Our January Auction is pretty awesome and closes Sunday the 27th

[CSM]

Interesting...wonder what happens when Paypal is used?

[Silhouette]

Liquid layouts are great for galleries and ecommerce sites - more product in front of eyes.

No, that is incorrect, retail marketing 101 says you do not pile it in front of the consumer, you lay it out so it can be easily and comfortable read, present it in a pleasant manner so the consumer enjoys their time viewing the product and does not suffer sensory overload. The 'stack it high and watch it fly' is not the best design for this site, they are trying to get maximum dollars not sell things at bargain basement prices.

[50s]

No, that is incorrect, retail marketing 101 says you do not pile it in front of the consumer, you lay it out so it can be easily and comfortable read, present it in a pleasant manner so the consumer enjoys their time viewing the product and does not suffer sensory overload. The 'stack it high and watch it fly' is not the best design for this site, they are trying to get maximum dollars not sell things at bargain basement prices.

Lets think a bit more creatively!!! Think about what can be achieved for the client - put them ahead of the pack.

You'll have all that extra space to use... provide the user larger images / instead of hard to see small images. The user experience will be improved as more options are available... that's what it is all about!



Lots of images...





or as few as you like...





In the examples above, the user has complete control of how large they want the images to be. That is one of the beauties of liquid layouts. Liquid layouts are there to improve the user experience from the restrictions of a static layout and are able to utilize the full screen area available. (Click on the images above and you will see 'Views' menu available for user to select different sized images to suit their needs, or better still interact with the site itself)

 
Oh, I nearly forgot, here is a poster gallery using a liquid layout AND ALSO taking advantage of this very resize capability: Chisholm Larsson Gallery


BTW I have no intention of building websites for anyone. I have done so in the past, not interested anymore... I just maintain my own sites.

[Silhouette]

Lets think a bit more creatively!!! Think about what can be achieved for the client - put them ahead of the pack.

But it's not about being creative when it's a shop it is simply about usability, it's about comfort for the consumer and not about the bells and whistles that really get in the way of selling the product. Clean designs less clutter is common in the majority of ecommerce sites today, no longer is the design about the web designer skills, it's all about the product.

Here's the Baymard's Institute report on the Top 100 Grossing E-Commerce Sites - I looked at the first 10 and Sears was the only one who did a fluid/full width http://baymard.com/checkout-usability/benchmark/top-100 - I can't be bothered looking through the whole list but I really don't think the percentages will change much for the other 90. Here's a list from 2012 for the 10 top ecommerce websites, none of the website listed are full width http://www.10bestdesign.com/web-design-competition/ecommerce-competition/

I do think you made some valid points, I do think the menu is over designed/over thought out and I could offer some other thoughts but I was not really wanting to critique Sean's site so much as to simply voice a difference of opinion to yours on fluid design.

[50s]

We are going to have to agree to disagree!

It (above image) looks clean and uncluttered to me! It is also scalable to mobile (I am working on it at the moment for my site).

Bells & whistles/clutter? : Then default to large images (is possible due to utilising the newly available horizontal space) and remove the Views menu. You still have a liquid display and no clutter.

Else, set in CSS a fixed width for the liquid layout, it will then look exactly like a fixed width layout with all the benefits of liquid layout retained for upgradabilty.

I'd be curious to hear from anyone using my site who thinks the liquid layout gets in the way of finding a product. More curious to see who finds it of benefit, e.g. does it aid in maintain interest in staying on the site.

Soon I'll show the site how it works on both web and mobile devices using basically the same code. It's all about creating the site right the first time.

[CSM]

WotWP - War of the Web Programmers coming soon to a theatre near you!

[crowzilla]

Ok Steve (and others),
still waiting for your reviews of the site redesign, but also thought I would give a reminder here that we do have a cool stills auction this week as well as our regular poster goodness.

http://www.movieposterexchange.com/buy.php?list=weekly

[50s]

Hi Crowzilla,

Sorry I don't have much time to look over the site. It still though from memory has a number of issues I think I mentioned previously. I can see some things work better now as are fixed so well done. Here are my thoughts looking only at one page this time. It is still quite a good site though.

[crowzilla]

Thanks for the feedback.
We are still working on it of course, but as you can see we are open to suggestions and willing to change.

Didn't realize about the right-click issue, so I will definitely talk to the programmers about that.
The wasted space on the side seems to be a common issue with Bruce, Heritage, and most everyone. It will probably be addressed at some point, but is definitely back-burner.

Still working on some other changes

[Silhouette]

Colors are fine - red/grey works as a combination. Red means action, confidence, courage, vitality; grey means security, maturity - all in all the colour mix suggests a professional business one can trust.  

"Wasted" space is just a Steve issue - as I've said it before and backed it up with empirical evidence, fluid design websites are simply not that common, they are too hard on the eye when displaying products and simply not used by the almost any of the top commercial websites in the world so I wouldn't worry about it.  

Steve is confusing liquid layouts (where it goes full screen width) with 'responsive' websites - responsive websites re-size and fit on a mobile, tablet or similar. If you don't have a mobile to check then there is an easy way to see if your website is 'responsive - make your browser (window) roughly the size of a mobile screen (for most people simply click the middle button top right corner of your screen and then drag to roughly resize) - if the website adjusts itself and doesn't need to scroll left-right (just up-down) then that is a responsive website.  

Steve's site is not responsive, nor is yours Sean and nor are most of the websites of the dealers here and yes that includes mine because even tho I now build responsive websites but to convert mine I need time that I do not have - I'll get to it. 

[Silhouette]

I do agree with Steve however that the 'right click open in a new tab', (or middle click) would be preferred by the canny surfer (not the end of the world), and I'd  agree all those menus before you get to the product, well there's quite a few...you could definitely reduce it by one layer without any inconvenience to the surfer, even more if you went with drop downs.

But all in all the site is fine, and it hasn't stopped me from winning the odd poster now and again...

[don't ask me why I had to post in two parts - character count perhaps?]

[50s]

"Wasted" space is just a Steve issue - as I've said it before and backed it up with empirical evidence, fluid design websites are simply not that common, they are too hard on the eye when displaying products and simply not used by the almost any of the top commercial websites in the world so I wouldn't worry about it.  

Looks like http://www.amazon.com/ have considered the Steve issue and now built their site fluid in response.

I do agree it is not too common, but when building a new site it may be worth spending that bit extra at that time to incorporate the functionality.

Steve is confusing liquid layouts (where it goes full screen width) with 'responsive' websites - responsive websites re-size and fit on a mobile, tablet or similar. If you don't have a mobile to check then there is an easy way to see if your website is 'responsive - make your browser (window) roughly the size of a mobile screen (for most people simply click the middle button top right corner of your screen and then drag to roughly resize) - if the website adjusts itself and doesn't need to scroll left-right (just up-down) then that is a responsive website.  

I'm not confusing anything, if there is spare space, why not use it.

Here are some sites stepping up to take commercial advantage of liquid layouts:
http://www.smh.com.au sticks ads in all that spare space available on desktop computers.

Steve's site is not responsive

Well, my site does indeed have a responsive design, but is not yet finished... Works for demo purposes in Firefox (not IE yet).
Here is a 'responsive version of my site' (adjust the width of your browser),
Here is the 'liquid layout version of my site' (click it to return back to the liquid layout, my std version of the site)

[Silhouette]

OK Steve, you are the world's best web designer.

[50s]

OK Steve, you are the world's best web designer.

I reckon I am one of the worst "web designers" just look at my fugly website. The last thing I want to be is a web designer - any 'web design' is done for fun not cash and I have no desire at all to build a site for anyone, ever. I just mention my thoughts from experience. Though last year I was managing a 15 person web team however they were the specialists and I relied on them for their advise.

The colors may mean action and confidence in some color guide book, though to me these don't draw me in.   It could have something to do with there being 7 different reds used on the page (excessive) including E31F28, E01F27, BD1A21, CC3333, 990000 + gradient fills

Another friendly suggestion if I can, and at the risk of sounding negative, I think I mentioned it previously elsewhere, there are too many different fonts / sizes used. My teams would nickname the MPE site a "ransom note" website, however I will say, it is only verging on it ;-)

Oh, the top menu when hovering over indicates the menu opens up via a symbol yet there is no dropdown menu, I think I mentioned that before too

I hope for MPE that David will offer some site improvement suggestions instead of just commenting off mine ;-)
 

[Silhouette]

I hope for MPE that David will offer some site improvement suggestions instead of just commenting off mine ;-)
 

I generally prefer not to critique other people's websites unless asked or in this case take a design stand - I simply and wholeheartedly disagree with your fluid web design comments for a product/display orientated website, and with one or two exceptions the rest of the design world disagrees with you too, so suggesting to Sean it would be better if he went the fluid design way was in my opinion reckless.

But despite the fact I disagreed with you on the fluid design (and the fact the use of grey and red "lack interest" - not the multitude of red variations) I did support your menu comments.

[50s]

I generally prefer not to critique other people's websites unless asked or in this case take a design stand - I simply and wholeheartedly disagree with your fluid web design comments for a product/display orientated website, and with one or two exceptions the rest of the design world disagrees with you too, so suggesting to Sean it would be better if he went the fluid design way was in my opinion reckless.

Fluid design can be as simple as stretching the header and footer as the browser gets bigger. Fill up the vacant space with something, it is free real estate. We obviously disagree on this as before! At least I am getting some thoughts and discussions happening. Obviously my thoughts, if they should even be considered, are going to be assessed by MPE development team before actually implementing anything. Reckless, phft, dont get your knickers in a twist. Following any advise on the web on important matters without first checking is what would be reckless. I see nothing reckless about anything I have said. However I would strongly advise you to drain your swimming pool and fill it with sardines, make an open invite to a house party at your place for everyone on facebook and tie a sex doll up outside your local police station.

Additionally, can you provide some MPE website suggestions so I can have some fun ripping those dopey ones to shreds, it is easy to criticise!   

Ok Steve (and others),
still waiting for your reviews of the site redesign

Another tip for MPE, seeing David is not assisting in reviewing... your About Us page is empty - better to remove it, else populate it

[Silhouette]

it is easy to criticise!   

So I see.

[50s]

So I see.

The light?


'Nother MPE tip, Advanced Search page, use JavaScript to manage one selection per box requirement.