Esquire- New Website , Need your help again

ponder said:
Something else, dunno how to say this in a nice way but the site looks a bit tacky & not all that professional. For example all those large social networking and whatnot icons on the right hand side must go. Find another place for them that's less in your face. Those big flash adds are also not so cool.

The overall layout of the main page looks disorganised to me and not well though out, I like things to be 'clean' if I could call it that.
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Have to agree on the less is more. I'd remove that right column completely and add the battery finder link to one off the menus. All the other stuff there is repeated, multiple times in some instances. With that gone I'd suggest making your site use the full width, keeping the good practice principles in mind. Tell your devs to look at this site:

http://www.getskeleton.com/
 
That partner scroller at the bottom is pretty clunky. I'd replace it with a static image with a link map like in the shop site.
 
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That funny logo thing at the bottom makes my laptop lag because it's so old and horrible :( Can you please fix this for me? Umm... The rest of my advice comes with that because i'm still waiting for the rest of it to load :)
 
koeksGHT said:
So many big images
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Janee. Header logo coming in at 784.28 KB alone. Page needs compression/optimization to begin with.


Code: 
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	Optimizing the following images could reduce their size by 442.4KiB (62% reduction).
•	Losslessly compressing [url]http://www.esquire.co.za/images/e5.jpg[/url] could save 25.1KiB (29% reduction). See optimized version or Save as.
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[URL="http://pastebin.com/DyyZMVgm"]...
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Fudzy said:
Well it depends on whether the developer and designer are two different people.
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It seems their dev is trying his luck with design :P

You need a proper designer, not to be mean but hardly looks like a professional business. And them compression yes :P
 
Agreed. I would seldom visit this site if it looks like this.
Please don't "break" the online shop by redesigning it like this.
 
Sorry, but i have to agree with other comments here. I think the site looks a bit tacky, cluttered and dated. Too many random images, no clean layout style and personally i really don't like the menu graphics. Very 90's amateur photoshop.

I don't know what your target market client is, but personally i prefer clean, efficient layouts for a business site - like some other companies in your similar field - www.axiz.co.za and www.tarsus.co.za - clean business like layouts.
 
ramar said:
Sorry, but i have to agree with other comments here. I think the site looks a bit tacky, cluttered and dated. Too many random images, no clean layout style and personally i really don't like the menu graphics. Very 90's amateur photoshop.

I don't know what your target market client is, but personally i prefer clean, efficient layouts for a business site - like some other companies in your similar field - www.axiz.co.za and www.tarsus.co.za - clean business like layouts.
Click to expand...

<3 tarsus online dealer portal!!!!!!
 
McGuywer said:
Yes, let's say sort by price or availability.
Click to expand...

Yeah that would be good. Also I don't like the way the catergory of each 'Store' appears below the Store list, it should popup beneath the selected category.

Ie.

CCTV Store
Consumables
Desktop PC Store
*Controller (FireWire)
*Controller (IDE)
*Controller (Parallel)
*Controller (RAID)
*Controller (SATA)
Gadget Store
Gaming Store

Not

CCTV Store
Consumables
Desktop PC Store
Gadget Store
Gaming Store

*Controller (FireWire)
*Controller (IDE)
*Controller (Parallel)
*Controller (RAID)
*Controller (SATA)
 
Way too much bling! It reminds me of the first web site I ever did. I used everythingbling with the 3-d buttons animations etc. Took ages to put together and ages to load - like yours still does now. It's too much. Too distracting and not at all corporate. The designers are not applying any corporate look and feel at all. It all just looks so plastic and in-ur-face with 70's disco-bling.

Tone it down... Get rid of the useless info, like the Vision & Mission statement - no-one but government and parastatals find the need to advertise their V & M on the front page of everything - mostly because they have nothing else to advertise. No-one reads that cr@p anyways. If you really really have to, then create a link to it. I don't know any PC people interested in a V & M statement.

The slideshow on the top is way too big, which explains some of the wasted loading time. The whole 3-d thing is soooo mid-90's. Flat menu bars and menu drop-downs are far more stylish. REDUCE THE SIZE OF THOSE MENU BARS!!! They make my eyes bleed!. Someone really needs to take a look at the menu tree too. It makes no sense at all there is no structure in place. It's frustrating trying to find your way around drop-downs when they have no order to them.

The Javascript supplier bar at the bottom is also too gimmicky - lose it. The suppliers names should all be in a neat row or in columns - and be static - like you mean it!. Bad jerky Javascript animation always looks tacky. Everything in fact is way too big. It looks as if the designer designed the site on a 30" monitor @ 2560x1600. Which may explain why everything is so over-baring to the majority of people who are on normal 1080p monitors.

At the end of the day, it's up to you how the company wants to be perceived. The name ESQUIRE is perceived as classy by name, so it needs to be classy to the eye as well. At the moment, it looks cheap 'n nasty. More like a web site made by the owner of a company to save bucks. You need a definite corporate look that can be carried throughout the entire site without the entire layout changing to look like it was worked on by 5 different designers. Simplicity is the key here. That is my honest opinion. As brutal as it may seem, I can only point out what is wrong at the moment. Use it or don't use it...

Oh, yes! One last thing. Try keep all info in the body of the web page. You got stuff spilling over into no-man's land eg. the social networks and the images of your building. For that matter, those pics of your building don't add anything to your web site... especially in it's current state.

Final assault! Promise. The ads.... they need some TLC too. The jpegs just don't do it. An html ad is so much more elegant and loads a lot quicker too since only photo image areas need to be jpeg. The rest can all be html or flash based. To have an entire ad cascade downwards offers no impact at all. With an html or flash ad, each promo item can be viewed in it's own space by clicking next, giving each item individual exposure as opposed to just throwing it all out there. Your price lists... those are bad-ass! Publish them as pdf with clickable links from a menu page. The current Excel document you supply is an eyesore and makes it look like you ran out of time to render it as a corporate document and just threw it all together in a flat-spin! A pdf document is much more appealing from a visual point of view and is just way more classier.
 
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