[UPHPU] How to do...?

[cole at colejoplin.com]

Quoting Wade Preston Shearer <lists at wadeshearer.com>:

>> Cole, just so I can be clear (and for added support when I confront  
>>   the boss), were you saying that the whole site was ugly, or just   
>>  the front page.
>
> I'll offer an opinion: the whole thing. Sorry to be blunt, but the
> site's pretty hard to look at.

I'm afraid I have to agree with that assessment. I want to be honest  
without being negative, and simply pointing out some obvious  
improvements. I'll certainly differ to Wade on the graphic design  
no-no's.

In general, here's a very short list. When I see 80's style, 3d raised  
buttons, jagged GIFs and font/background combinations, double logos --  
ouch. It looks slapped together, like a beginner's web page course  
project. Even the Flash  
(http://www.westernbotanicals.com/sp/front.html) looks very  
amateurish. That page is also using charset=iso-8859-1 encoding,  
rather than UTF-8. I could go on...but you get the point.

The good news is that many of the competitors are just as bad! So to  
see what you should be doing, let's take an example of a possible  
competitor:

http://www.sensia.com/archipelago.htm

Go ahead, take a moment, and look at them right after each other. I'll  
wait. Now this site isn't a design tour de force by any means, but has  
a minimum of competent design effort. At first glance the emotional  
feeling of the first 15 seconds visually, is wildly different between  
the two. As a customer, the trust level is worlds apart.

This is about company image, doing it on the cheap, and not having a  
real internet business strategy or understanding. IMO, there is a  
massive underestimation of the importance of professional design,  
especially on web sites. I think a minimum design is required, not an  
option. I would rather not even be on the web, than to do damage my  
company image. I'm sorry, but the current site is very damaging.

I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but it's easy to fix. The way to make  
the site a success is to add a desperately-needed designer. That is  
your next, best move. Shortcuts and cheap band-aids are not going to  
fix the exits. I'm shocked there are any sales at all. I know I  
wouldn't feel comfortable purchasing from this site. That really says  
it all.

-- Cole

-- Cole