Critique My Buddy's Web Site

[Perknose]

My buddy is a construction contractor, times are tough, so he's revised and revived Celtic United.

A few years ago, he and his then SO did quite well with it. She bagged the site and the realtionship. He always did most of the work, anyway. But that was then, this is now.

He asked for my feedback. Anyone wish to chime in?

 

[dbk]

Good layout, easy on the eyes.
One thing I would recommend would be replacing the pictures with some hires ones.
Not all the items give the customer the opportunity to view closeups but even those are not as hires as I would've liked.

I'm being a bit picky, but i didn't really notice anything else that stuck out.

 

[classy]

Its cool and clean.

 

[CrazyLazy]

Site looks fine visually, get them to go tableless layout if you can. It's the kind of thing where 99% of visitors won't notice, so I wouldn't bother if it would mean paying someone else to do it. It's still a good thing to do though.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Perknose
My buddy is a construction contractor, times are tough, so he's revised and revived Celtic United.

A few years ago, he and his then SO did quite well with it. She bagged the site and the realtionship. He always did most of the work, anyway. But that was then, this is now.

He asked for my feedback. Anyone wish to chime in?

clean, but a little old fashioned.

the name sounds like a soccer team.

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: CrazyLazy
Site looks fine visually, get them to go tableless layout if you can. It's the kind of thing where 99% of visitors won't notice, so I wouldn't bother if it would mean paying someone else to do it. It's still a good thing to do though.

He does his own coding and layout.

 

[Crono]

Nice site. I'm not ashamed to tell you that I will be printing a coloring page to color in later.
Very interesting lore and history - reading it now.
Would your friend possibly sell Celtic swords on the site? I would buy a Celtic sword.

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: xSauronx
clean, but a little old fashioned.

Which can fit the buying demographic.

the name sounds like a soccer team.

Which can make it easier to remember amidst a thicket of similar sites. When he first started it, they were on top of the Celtic wave of transient popularity in the US. Soon enough, one trillion other sites followed. Such is life.

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: Crono
Nice site. I'm not ashamed to tell you that I will be printing a coloring page to color in later.
Very interesting lore and history - reading it now.
Would your friend possibly sell Celtic swords on the site? I would buy a Celtic sword.

I dunno. Contact him and see. Maybe he has a druid side distributor.

 

[Gillbot]

Nice clean and simple.

 

[Mo0o]

1. Color palatte is too monotone
2. Old fashioned layout style
3. The pictures on the front page are oddly sized and dont flow well w/ the text
4. Banner way too small for the page
5. Navigation menu is too cluttered
6. Orgy of info right on the front page
7. For the navigation menu it's really weird to have visited links change color.
8. Make it more clear which section you're in
9. Due to the css scripting, links in the middle of a paragraph look really small. You can have teh color be different but atl east keep the font the same.

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: Mo0o
1. Color palatte is too monotone
2. Old fashioned layout style
3. The pictures on the front page are oddly sized and dont flow well w/ the text
4. Banner way too small for the page
5. Navigation menu is too cluttered
6. Orgy of info right on the front page
7. For the navigation menu it's really weird to have visited links change color.
8. Make it more clear which section you're in
9. Due to the css scripting, links in the middle of a paragraph look really small. You can have teh color be different but atl east keep the font the same.

Thanks! :thumbsup:

 

[IronWing]

Font sizes change from page to page in the page headings and explanatory text at the top of some pages.

http://www.celticunited.com/prodlist.php?cat=25

vs

http://www.celticunited.com/prodlist.php?cat=18

vs

http://www.celticunited.com/prodlist.php?cat=2

 

[Chunkee]

layout is a bit cluttered...have the choices be a filter to apply not first click realm.

spartan is good.

 

[MyThirdEye]

very easy on the eyes.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: Mo0o
1. Color palatte is too monotone
2. Old fashioned layout style
3. The pictures on the front page are oddly sized and dont flow well w/ the text
4. Banner way too small for the page
5. Navigation menu is too cluttered
6. Orgy of info right on the front page
7. For the navigation menu it's really weird to have visited links change color.
8. Make it more clear which section you're in
9. Due to the css scripting, links in the middle of a paragraph look really small. You can have teh color be different but atl east keep the font the same.

Originally posted by: Chunkee
layout is a bit cluttered...have the choices be a filter to apply not first click realm.

agreed. The design is too old and cluttered which makes it difficult to guide there eyes. That said I'm glad to see that you have filtering abilities (by category, by price) but work on making those on-demand queries based on a request type of "how can I help you" and not "here are the 100 things I can help you with"

great start


Not the best example but notice how this approach focuses the viewers attention (the one caveat on their part) and then makes it easy for them to make their own navigation choices.
For example, you can start my condescending the card listing.

Practically, try drawing the a tree diagram on paper that does from general to specific product requests and create a site that fits around that to start.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Site looks fine but who the hell is going to buy that in this economy?

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
Site looks fine but who the hell is going to buy that in this economy?

 

[olds]

Is that site open for sales?
He might want to do some SEO as his page titles are lacking and his keywords are redundant.
I agree that the banner is too small and navigation is cluttered.
Overall, it is functional and seems complete.

 

[Mo0o]

Another thing to consider is the background. Having text over a texture background makes it slightly difficult to read. Perhaps you can do it so that the textured background is on either side of the content but the area is solid.

 

[Al Neri]

1999 called... sorry sorry

 

[ivan2]

need more white space, everything's cramed together.

 

[Evadman]

<edit>ok, bulleted lists suck.</edit>

Way too much info on page 1. Split it up.

The layout just looks "old". I feel like I am on a page from '00. I was tryign to find the anglefire link.

Authorize.net/visa/MC logo should be at the bottom.

The banner at the top is way undersized.

The links on the front page are either a different size or different font than the rest of the paragraph. It breaks the visual flow of the information.

Something with the color is just too off. Green and black. Too close to monotone.

 

[Mr Pickles]

Actually, from a UI perspective, that website is going to sell those items just fine. No one shows up to a niche website ecommerce website expecting to see something laid out as nice as amazon. Take some of the suggestions that Mo0o made and run with them, but try not to get too crazy with it. Your content is perfect and that's exactly where ecommerce sites fail the most. You're in good shape.

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: Evadman
The layout just looks "old". I feel like I am on a page from '00.

To all who so remarked, he originally coded it 5 years ago, so, yeah.

I think he's just trying to throw it back out there because this economy has a death grip on construction contractors (in case you hadn't noticed.)

But thanks, everyone, for the detailed critiques. I'm sure he'll appreciate the knowledgeable feedback. :thumbsup: