colour - adds some more interest to the design. It would be nice if you could incorporate that logo more with the rest of the design. It seems sort of isolated on the grey part there.

I am gonna be hard headed as usual and say that I still like the old one better.

I must admit I prefered the old one but the new design is quite striking...

We're also working on adding a whole new billing plus help desk system where customers can login and view/manage their info. Once the new site is complete I will make you all an offer you can't refuse (I hope you won't anyways ).

The old version is definitely more polished than the new one.

You know you have more work to do when you have the words 'Click Here' on your page. Ditto when Explorer 6's JPEG toolbar pops up on top of an image that's not in a gallery.

The new version needs text to encourage me to explore the site further. If all I see are navigation options, why bother?

Peter

the dates still wrong

is the background meant to be grey? would be better white

The purple looks way better but think its clashing with the ladys red top now. The other pages look good (apart from the grey bg), maybe try bring the orangey bar into the layout somehow

If you had a donatation button I'd donate some money so that lady in the picture could get a good meal lol,

Busy, I changed her shirt for you

The background is light gray. White wouldn't work because the table background is gray and I want the page background to be a little darker.

Peter,

The "click here" is just temp. I'm still working on the main page. I wanted to put some text there but there is not enough room. I'll make the boxes better though.

I've improved the boxes on the main page and also changed to Javascript date/time which only seems to work in IE and Opera (not NS). I think the new date/time makes the top menubar look too crowded, what do you guys think?

Thanks.

Why do you need the date/time there? I have it on my PC and telephone which is next to me here so I don't need it on your website as well!!

How about boxing the top section in with the logo in it so that it doesn't look quite so disjointed from the rest of the layout?

She looks better with the purple T-shirt now

What should I have there instead of the time/date? I can't just leave it empty.

How about just leaving it off and respacing the other links there?

Yeah, maybe I'll add "Customer Reviews" to the top menu.

(Have you ever seen a cooler smilie? )

That's gonna get annoying after a while!

I'm going to say that I like the new one better
The nav buttons at the top are easier to manage than the old one
However:
After I click a category (nav button) I want to be able to go back to the main page... not the main part of that category. I thought that clicking the logo at the top would, but that brought me back to the top of that category
About the plans:
What about extra bandwidth? If I go over 2,000 MB in a month, is it $20 per extra MB or $.20 per month? Could it be more? Less? who knows!
Also, there isn't that much a difference between features on the plans. One plan is $4.95 paid yearly and the other is $8.95 yearly, but the only major differences I see are with diskspace and bandwidth allowances

If you really wanted to make that space where the date is interesting.... put the dancing banana in it!

The old site isn't bad but the new one is marginally better

Quote: I'm going to say that I like the new one better

Yey! Finally got one that likes the new design better than the old one. I'll turn you one by one

Quote: After I click a category (nav button) I want to be able to go back to the main page... not the main part of that category. I thought that clicking the logo at the top would, but that brought me back to the top of that category

I don't understand...

Quote: What about extra bandwidth? If I go over 2,000 MB in a month, is it $20 per extra MB or $.20 per month? Could it be more? Less? who knows!
Also, there isn't that much a difference between features on the plans. One plan is $4.95 paid yearly and the other is $8.95 yearly, but the only major differences I see are with diskspace and bandwidth allowances

Thanks for letting me know. Extra bandwidth has now been added. You are right, the main difference is space/bandwidth since that's what costs and also that is the main difference between different websites. However, if you look at the 2 first packages, you'll also notice that the 2nd package allows you to host more than 1 site in the same account and also more emails, FTP accounts, mailing lists, subdomains, databases, etc.

Man! I like the new one better than the old one, the old one seems too bright and too common, for a hosting company.

One thing about the nav though...if the nav buttons changed on mousedown instead of mousever :S

Your logo seems a bit lonely there by itself I think it's longing for some comfort from it's fellow content

Thanks. The logo has been improved, but it's still temp and I will make a better one later. Also I might put something on the top right, not sure yet...

Much better. But I'm gonna be fussy and say this isn't up to the old one's standard yet.

I like the top nav, but the datestamp seems out of place. How does it look with the date either on the left corner or right corner of other buttons?

For some reason, I don't like the margins around the central image with the woman in it. Have you tried it without padding it (so it's up against the edge)?

On the Web Hosting page, the Additional Features table is right up tp the side links. You'd probably want to add some space between them. In fact, IMO, that table looks out of place where it is. Maybe it'd be better in the main section of the page itself.

The whole Web Hosting page is a little wider than the other pages. It's easily noticed when switching to other pages.

Last thing I'm going to pick on is the fonts. The "heading" font (Verdana?) in the images on the main page and others is very plain and boring. I suspect you're going for a simple and elegant look, but Verdana just doesn't cut it. Especially when you have the freedom of an image file. I suggest trying some other sans fonts.

Overall, it's looking much better. You've almost won me over.

I agree that the woman needs to fit hard against the edge or you see whitespace around the top & left which spoils the look.

I'm getting an error on the Web Hosting page:
Line: 10
Char: 1
Error: Object expected

And I agree that the logo should link back to the home page of the site from all pages.