Yes! another upgrade to my site...

[Proteus]

Hi all!

These last days I've learning and practicing .ssi and .shtml files. I've working on my site mainly to make it easier for me to handle all the pages and to make the site as easy to use as I can for my visitors.

Now, could you guys please tell me what you think about this new format?
Is it well displayed in your screen? ( I did it 800x600 px)
Does it take so long to load?
What about my homepage?
And the usability?

By the way, I still need to finish a few pages, but most of the site is done.

Well, I hope all the time that I invested in this new format was worth, please let me know if you find a broken link or something "wrong" I will appreciate your feedback

This is the link http://www.the-pinata-maker.com

[trackerm]

Hi Proteus,

It looks good!
My 2 ideas are:
Remember to explain what a Pinata is on the home page. I never knew till after I hit my first one. I didn't know there was meant to be anything inside! OK I'm from a different culture On 'How to Play the Pinata Game' explain it like someone has never seen the game played before. if they need to see the 'how' page its because they have no idea

My other suggestion is not to make your site too 'professional' looking. If it looks like some lickety-split commercial site it may lose a bit of the wonder of a cherished childhood activity.

Perhaps you need some 'adult' Pinatas too. The one we had was at an adult party.
The web can bring the whole world together, people from different cultures can learn something of others whilst having a bit of fun. That can do a whole lot more than all the politicians put together

Mark

[Arne]

The opening page (homepage) is best to be as fast as possible to download
Yours is in total 152 kB and that is far away to much! 50 kB should be the absolute max size in my opinion, if you don't wont anybody to hit the back button before the page downloaded.

Most of the 152 kB comes from the large images (128 kB) because they are very big and/or animated, for no real reason at all. "The_Pinata_M_14447.gif " is 57 kB, "little_pony_pinata_red.jpeg" is 46 kB, and the HTML is "only" 16 kB (could be less with better use of CSS). Now it takes 30 seconds to load whole page on 56K connection.

But apart from that, I like the look of the pages. Clean and straight on, easy to navigate and read the content. You are using a lot of CSS, but only(?) with the HTML tags. Why not separate to "indipendent" CSS, maybee in a external stylesheet.

You have also made efforts to make the homepage valid Transitional and that's very good! But I guess the other pages could validate also, with a little effort. I guess most of them only missing the doctype declaration only? And with only a little more effort on the coding the pages could also valid as HTML 4.01 Strict witch is the recommended doctype for non framed pages.

[Proteus]

Thanks for your feedback.

How about the new warm welcome explaining what is the site about? It doesn't take more than a minute to read and decide if is worth to browse more...

Adult pinatas... mmm I prefer to stay in the kids birhday side, Maybe I'll add a link to another adult pinata site later on...

I renewed a section: "Ask The Pinata Maker!" instead of "F.A.Q"... I believe this could attract visitors to establish a person to person question and answer... we'll see.

I don't know if you can notice it, but I try to talk in third person, and in "Ask The Pinata Maker" I write in first person. I was wondering, how do you feel about this? Do you think that I should write in first person in the whole site or it's fine the way it is?...does this make you feel any difference in order to convert you in a possible customer?...

Also I'm testing an experiment: Since I have some space in my navigation columns, I'm trying to attract possible sponsors.


Thanks again

[Sedna2]

Originally Posted by Proteus

Hi all!

These last days I've learning and practicing .ssi and .shtml files. I've working on my site mainly to make it easier for me to handle all the pages and to make the site as easy to use as I can for my visitors.

Now, could you guys please tell me what you think about this new format?
Is it well displayed in your screen? ( I did it 800x600 px)
Does it take so long to load?
What about my homepage?
And the usability?

By the way, I still need to finish a few pages, but most of the site is done.

Well, I hope all the time that I invested in this new format was worth, please let me know if you find a broken link or something "wrong" I will appreciate your feedback

This is the link http://www.the-pinata-maker.com

clicked and ...'the page page cannot be found'.... message appears... have the pages gone to hospital or holidays or what...

[Proteus]

I sedna:

I have my whole team of engineers working on already, since last night the server crashed... let see tomorrow... Thanks for notice it and come back soon!

[Proteus]

It should be working now... what do you think about my experiments in the home page?

[webado]

Originally Posted by Proteus

It should be working now... what do you think about my experiments in the home page?

Oh, that might be a great intro, unfortunately it stayed too long (40 seconds) on that first page (index.html) before I got redirected to the next page (home.html) where all the interesting stuff is happening. I expected a redirect of sorts so I didn't give up. But others might just say,"Bah, nothing much is going on here" and move on.

Don't forget, most pageviews last less than 5 seconds, so 40 seconds is too long. I'd think if you want anybody to stay pout you first have to tell them "In 10 seconds you'll begin to experience ....." and move on in about 15 seconds. Like I said, 40 seconds is too long.

It would be neat if you could have an actual countdown displayed. I think I saw something for that in javascript, I used it as a countdown to New Year's, but it could be adapted for sure. I'll try to dig it up and post it.

[Proteus]

Thanks for your great feedback Chris!!

How about 20 seconds? Are you able to read my welcome message?

and about my home.html page?
Is it worth as a visitor to have the directory looking so you have everything in one page?...

My main goal is not only to sell, but to have one of the most useful websites about my site topic:
for my visitors: a whole directory about pinatas, where to buy, what they are, reviews, critics, questions and answers, etc..

for sellers, a place where to give exposure to their products, specially the sellers that make crafts...

All of this without missing the warm human touch in my website... to make feel that there is a human with feelings behind (I sound dramatic? uh? )<~~~ That's why my welcome message (yes, I was thinking: why not to place the welcome message as a link inside, but I'm not sure that everybody will read it...).

Am I achieving my goal?...

[webado]

Originally Posted by Proteus

thanks for your great feedback chris! I'll work on that countdown..

Here are a couple of stopwatch applets: http://javaboutique.internet.com/stop_watch_applet/ or http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/...tch/index.html .

There are many others, just a matter of finding the simplest one to use.

It should start automatically when the page is displayed I think (so it may start on the onLoad event handler).

Another one is a timer applet, which may in fact be a better choice: http://javaboutique.internet.com/Jtimer/ or http://javaboutique.internet.com/Timer/ .