Review of www.newenglandcandlemill.com

Hello, Jason. Welcome to TWF! Thanks for looking at some other sites first, we really appreciate it.

Your site does look a little newbieish for right now. This is a good example of a lot of common beginner mistakes.

The first problem is th efonts. Times new Roman looks terrible on a screen. Switch it to something like Georgia or Garamond. A lot of people will tell you to go with a sans-serif font, but in this case I think a serif is more appropriate. However, TNR isnt' the one! Looking at your font definitions, I see that you've got one style defined with Georgia but I'm not seeing it anywhere. A few others have Payprus, which I don't have installed, and Lucinda Calligraphy which I also don't have. So I see Times New Roman. I'm really not sure what this is supposed to to look like.

Another problem I see here is a lot of centering. Centering is a good technique in print but it generally looks terrible on screen, especially with text. So avoid centering everything.

Thirdly, the graphics need some work. Trying to put a special effect on photos is a common newbie mistake. Photos like this will look better just left plain. The picture in the main header area is really terrible. You'll need to have something better to put there.

Now, finally, lets look at the navigation menu. You've got a big long list of items there and there's no way of knowing immediately what is a product section and what is not. It's important for usability that people are able to tell these things instinctively. They shouldn't have to look. So what I'd reccomend is separating out your navbar like this:

Jar Candles
Votives
Tarts
Fire Starters
Aroma Bead Air Fresheners
Aroma Cubes

Why Soy?
Scents
Candle Burning 101

Home
Contact Us
Upcoming Events

Terms & Conditions
Shipping & Return Policy
(most sites put these latter two along the bottom next to the copyright statement)

Just leaving a little space in between can be the indication that tehse are separate sections. You could also use a horizontal menu for the home/contact us section.

So, that's enough for now! I hope that will give you a start. The product layouts could use some work too but we'll get to that later.

Thanks for the extensive input. I will take these comments into conseration and re-post a (hopefully) better version in a couple of weeks

Different people have different reactions to things. I have to share my thoughts here, but Megan has spent a lot more time critiquing sites than I have ... you may wish to pay more attention to her comments, since I disagree with much of what she says in regards to this site.

Overall the site looks very nice to me. A good first impression is made, which of course is a good thing. I do agree on the rearranging of the order, as mentioned above. I didn't notice the problem myself until Megan mentioned it, but it does make more sense to group menu options with products together.

On the fonts, I am seeing them in nice fonts on my computer, and since 'my' computer is actually a very basic system that a semi-computer literate friend is allowing me to use, I expect the fonts are basic fonts included with IE. This probably indicates most people will have access to them (isn't IE used by something like 80% or more of the web users).

Since there is likely to be a very big difference in appearance between somebody seeing them with the papyrus font and seeing them with generic system fonts, however, you may want to make sure you do as much as you can to have the best look possible for people without papyrus on their system, as well. (This is where it can get kind of tricky.)

The top photo, I like the b&w old-style look to it, but a clearer base photo with the same kind of effects might look better. The other photos look just fine to me. As I mentioned, I found myself drawn to the entire site. (I wonder if the photo style works better along with the papyrus text ... maybe it doesn't look as good when viewed with the basic fonts.)

The overly large amount of 'white' space at the bottom of the main window, where the navigation bar is filled with the paypal and cc logos bothers me. Smaller versions of these logos, perhaps side by side, further up, might work better ... either that, or two more product links on the main page to flesh out the area. Just my thoughts on the matter.

Have to say better than my first try.
You might want to play with the colors some more. The colors you did choose aren't really eye pleasures, especially that yellow backround.
Also you could pick up a cheap graphics program and add a cool header and more stylized menu. Also I would probably condense your menu categories. The way you have it looks way too big and long.
Looking forward to seeing the next version.

Jsun
affinity-is.com
advancedcomputerequipment.com

Hi,
I am not a pro. So i guess i am looking at your site from a diffrent perspective. My first impression, was that the fonts that you are using needs to be replaced with a smaller fonts. The font looks as if they are juping out at you. Also i think that your page colors could be a little more lively.
Scorpio189