New website

[NMS]

Hi

I have just created a new ecommerce website.

I would appreciate your comments and suggestions to improve the website.

http://www.maltaproducts.com

Thanks

[Kitchensink108]

I suggest renaming your banners, like from banner_top27.jpg to just top27.jpg or something. Right now they're getting caught in my adblocker.

The only other thing I'd say is don't use the <b> and <center> tags, but that's because I code in XHTML strict a lot.

[NMS]

Thanks for your comments! I fixed the banner issue. You are right... I use the <center> tags quite often because sometimes I feel it is quick to centre something. ;) <b> I usually avoid it since I have it defined in the css

[IanS]

You offer the goods in a number of currencies. It would be nice to have an indication of the conversion rate that is being used.

[YvetteKuhns]

You offer the goods in a number of currencies. It would be nice to have an indication of the conversion rate that is being used.

Did you make a selection? I just chose USD-$ and I see the prices in United States Dollars. My confusion with this website is this: What can I legally purchase and have shipped here? I ask because I saw alcoholic beverages and where I am, I have to be 21 years old to purchase or consume them. I don't drink alcohol, but I am using this for an example.

The animation on the left is a not-so-subtle message to buy something. The animation opens a new window to the same website. I would prefer a rotating image link to a product that may be interesting. I may be shopping for food when an image of pottery catches my eye. Just a suggestion.

I am please to say this website fits my screen of 800x600 resolution and looks good in Firefox. I was amused to see that there is only an English version available. The website is educational and cultural, very interesting for anyone. I learned that Maltese people give food hampers instead of food baskets. There are even recipe books for Maltese dishes for diabetics! :cool:

[IanS]

Did you make a selection?
Yes - I looked at the prices in Euros, English pounds and US$. But the question remains, 'what is the exchange rate used?'. It can be cheaper to buy in, for eg., US$ and pay the conversion fee for the Credit Card if the currency rate used by a site isn't good.

[NMS]

thanks all for your comments .. it shows you took time to go through the website and look at various aspects.

Malta Luzzu Eye Picture - improved explanation to "Malta Luzzu - Eye of Osiris"

orange... you may be right but this is the colour used on the local luzzu (which is a fishing boat)

alcohol and other product legalities are subject to that place's regulations. I will process an order for alcholol even if it comes from the US, then he will have a problem at customs.

I am please to say this website fits my screen of 800x600 resolution and looks good in Firefox. - yes, it was done for IE6, IE7, FF1.8 & FF2 & resolution is still important on the internet.

SEO wise it is very good and google & yahoo are sending me a lot of traffic on a daily basis.

payment - no matter what payment you choose, you will also pay in euros at the end of the purchase. The conversions are indicative only to help people understand the price. That is why the conversion rate is not important.

Thanks again!

[IanS]

payment - no matter what payment you choose, you will also pay in euros at the end of the purchase. The conversions are indicative only to help people understand the price. That is why the conversion rate is not important.
Thanks again!
In that case, shouldn't there be a clear indication of that. I'd be most annoyed if I chose to pay in British pounds only to find I'd been billed in Euros and had a currency conversion charge added.

[NMS]

I'm using FF 2.0. Get this error each time I load your page. It's displayed across your page, interfering with your design:

It's a PHP error, caused by line 3 in your code.


Does that fix the problem?

Are you modifying your User-Agent value in Mozilla?

[NMS]

yes, always.



Thank is the prroblem then. Coz I an placing some extra space for FF so I am defining the USER_AGENT . .anyone knows how to fix this?

[NMS]

yes, always.



i made a fix for your browser settings... can you kindly check if that solves the problem?

Thanks

[NMS]

yes, i allowed a non-UA

Re eye - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_Horus

[YvetteKuhns]

My point is however, that no one here in the studio (all of us PhDs) could discern that image, and I bet that many others may not as well.

I moused over the image, because the image was odd to me, too.

[NMS]

I do see your point!

Do you think that if i made the image clickable to a page which explains the image would be better?

[IanS]

I do see your point!

Do you think that if i made the image clickable to a page which explains the image would be better?That would certainly help those that don't know the significance of the picture.

[YvetteKuhns]

Do you think people will click the image? I guess so. I moused over it and I probably would have clicked it. Because the image is odd to us, that makes it memorable.

[NMS]

Let's face it... it may help in SEO as well ;)

Will do it in the coming days!

Thansk again for your comments and support. If you have any other ideas, please keep throwing ;)

[Dancegirl]

Looks nice. Light design and useful menu. ;)

[Neat Pete]

Dear NMS,

I review websites for usability. Usually people get very offended when I review their web site, because their ego is closely tied to their website design, and they have already invested time and effort in the design. Actually the Malta web site has lots of good points. Anyway, here goes, here are some of the many minor things that warrant attention.....

(1) Buying gifts for relatives in Malta is a good marketing idea. But there is a grammar error in the way it's said.

(2) Drinks and beverages - marketing rubbish. What's the difference?? Beverages is a just a bogus word used by marketing suits. Just say drinks, or say Wine and Beer etc. Does the general public ever say beverage - "I think I'll have a beverage while I watch the televised event." PS: Seen any big trucks marked "Cold Logistics" lately, what did they say previously???

(3) Product categories. There are far too many. It should be reduced to only a few. The differences between souvenirs and crafts for example is splitting hairs. Many categories are obviously similar.

(4) Many of the blurbs on Malta are totally gratuituous and should be removed. They repeat over and over and are very annoying - at least they should all move to a section about Malta. In one example I read under Other Books about how many books the Maltese had written, but the sub-category contained only one book for sale, and it was expensive.

(5) The two flash animations are both annoying. The best solution is no animations at all, usability studies show people looking for content won't click on animations because they are just adverts.

(6) The animation on the left of the home page is especially nasty. When you click on it, it has a link to the home page. All text books on web design agree that you must not have links to the same page - it confuses users no end and wipes the model they have built in their head about how your site navigates. But the left side animation is far worse than that - it opens the same page in a new window. I have my Firefox set to open new windows as a new tab. I had three tabs all the same before I realised what was going on. Dreadful, by far the worst navigation problem on the site.

(7) This site is extremely annoying in that the user constantly lands on product groups where nothing is on sale (yet).

(8) Under Coffee many of the items have a price, but no weight in the initial display.

(9) Wines and Liquers are shown in bottles of size 50cl. Yep, I know that size is understood in Europe, but the "cl" has never been used as a unit in Australia. The bottle is 500ml not 50cl.

(10) When I read about Festa videos, I get the impression every town has one. So how many festa videos are on sale? None!!! So why does this even category exist???

(11) Searching. on the main page, the search is there twice. Which one to use???

(12) Searching from the toolbar. This consists of the word Search:, a white box and the button marked Go!. The search is in the correct position at the top right, and you can assume customers know how to use it. The grey button is in a different colour from the other buttons, and wrongly looks like you have pressed it when you roll your mouse over it. Basically the label Search: should be removed and a Search button should replace the Go! button.

(13) Collectibles. That sounds interesting I thought, but I was soon disappointed. Yes 12 lots of stamps, but coins zero, phone-cards zero and other collectibles also zero. Waste of time.

(14) Nearly everything on the site that is an action button has an exclamation mark after the text. All these exclamation marks should be removed.

[NMS]

Thank you for your detailed review of the websites. I have implemented most of your suggestions. Regarding empty categories, well we are aware of that and we are always getting new products, from week to week, the advantage is that they are already indexed from google and users know they are coming soon.

I also thank you for mentioning that MP.com has "lots of good points"

Thanks again and feel free to comment again if you think necessary.

[Neat Pete]

(15) The top banner pictures of Malta. I like these pictures. There seems to be a lot of them, and many have appeared only once. There are not enough pictures of people, markets, houses, daily life. I have saved about ten of these pictures to my hard drive, and they range in file size from 19K to 39K for the same sized picture. When I opened two of the 39K pictures, and re-saved them they came out at 18K and 25K. You might think the quality might have been poor, so I resaved the 18K one at a better quality and got 23K. The conclusion is that many of these pictures are bloated by excessive quality - all should be remade smaller.

(16) Top banner pictures again. These pictures have all been processed to say the name of the web site, plus a Maltese cross at the right and a blue wash thing at the left. All this is a complete waste of time. Plain pictures would be ok. Save effort, nobody will notice.

(17) Colour scheme. I agree with sentiments on the forum that the orange is too bright and disconcerting. You may reply "that's the true colour" but it's too bright for the net and should be toned down by adding grey. The other problem is that it clashes with the yellow colour around the Luzza. The simplest answer is to remove it.

(18) The Maltese Luzza. Well, this caused the most fuss on the forum. The misinterpretation and misunderstanding alone might be a good enough reason to remove it at once. Given that we don't play baseball much here, I thought it was the underside view of some sort of vinyl toy. It looks odd and glossy. I certainly did not know what it was. Having read the forum, I looked up Maltese Luzza and Maltese eye in Google Images. Maltese terriers aside, there are plenty of pictures of boats with eyes on the front. Later I read the Alt tag which includes the words "eye of Osiris" which gives a pretty obvious hint. The actual problem is that the casual viewer cannot put the eye into any context - there is no long shot of a boat, just this wacky logo which is a complete distraction from buying anything. It's a big decision, bug it might have to come off. The problem with the Maltese Cross is it looks like a Nazi war medal, so maybe the Luzza has to stay for the moment. Search for a new logo.

(19) The Luzza and the banner. The Luzza is a transparent gif file sized 206 by 125 and the banner is 560 by 130 - a height difference of 5 pixels. I have not figured out exactly how these sit side by side without one or the other being shrunk or stretched in height. Just a thought. When it displays in my browser, the Luzza is initially larger and jaggy and then it jumps into the correct size.

(20) Too much clutter. Generally, there is far too much reading which people don't read, only skim. This skimming is not my opinion, nope. it's a research finding - people skim rather than read on screens. Surely the main slogan is "Buy Maltese Products" and it should be prominently displayed once the clutter is removed.

(21) Categories and Sub-categories. Most of the wording on the site has too much detail and too much repetition. If the wording is in the heading, don't repeat it in the sub heading. No padding neither.

(22) A convention is emerging where the company logo is always in the top left corner, and clicking on this logo returns you to the home page. This convention should be fully implemented asap for all pages, except the home page of course where it does not apply.

[Neat Pete]

<snip>Regarding empty categories, well we are aware of that and we are always getting new products, from week to week, the advantage is that they are already indexed from google and users know they are coming soon.

I also thank you for mentioning that MP.com has "lots of good points"

Thanks again and feel free to comment again if you think necessary.

Hi, I have just posted a second lot of points, with more to come.

Be aware that lots of people just leave when they find an empty category. Your users don't know when "soon" is.

There are lots of good points. It's never helpful when people say "it's awful and should be redesigned". Actually most sites just need a lot of minor points fixed. Your design is much along the lines of what people expect of a site that sells products and thus they can learn it fairly easily. Each item has a picture, a thumbnail, a description, a price and usually weight - all good stuff.

I am much happier with the currency set to $A and it remembered this as my setting.

For the search, consider now removing the label saying Search:

Other views - please comment, it's not just me and Neville debating here.

Neat Pete

[Neat Pete]

(23) The menu item given as Collectibles also appears on other screens where it's called Coins and Banknotes. It's vital to have absolute consistency in the naming of everything, and there aren't any banknotes offered for sale anyway. It should say Collectibles always.

(24) There is a school of thought emerging where all pictures should be clickable. In some cases this leads to a larger picture being shown, in other cases it leads to more information about what is being shown. Clearly this principle does not apply to the smilies and other tiny pictures. I support this clicking concept and suggest that it be applied to the site. Already it applies to the thumbnails of the products where clicking produces a screen with more details and a larger picture.

(25) One of my pet hates about this site is the menu at the left. This is a much-too-clever piece of programming. After a bit of clicking, I discovered that only one lot of sub-categories can be open at a time. I found this tiresome and annoying and bad luck for anybody who double clicks it. The whole thing is based on the assumption that users will enjoy exploring the product range by clicking. Wrong, users will leave, you must display all the choices so they can make a choice and get on with it.

(26) If you stand back and look carefully at the main page you will notice it has a menu running down the left side, and an almost identical set of menu choices in the middle. This is useless redundancy and one of these two menus systems has to go. How do users choose between these two. A bit more experimenting and you realise that on the left, you can't actually click on links according to the categories, clicking opens up the tree structure. This kinda explains why the alternative menu is in the middle. But the real conclusion is that the left hand menu is a total dog and has to go. What this main page needs is a simple menu that leads straight to products for sale.

(27) Searching. I spent quite a bit of time trying out the search. It's next to a flash advert saying Grand Masters Collection Christmas Hampers, so let's start with that. Searching for hampers finds lots. Searching for christmas hampers finds lots. Searching for grand hampers finds nothing. This illustrates that it's a string searcher and not a word or keyword searcher. The search on the main page invites users to type their keywords - this is not quite true but most users don't really know the difference. It will search for phrases, and if you type a singular word it will also find the plurals. There is a need to look on other sites to see how they are doing it.

(28) Searching again. In Australia most things advertised as "videos" are actually DVDs now. So I saw videos from Malta advertised and I wondered. I searched for video and got several, I searched for CD and got several, I searched for ROM (as in CD-ROM) and got 158 - this is because rom includes from - it's a pure string searcher. This can be fixed, but it's not easy.

(29) Searching yet again. I searched for collectibles and got nothing. I searched for collectible (singular) and still got nothing. Not a fantastic outcome. It appears the searcher cannot see the categories and sub-categories, only the product descriptions. Same result for filigree and pottery. Bizzilla zero, lace sixteen!!

(30) Where's the Cursor. Go to Google, don't press any keys and watch where the cursor starts blinking. In the Search Box. Now go to www.maltaproducts.com (or your own web site for that matter) and look closely. Where's the cursor. Not visible? The exercise is to save a copy of Google's home page file, pull it apart and figure out how they get the cursor in the box. Do your users a big favour and put this feature on every page where you have a search box or a form to be filled in.

(31) In the head section of the file, there are two identical links to the same style sheet.

[YvetteKuhns]

One of my pet hates about this site is the menu at the left. This is a much-too-clever piece of programming. After a bit of clicking, I discovered that only one lot of sub-categories can be open at a time. I found this tiresome and annoying and bad luck for anybody who double clicks it. The whole thing is based on the assumption that users will enjoy exploring the product range by clicking. Wrong, users will leave, you must display all the choices so they can make a choice and get on with it.

The expanding menu saves space when you have a lot of choices. It is much like the menu you explore in the Microsoft Windows OS. I don't mind only having one list of subcategories open at a time, but the category should be a clickable link just as they are in the lists on the home page.

If you stand back and look carefully at the main page you will notice it has a menu running down the left side, and an almost identical set of menu choices in the middle. This is useless redundancy and one of these two menus systems has to go. How do users choose between these two. A bit more experimenting and you realise that on the left, you can't actually click on links according to the categories, clicking opens up the tree structure. This kinda explains why the alternative menu is in the middle. But the real conclusion is that the left hand menu is a total dog and has to go. What this main page needs is a simple menu that leads straight to products for sale.

I was thinking that the left menu should stay, but be revised so the main categories can be clicked. If it does not expand, the subcategories can appear on the category pages anyway. That was the thing that bugged me.

The website is still in the design phase and the products will be added later. That is understood. This is the time to decide how to describe the categories. But as more products are available, the menu will expand, so it is good that there is room for expansion.

Searching. I spent quite a bit of time trying out the search.
Funny, I really didn't try it much at all, because I was curious to see what was in each category. But I do use a search on sites like Buy.com or eBay.com rather than search for the category first. The searches are often inaccurate on sites, though.

[Neat Pete]

Some more points, all fairly minor, but fixing a lot of minor points will have a major effect....

(32) The Title in the head section of the file is too long. The URL should not be given. It should be something short and simple like Maltese Products Website. It has to begin with Malta or Maltese. The Description should not repeat the title yet again. Something like "Buy quality products made in Malta here" is probably sufficient. The keywords probably need not repeat any of the wording already used. Also tests demonstrate that Google ignores the keywords - they are a waste of time for search engines, because spammers routinely abuse them. Got that? - it does not matter if you have no keywords - it's the content on your site that matters.

(33) Soft drinks. In fact there is only one, named Kinnie. It sounds similar to Italian softdrinks which are widely available here. What Kinnie is really like is not revealed - it's bitter and it's unique-tasting. I had a soft drink in a cafe last week and it too claimed it was unique flavoured. Unique is one of those words destroyed by marketing - it used to mean the only one of its kind in the world, but now dictionary compilers concede that it also means unusual. We no longer have a word meaning unique because fools wearing suits said every product was unique. Basically the word unique should come off the product description and Kinnie's flavour should be specified more correctly.

(34) Featured Products and Products on Special. These promotions can be made much larger once all the clutter is removed. If it's On Special or being promoted, then it surely deserves a bigger picture and a larger font!!! To the best of my knowledge, On Special is called On Offer in England - there's language problem here.

(35) The Featured Products and Specials keep changing. When I returned to the main page, I found the featured products had changed. Gee, is everything featured in rotation? Can I trust this site? On the next day, the items on special had also changed. Is this on rotation too? If I wait long enough, whatever I want will come on special won't it? So why buy anything at full price now?

(36) Something to consider. The site needs database settings to switch off categories that do not contain products, thus the users always find some products under each category. I have said this point earlier in different way, but from the user's viewpoint it's pretty bad to find an empty category.

(37) Malta products. The home page says "Welcome to Malta Products Shop". If we take this literally in English, it should say "Welcome to the Maltese Products Shop". The language creates a glitch for many readers. This raises all sorts of minor problems: Do the site owners really speak English and what's this "Welcome to my web site" sort of stuff - friendly but very 1997. Basically I think all "welcome to my web site" stuff has to come off.

(38) What's Ganutell??? Obviously it's something distinctly Maltese, but there is nothing in brackets to help us. At first I thought it might be another art or craft something like bizzilla, but then I decided it was a Maltese Department Store, known to everybody except me. Like Cartier or Harrods or Dunhill, if this has to be explained to you, then you are so downmarket you don't matter anyway. In reverse, some people think Paris Hilton is a hotel.

(39) Malta Products Dot Com. The web site name is good in that it's short and clear, and it says or implies exactly what the site does. So far so good. The problem in English is that Malta is a noun, the adjective is Maltese. I know this is stating the bleeding obvious, but it leads to all sorts of clunky wording. My recommendation would be to use maltaproducts.com as little as possible on the actual site and instead have titles and slogans like Maltese Products - Buy them here now. I know from experience (somewhat bitter) that users don't really care what your site is called as long as they can find it in Google and it has a decent short title and a decent short description. Surely yahoo, wikipedia and google are stupid words, Microsoft is only short for Microcomputer Software and imdb is some sort of acronym. What's www.hp.com and www.youtube.com?? People are searching Google for "feral utes" and "country tabs" and "red hot polka dots" and "mentos diet coke" - it never ceases to amaze me what people are on about.

(40) Contact Security Feature. When you want to semd an email to the site, you have to read the letters from a little picture and type them in a box before you can send. In my instance, some of the letters and numbers were half outside the frame and could only be guessed at, rather than read. Unusual and disconcerting.

[Neat Pete]

Dear yvette,

A brief reply..

(a) The reason I hate that LHS menu so much is that when one section opens, the other one closes. It will drive users crazy. It's just a web site selling things, not a video game.

(b) You make the point that it's all at the design phase, and products will be added. Dummy products should have been added so there were no empty categories. Gee I'm sick of stuff like "Click here for the latest movie reviews" and then a huge page full of graphics and adverts loads, only to say "Sorry, there are no new reviews this week."

(c) Searching problems. Last week I read an article that said the reason searching is so lousy on intranets is that the content is so bad on intranets - junior members of staff are given the job of pasting everything onto the intranet. In several of my examples, the search failed to deliver because the wanted wording was simply not in the text. String searching is the easiest to implement - and my examples showed the advantages and disadvantages of string searching.

[YvetteKuhns]

Gee I'm sick of stuff like "Click here for the latest movie reviews" and then a huge page full of graphics and adverts loads, only to say "Sorry, there are no new reviews this week."

I hate that, too. The only thing worse is is an Under Construction page, especially with animated images! I just know that when people post a website for review, they often have a design or unfinished website. They ask our opinions now before they put too much work into it only to change it.

I didn't say I didn't agree with you on your points. I know we have mentioned these topics numerous times. It doesn't hurt to mention them again, though.

Dummy products should have been added so there were no empty categories.

For the purpose of testing searches, adding dummy products would be helpful. But they won't be helpful to visitors. But neither is an empty page. Adding one product for each category should be done as soon as possible to justify the category in the first place for visitors, search engines and the web page design.

Navigation for products is important and both the search and the links menu should be easy to use. I would like to see more replies for opinitons on both. I didn't mind the expanding menu, but it should open on mouseover and the main category should be clickable. I know my husband wouldn't know that the plus or minus means the menu expands or contracts. He doesn't use computers enough. We need more reviews from the generic public who are not computer savvy. ;)

[Neat Pete]

I totally agree. I can't stand Under Construction pages, especially those with animated GIF signs that roll over and over. Very 1997.

But a mate of mine loves such stuff. No page is ever finished, there is always more information to add. Every page is either being revised or permanently under construction. If you dont believe me, try this: http://www.danbyrnes.com.au/hotm/index.html (read the fine print near the top).

Products and Categories. I don't think there is much middle ground, since users hate empty categories and can see that the site is just starting out and has little to offer. Dummy products are just for testing, leaving only two alternatives. Either have at least one product in every category by adding products, or remove the excess categories. My comment has already been that there are too many categories and they should be reduced by amalgamation.

[YvetteKuhns]

there are too many categories and they should be reduced

I finally realized that Filigree is separate from Jewellery (Jewelry in the US) because there is a Filigree bookmark available. Maybe the Filigree items should be with Jewelry and the bookmark can be with Books. Food and Drinks can go together. Having Other Crafts or a miscellaneous category is tricky, because people may ignore it or be curious enough to look at it. Many items can go under Home Decor. Collectibles and Souvenirs could possibly merge into one category also.

[Neat Pete]

The aim is to cut down the amount of reading and deciding for visitors to the site. We want buying not worrying and deciding.

Your pairs of categories are fine by me.

Having an "other" category is always a bad sign. I have never seen anyone go into Wal-mart or wherever and ask for the "Other section".

It's worth going into any bookshop and asking for "Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance" - you'll get sent to the automotive section for sure.

Many years ago I studied a book on coordinate geometry (full of theorems) which included a numbered paragraph headed "Digression". I could not understand this technigue, but some people actually managed to prove their exercises "By Digression". Many years later I found out that this was just the author's way of having an aside to add a few sentences of comment into the textbook.

Moral: Choose obvious, simple categories known to your users.

[YvetteKuhns]

I guess Neville is busy making changes while we continue to discuss easier shopping. I worked in a pharmacy before becoming a web designer. I am very aware of shopping habits from both sides of the checkout counter.

I hate shopping and want to find things fast and leave. My husband will take a shopping cart when we only need milk and bread and walk through every aisle. There are all kinds of shoppers, but the Internet shoppers want things even faster. And many Internet users are not very skilled with computers. So, simple, quick and easy is best.

[Neat Pete]

Let's hope Neville is busy making changes, rather than posting here. There are 9 HTML validation errors and one CSS error and 12 warnings. There are 40 points from me, of which about 5 have been implemented. I have another 10 points, as yet not posted to this forum.

Quote: "I am very aware of shopping habits from both sides of the checkout counter."

Exactly, all this evaluation stuff means standing on the customer's side of the counter, and letting go of all that programmer and designer ego. These are programmers and designers who will cost their companies tens of thousands of dollars if their advice is accepted, or if their reluctance to change is tolerated. Sometimes stuff that took hours to get working has to be thrown away.

Meanwhile things are bad locally. Four weeks ago today, on the Saturday, I had lunch with a friend of over 20 years, and gave him a list of 82 (yes, 82) things wrong with his web site. He's a public figure and he's judged in part by his website. He had temp staff available in his office to make the changes. But no, the young programmer rejected it all, saying there should be more techo stuff, links to YouTube, more flash, more display of techo competence by my friend etc etc. How many of my 82 suggestions have been implemented in four weeks - zero, none, ziltsch.

Free advice is worth what you pay for it. I should have charged him $300 per hour for 5 hoiurs - after all, there are very few people around who can evaluate websites in such detail - then things might have been different.

People won't tolerate this stuff in the real world. Imagine you are in the doctor's wating room. The walls are painted bright blue with orange stripes. All the chairs don't match. A constantly flashing sign on the wall says "You must pay before you see the doctor". There are lots of information signs on the walls, but they are all in small print and you have to get up out of your chair to read them. Some of them are quite important, like patient rights and holiday rosters. There are six copies of the same magazine on the table for you to read. A huge sign at the end of the room says Open on Tuesday 10am to 6pm - underneath there are buttons for each day of the week, and you have to walk over and push these buttons to find out other days when the surgery is open. Huge adverts for drugs to treat diseases you have never even heard of hang on the walls. Several of these adverts have obvious spelling errors. Two very fancy signs say "Welcome to Our Surgery" and "Enjoy Your Visit". There is no sign indicating where the toilets are. When you leave, you notice the sign on the door says "Push" when it should say "Pull".

[YvetteKuhns]

Meanwhile things are bad locally. Four weeks ago today, on the Saturday, I had lunch with a friend of over 20 years, and gave him a list of 82 (yes, 82) things wrong with his web site. He's a public figure and he's judged in part by his website. He had temp staff available in his office to make the changes. But no, the young programmer rejected it all, saying there should be more techo stuff, links to YouTube, more flash, more display of techo competence by my friend etc etc. How many of my 82 suggestions have been implemented in four weeks - zero, none, ziltsch.

Are you certain he rejected all of your suggestions? Perhaps he had his own list and decided to implement those things first. In the last four weeks, I have been shopping for Christmas, remodeling my home and working on several websites in addition to other things. I must admit that I didn't put much time into my website since selling, searching for, buying and remodeling homes in the last few months. Don't think your opinions aren't appreciated just because they are not acted upon immediately.

I don't get into too much detail here, because too many points at once can be overwhelming. Also, the points that are mentioned by several people (or a majority) usually take priority.

Why is it that young programmers want all that Flash, video and other tech stuff instead of making a simple site that works in different screen resolutions, browser and settings? If I want to be entertained, I can watch television. I use the Internet for information and to buy products or services. They forget about text editors, visually impaired visitors and the large group of users who are not computer savvy. I don't know what your friend's website audience or topic is, but most times, simple is best.

[Neat Pete]

Hi Yvette, and a Happy New Year to all. The fireworks were terrific last night. Paris Hilton is visiting my suburb in just one hours time. Her task is to pick the winning contestant out of 40 girls to feature in a new beer advertisement. The newspapers will sell out again.

Anyway, thanks for your better approach to my friend. He had a lot of parties etc before Christmas, and is currently away on holidays. I will give him the benefit of the doubt for now, and I will ask him again in about a week.

[YvetteKuhns]

My father was in the hospital for several days until last night, so I just saw your message now. Happy new year and remember that we are all people with other things to do besides websites! ;) Don't bug your friend too much. He is probably overwhelmed.

[Neat Pete]

Dear Yvette, Thanks for your kind words of advice. I back-pedalled a bit, and also I have been preoccupied writing code to a deadline the last two weeks. Previously I was annoyed and impatient.

My friend was indeed away on holidays but returned to work a week ago. I rang him up, but basically he's going in the opposite direction. I had recommended in writing to him that he just fix the things wrong with his website. Instead he has decided to redesign it, and a couple of keen designers have sumbitted designs, backed up by paperwork saying his present site is cluttered because the fonts are too large, and a long blurb about types of fonts and the spacing between lines of text. A meeting will be held in a few days to agree on the chosen design, and coding the new web page will begin. I can't go to any of these meeting, I disagree with it all.

However I have been sent heaps of stuff by email. They make lots of good points and there is a good summary sheet, but I don't want to play any part. Also I sent an email asking about my 82 usability points, but no reply.

It's all volunteer / charity work, and as I said before, free advice is worth what you pay for it. Actually my friend gets more free advice that he can ever use - what he needs is people who can do things without constant supervision and discussion. He usually has better opinions and is closer to the real world than his advisors, and so is usually more often right than them. It's consistent for him to reject my advice, as most of the advice he gets deserves to be rejected.

Having a cute new web site will be nice, but the problems of ongoing content management and using email to send out newsletters will remain. Such problems are not being addressed and will remain unsolved. It's interesting that the team have made re-designing the web site the top priority, when sending out newsletters is so vital these days.

Basically, I'm sad but silent, and certainly calmer. There are plenty of other things I'm doing. I'm about to go on 10 days holiday as well.

[YvetteKuhns]

Having a cute new web site will be nice, but the problems of ongoing content management and using email to send out newsletters will remain. Such problems are not being addressed and will remain unsolved. It's interesting that the team have made re-designing the web site the top priority, when sending out newsletters is so vital these days.

I know how you feel about giving advice. One potential client was an artist and thought she wanted unnecessary and unrelated graphics on the home page and other junk to clutter the website. I didn't work too hard to get her as a client, because I could tell we would disagree. Her website can't be found on search engines since her web designers created a Flash-only website. Some people have to learn things the hard way.

Don't let people bother you by ignoring your advice. It only proves how ignorant they are when they do it wrong or perhaps our priorities ARE different from theirs. I had a manager who told me that you can't change people - they must want to change. So, if you see someone who smokes until he/she gets sick and eventually dies of cancer or something, that is his/her choice. I can try to talk him/her out of it, but some people won't take my advice, even when they know I am right.

Again, too bad about your friend. Enjoy your holiday.