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abbeyvet -> RE: This is our "soon to be updated" site (4/19/2002 12:10:52)
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I may be completely off base here but just looking at things you said in your two mails above it occured to me that this might be something to do with the problems you are having.
You say:
quote:
Currently it has somehow inactivated all <a name="****">aaaaa</a> tags. They're still there, they just won't work.
And earlier you say:
quote:
One is UNIX servers are case sensitive. (I had a capitol "H" in the address of one of the gifs, no big deal in Front Page, wouldn't show on the server).
While it is true that unix servers are case sensitive it shouldn't matter if you are using the correct name for the image or page in the link.
The fact that you had a problem made me wonder how you are inserting the links and images. If you ALWAYS insert them by browsing to them and selecting them you should not have this problem.
If on the other hand you paste them in or write them in manually you may have problems.
The problems are not just associated with errors you may make when typing but also with the methods used by FP to keep everything in order. For example if you paste in links in normal view from one page to another it is quite common for FP to decide to reference them from your local computer. On the other hand if you create the links by right click>Insert or Edit Hyperlink there are no problems.
Same apples to images, it is always better to insert them by choosing Insert>Image or the toolbar short cut and browsing to them rather than pasting them in or even pasting them from one page to another. Pasting within the same page seems to be ok.
Maybe this is irrelevant, if so disregard it.
I also see the odd thing like this in your pages:
<a href="../../My%20Pictures/hdw0050roto%20max.JPG">
The %20's that are messing that up are space in you file names.
To keep things tidy and simple I would suggest the following:
- always use lower case in page and image names
- ever leave spaces in page or image names, so not "Image Name.jpeg", but "image_name.jpg".
Another thing I see is that you are sometimes referencing your cart with a relative URL - eg "/cgi-bin/cc/comcartp.pl" but sometimes with a full URL eg "http://www.aloghomestore.com/cgi-bin/cc/comcartp.pl"
Don't know if either are causing peoblems but if you are having a problem it is something to check.
On the drop down - do you mean the cascading menu on the left of the home page?
It seems to work ok mostly but for example if I click Wood Preservation on the home page it goes nowhere, I have to chose something from the drop out menu to move.
I found this confusing.
If I click Wood Cleaning and Restoration I see that there are infact a series of links to more wood cleaning products - but they do not look like links, they are in the same colour and weight as normal text and if you hadn't included a note that they are in fact links I would never have guessed. I think it would be far better to just make them look like links.
It was a very long time, even after the above before I registered that much of the stuff on the contents page was clickable. I thought, bcause of the note, that only the items in that section were. Links on this page should REALLY should look like links - make them underlined, make them do something on mouseover, encourage people to click them, as it is they might very well not know they can.
The new site is a great improvment but it is still not that easy to get around, you really do need to make this stuff a no brainer. I find it very confusing that when I click an item in the main menu I am taken to a contents page when I expect to go to a page all about the subject I clicked on - it also seems to me to just be adding an additional pointless click.
I would suggest that the main menu leads people directly to the relevant secion and that at the top of the page you include a text submenu. For example on the cleaning page you could have text links to all the different types of product above the page title. The pages are long too, so links at the end of each product to the top of the page - ie back to the menu - would be a good idea.
Just noticed that the text links at the bottom of each page also lead to the contents page - again they should lead to the main pages. Add a link to the contents to your menu, make the links in it clickable and it becomes an excellent means of secondary navigation, but as it is it is confusing more than anythng else.
From a usability point of view you need to be fairly careful about sending people to bookmarks low on pages, it makes them lose their bearings - they have no idea whether they are still on the page they started from or have gone elsewhere, and if elsehwere, where? and how to get to somewhere else?
Links from the main menu should especially always bring people to a clearly defined location - they should see familiar and comforting things like your header, a familiar menu, the name of the page they are now on. It makes them secure.
Your's is a really large site with an astinishing amount of content and that makes having a navigation system that is foolproof absolutely vital.
I hope you do not think I am being over critical - think of it as a sort of a usability test, I am your tester reporting the problems I had, and I did realy have them. The site is almost great - a little more thought for how users will navigate and how to make it easier for them will really make a fine job of it.
Katherine
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www.inkkdesign.com
Women and cats will do as they please. Men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
Edited by - abbeyvet on 04/19/2002 12:19:06
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what a change since I last saw your site. Keep up the hard work! the Shaman 
