Incredible Connection: How NOT to do a website

[MetalHead]

I've been lurking for a while now but I have to comment on this. Design is totally subjective...what one person likes may be totally different to what somebody else likes and the ONLY person whose opinion counts is the PAYING customer. I've done loads of sites in my time and I am constantly testing to improve my ROI (I actually earn a living from my websites - not from charging other people to create sites for them).

It never ceases to amaze me, but 9 times out of ten, the ugliest versions of my sites (the ones that get sneared at by "profesional" web designers) are the ones that have the highest conversion rates and generate the most sales!

One of my sites sells crystals and minerals specimens. When I first created it, I specifically went for an amateurish, home made look and feel thinking this would appeal to my target market. Last year I did a mock up of a new, slick profesional look and then surveyed of my customers and subscribers. They all said they loved the shiney slick new design and so I rebuilt the site from scratch according to what they said.

Result? A 50% drop in sales! Figures returned to normal after I restored the ugly old version that really does look like it was done by a 12 year old with a copy of FrontPage!

Moral of the story - don't listen to anybody's opinions about web design (especially not profesional designers!) just keep testing and let the sales talk. The only vote that counts is one that is made with a credit card number!

My opinion is that if people are noticing the design of a site (good or bad) they are NOT noticing the products for sale and THAT's where I want their attention. By this rationale many "great" websites fail worse than a lot of "bad" ones!

 

[FarligOpptreden]

Well, the supposed target market of Incredible Connection's online store are actually the tech-savvy people who KNOW what a website looks like. They are the ones who also know that a site should WORK when you click a link - data exceptions are unacceptable. Seriously though, just have a look at how the images on the site don't align and then general look-and-feel of the site. It is terrible. Their old site was MUCH better.

 

[kilobits]

Moral of the story - don't listen to anybody's opinions about web design (especially not profesional designers!) just keep testing and let the sales talk. The only vote that counts is one that is made with a credit card number!

My opinion is that if people are noticing the design of a site (good or bad) they are NOT noticing the products for sale and THAT's where I want their attention. By this rationale many "great" websites fail worse than a lot of "bad" ones!

Um.. Okay... but when your LIVE site is used for testing and design... and it does not work... and you have your functionally purposefully deactivated because it is a test LIVE site... and you haven't even got the fundamentals right...

I truly wonder just how professional the company behind the development are.... and why the retailer has sanctioned this on their LIVE portal!!!

 

[MetalHead]

The reason I posted was because this thread was started as an attack against the DESIGN of the site. Fair 'nuff - testing functionality on a live site may not be the best idea (although from a marketing point of view, you gotta wonder how many hits they got from this thread - if the shopping cart was working I woulda suspected them for engineering the whole thing themselves

The site works fine in IE but falls apart a bit in Firefox....whose fault is that? The client for not specifying cross browser compatibility? The Designer? The programer? It doesn't matter - it's a problem. Full stop.

Apart from that, the only design "mistakes" I see are the flashing banners across the top. Instead of careers and the IC magazine, this space should be used to promote IC products and services.

The product brands down the right hand side may or may not be a good idea, bit I would make it clear that the product names are clickable and will display products by that comapny (Acer, Canon, Lexmak etc).

Aside from that, who really cares if it's designed in tables instead of CSS (aside from 1 or 2 code monkeys) who cares about the choice of colours. As long as it makes sales nothing else matters and looking "nice" and "appealing" is nowhere near as important as being easy to navigate and simple buy from.

 

[kilobits]

The site works fine in IE but falls apart a bit in Firefox....whose fault is that? The client for not specifying cross browser compatibility? The Designer? The programer? It doesn't matter - it's a problem. Full stop.

Um... no... falls apart in IE also at base level... click on some links and...

Server Error in '/' Application.
Runtime Error
Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.
Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a <customErrors> tag within a "web.config" configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This <customErrors> tag should then have its "mode" attribute set to "Off".
<!-- Web.Config Configuration File -->
<configuration>
<system.web>
<customErrors mode="Off"/>
</system.web>
</configuration>
Notes: The current error page you are seeing can be replaced by a custom error page by modifying the "defaultRedirect" attribute of the application's <customErrors> configuration tag to point to a custom error page URL.
<!-- Web.Config Configuration File -->
<configuration>
<system.web>
<customErrors mode="RemoteOnly" defaultRedirect="mycustompage.htm"/>
</system.web>
</configuration>

This kind of indicates that it is not a browser isolated issue but a fundamental design flaw at the moment...

Aside from that, who really cares if it's designed in tables instead of CSS (aside from 1 or 2 code monkeys) who cares about the choice of colours. As long as it makes sales nothing else matters and looking "nice" and "appealing" is nowhere near as important as being easy to navigate and simple buy from.

Um... the user viewing the site may find that the cross browser issues could have been fixed with a css rather than table dependant site. Why the very fact that it seems to be IE specific will mean that the tills will not be ringing for around 30-40% of possible traffic.

Also.. this has been something outsourced to professionals (although looking at their portfolio, it is debatable) who should know better... who should advise their client as to the best way to proceed with the revamp if * Ka-ching * at the tills is important. You focus on fast, simple, effective layout design and functionality.

Try read the more info in firefox or opera. Try and print something that is actually meaningful. Try and navigate on a netbook and get passed the errors above.

This is BAD BAD BAD without a doubt.. on many levels. And, to think, it is something they are paying for to represent the Incredible Retail brand... tut tut is the last thing I have to say. Really.

 

[Necuno]

I've been lurking for a while now but I have to comment on this. Design is totally subjective...what one person likes may be totally different to what somebody else likes and the ONLY person whose opinion counts is the PAYING customer. I've done loads of sites in my time and I am constantly testing to improve my ROI (I actually earn a living from my websites - not from charging other people to create sites for them).

It never ceases to amaze me, but 9 times out of ten, the ugliest versions of my sites (the ones that get sneared at by "profesional" web designers) are the ones that have the highest conversion rates and generate the most sales!

One of my sites sells crystals and minerals specimens. When I first created it, I specifically went for an amateurish, home made look and feel thinking this would appeal to my target market. Last year I did a mock up of a new, slick profesional look and then surveyed of my customers and subscribers. They all said they loved the shiney slick new design and so I rebuilt the site from scratch according to what they said.

Result? A 50% drop in sales! Figures returned to normal after I restored the ugly old version that really does look like it was done by a 12 year old with a copy of FrontPage!

Moral of the story - don't listen to anybody's opinions about web design (especially not profesional designers!) just keep testing and let the sales talk. The only vote that counts is one that is made with a credit card number!

My opinion is that if people are noticing the design of a site (good or bad) they are NOT noticing the products for sale and THAT's where I want their attention. By this rationale many "great" websites fail worse than a lot of "bad" ones!

you are clearly missing what we are on about; there is a proper way of doing things and no matter how cruddy or l337 your website looks, its either properly tested and using the correct tried and tested implementations or its not properly tested with non standardized implementations which will lead to issues as pointed out.

programing 101: test before going live for all given and non given situations.


do ALL PEOPLE READ or WRITE better WITH CAPS ?

 

[GreGorGy]

This is a great thread: it would seem that several web developers are contributing to it, pointing out faults in the original site and a few others. They are quick to laugh at the work of others without, mind you, laying their own souls bare.

I see this a lot in my industry. Designers are quick to diss the work of others and show all the faults that they can find. Poor layout. Bad grammar. Using Comic Sans. The list is endless, really. The critics rush to say how they could have done a better job then suddenly go very quiet when their own works are discussed negatively.

Don't get me wrong: I am not, for one minute, defending the original site. It really is *** (myBB stars out kilo alpha kilo! Wow! It's my favourite word after Foxtrot and Charlie). But I must wonder if all the critics really have some authenticity to their self-imposed authority.

I come from the hard-coding school. All my sites are done in plain text, using BBEdit (I'm on a Mac and BB simply cannot be beat for hard coding) and will often look at the source for some sites that stink of Dreamweaver. In the past, I would pooh-pooh the site purely because the tool is bloated, without taking time to appreciate the functionality and beauty that the designer managed to build.

So I have to agree with MetalHead: ROI is king. If the site delivers, it works. And I have to ask these critics - what have you done that is better? I'll go second...

 

[kilobits]

Hi GreGorGy

You must be mad! Give these forumites personal ammunition to play with... no way.

The Incredible site and some others mentioned here are in my books indeed bad.

Look at www.accomp.co.za ... tell me that anyone involved in that has an inkling of what they are doing. Neither development nor design feature anywhere on the list there, but, hey, the client is not complaining... so job well done. The site is delivering... it must work.

I don't have to be a mechanic to know that I am driving in a lemon though.

I am sure too that you have had your run-ins with the marketing and design teams of a client who insist you pursue their "paint and gliter orgasm" with no regard to "workings" of the whole "web thing". These are occupational hazards usually covered by the brief before accepting.

What I did not expect is an experienced IT retailer going live with what is being presented at the moment... and it not being an in-house development thing either. They have contracted professional developers to do this. This is not the developers 1st project either... so experience must count for something. Doing what they are doing in the way they are doing it.

An example is the new Jobug site. This ran in tandem for a month while the "challenges" were overcome. The switch-over happened without incident and all functionality is there. The aesthetics may be questionable but its working... in all browsers too.

So... perhaps the developers out there should ask themselves what they would have done if this was their project? Would they be happy to be professionally associated with what is there at the moment? Would they have advised to go live with a site for a retailer that is not functional and still in development?

Hmmm....

...

 

[icyrus]

(I'm on a Mac and BB simply cannot be beat for hard coding)

vim

 

[GreGorGy]

Hi GreGorGy

I am sure too that you have had your run-ins with the marketing and design teams of a client who insist you pursue their "paint and gliter orgasm" with no regard to "workings" of the whole "web thing". These are occupational hazards usually covered by the brief before accepting.

What I did not expect is an experienced IT retailer going live with what is being presented at the moment...
...

Too true. A pig wearing lipstick. The errors that shoot up are disgusting. The whore's handbag of colours is even worse. But that would be excusable if it was what Incredible wanted. The under construction bits though - jeeez, I though we all accepted that the web was under permanent construction and merely using that phrase suggested that the designer was still at pre-school.

vim

WTF? vim? I love that sig floating around here somewhere about everyone's first vim session... so true

 

[FarligOpptreden]

You mean Veroland's sig? Tis awesomeness, yes...

 

[swift412]

There was quite a bit of drama about their new design in the comments on WeAreNotFreelancers.co.za blog post on them: Not so Incredible Connection

 

[Necuno]

UPFRONT DISCLAIMER

ow the dramatics ****ers we have amongst us

 

[FarligOpptreden]

UPFRONT DISCLAIMER

ow the dramatics ****ers we have amongst us

That's some copyright infringement right there. Please refer to any of dequadin's posts for the PROPER use in the red-text-upfront-disclaimer...

 

[GreGorGy]

Website clients from hell:

Daddy's little princess
(my little whore)

She has an unlimited budget quite often so her ridiculous demands are paying your bills. You gotta put up with her requests for a Flash thingy (her BFF has one), her colour combinations (she thinks a website that looks like a carnival is hot) and her impossible timelines (she is playing catchup).

Get ready to use Flash, pink and blue, Comic Sans and ten other fonts, and animated GIFs. Oooh - get your hit counter ready as well. And make it so that it counts in 13s, cos if she don't get all those hits, it's your fault.


The Frontpage Pioneer (The FPP)

Come back princess! The FPP does his church or bowling club website on the weekend in Frontpage. No stranger to the aforementioned Comic Sans, he knows good web design and how to do it. He is all too familiar with really cool colours and the power of Google Images. The only problems he has are time (the company website is much bigger than St Bowl's) and "programming" those forms.

How dare you charge him a reasonable rate? He could do it himself in half the time and at a quarter of the cost. The FPP is a nightmare because he has thorough knowledge of Frontpage, making him a whiz. You're screwed already. He will send you a blurry scan of the MD's ID photo and when you tell him you can't use it, he will tell you that with a little "photoshopping" you should be able to get it into focus, blow it up like the do on CSI and make it colour. He pirated Photoshop so his version does not have the magic "Focus, Colorize and Zoom" function.


The shopaholic

She also has a huge budget. And what she can't afford from this year's website budget, she'll spend from next year's - no problem. But this wiley little shopper knows that she buys her bread from Pick 'n Pay and her milk Spar. Her clothes are made-up sets from several botiques cos she gets bang for her buck. Expect to produce a detailed estimate, for everything. She wants everything.

Once she has her estimates from 8 different suppliers, she will approach one for the design, one to make the search engine, one for the hosting, one for the CMS and one for the "programming". You will inevitably be the one that has to sew together the messes produced by each of the other suppliers. And she will have tricked you into agreeing on the promise (that will never materialise) of a bigger project and more work.


Mr Bombastic and the IT Guy (aka the Dream Team)

At last, what a pleasure. The IT guy has been promising to do the company website for months now. His Microsoft certification did include 3 questions about websites (What does the L in HTML stand for? Which is better - IE6 or IE7? and What can't be done with ASP?). Problem is, he does not have the tools for the job and the company does not have the budget.

Mr B has sworn him blind and you have been called in to do the site. Expect some abuse yourself. Mr B will tell you how useless you are and wonder why you did not arrive at the first meeting with a website ready-made. He also wonders about your price (Websites are R999 including domain on the lamppost by his house). The embarrassed IT guy needs to show you up at every turn, at the same time parading his infinite knowledge to his boss. Expect to be mistakenly copied on email from the IT guy with lines like "Is this guy serious?" , "We should look at another supplier..." and "I can do that in half the time!" When this faux pas is pointed out, he will explain how Outlook Express only knows how to reply-all and that you should not have read the email because he sent a recall two minutes later, so who's the idiot now?




There are others and combinations. Feel free to add.

 

[Necuno]

That's some copyright infringement right there. Please refer to any of dequadin's posts for the PROPER use in the red-text-upfront-disclaimer...

speak to my union

 

[kilobits]

@GreGorGy

I spewed my morning cuppa man reading the above.
LOL ... really LOL...

Here's one...

The Just-Do-it / wait a moment / lemme think about it / Okay do it / wait a moment...
The got-it-together executive looking type with all the business accessories. Spends the time in meetings he's called with you "touching base" on his iPhone sounding important. Ends the session with "Ok, just do it, but keep me up to speed okay". At least once a week needs to know "why are we doing this again?"... and "hold on for a mo'... I'll get back to you". Tick tock tick tock. Um, deadline dude!

 

[MetalHead]

@GreGorGy

I've personally met all those guys My personal "favorite" is:
<b>I am the customer and the Customer Is Always Right/ Why isn't my website working..</b>

This guy tells you "exactly" what he wants (sorta blueish background ya know, then just do a write up about my company and expalin what we do...) and then follows up with "That's all wrong, do it again and do it properly next time..."

A 1 day job drags out for 3 weeks until you finaly produce something out of thin air that he likes and is just what he "told you he wanted". (Thanks for the detailed brief buddy.)

Next he demands all the usual changes... just rephrase this, change that picture, I LIKE fat borders around tables and LARGE fonts so my customers will like them too, remove that opt in form because I can't be bothered to write a newsletter every month, I changed my mind and don't want to run that affiliate program anymore....

After practically neutering the site he says he is happy with it but starts making threatening phone calls after a week when he isn't generating any sales from the site and it must be YOUR fault because YOU did something wrong!

 

[kilobits]

Website clients from hell:

Get ready to use Flash, pink and blue, Comic Sans and ten other fonts, and animated GIFs. Oooh - get your hit counter ready as well. And make it so that it counts in 13s, cos if she don't get all those hits, it's your fault.

Heheh.. .sounds like the Hellopeter site there!

 

[kilobits]

After practically neutering the site he says he is happy with it but starts making threatening phone calls after a week when he isn't generating any sales from the site and it must be YOUR fault because YOU did something wrong!

Hehehe. Also the guy who's job you signed-off on a year ago who's had 4 others butcher it as described above, calls you to fix it now because it's "broken" and it never worked and its all your fault and you never actually did what he required and he should never have used you and and and and... AAAARGH!