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DanRiordan.Net - Again

Dan

Dan

Bullah
NLC
Ok.

I have spent time thinking it out. I have not fully finished the design aspect of it yet as there are still some images and more pages to be added.

1. Gave it a complete new look
2. Added PayPal Shopping Cart
3. Added Products

Any suggestions, comments, feedback, mockery, blasphemy etc.

http://www.danriordan.net

PS - No, It Is Not One Of Those Niche/Viral Sites! :p
 
That. has. got. to. be. one. of. the. cleanest. and. nicest. designs. you. have. ever. done.

It's quite wordy though. How about some images in between the content as well?
 
hamster said:
That. has. got. to. be. one. of. the. cleanest. and. nicest. designs. you. have. ever. done.

It's quite wordy though. How about some images in between the content as well?
Click to expand...

Thanks mate.
Yeah still doing stuff to it offline so will be adding stuff as I go along.
I do agree it is quite wordy on the index page. I will try to cut it down some.
I am making a few more Software Boxes etc at the moment and will be adding them too.
 
Was thinking about that but then decided not to.
But, if you mean to display a larger image, then that might be an idea.

Thanks.
 
Very nice, although seems a little flat. Maybe add some rounded corners, and definitely make that menu bigger/span out more.. play around with it. Also, the right-hand column seems to have more whitespace on the left hand side than on the right, throws it off balance a bit.
 
Some demos of the products would be nice. The forum and support links don't work, but I'm sure you're aware of that.
 
MWH-Jon said:
Some demos of the products would be nice. The forum and support links don't work, but I'm sure you're aware of that.
Click to expand...

No Demos. What I will do later today is get some screenshots.
Yeah I am going to be putting up a support page later and the forums as well.
 
Detailed Review

Hello Dan.

From what I hear you did a lot of work on the site. The design really bothers me. Take it as one opinion among many, but here goes.

1. 1995 Web 1.0 feel.
In the glory days of Web 1.0, everyone grabbed stuff they had on hand and made a sales page. Your products page seems to be the best of the suite. I'd think about making that the home page with the locked right side bar removed.
You only have five links and one of them is a contact with three lines! I suggest making that the small contact section at the bottom of the page.

2. Web copy.
Maybe you were just playing, but as posted your "open letter" web copy feels equally old school. The suspect paragraph is as follows:

"In fact, I am so confident that you will have the potential, with the tools I provide you, to generat a handsome cash pack by reselling the software I create. Therefore, knowing that I can make an absolute fortune with my software anyway, I am going to give you the opportunity to purchase and sell my software. I will charge you a nice, affordable base price. You can resell it for much more. "

This says that since you can't in fact make any money selling the software yourself, your only hope is to try to start a pyramid scheme with only three layers. The creator of software always has the best chance of selling it because if someone nails you with an ugly question like "what does it do besides add images with text links", you can roll out an answer. Resellers are always at the "I dunno man, just buy it" conundrum.

I know there's a struggle between InfoDense and Mobile Friendly going on, but as someone on the side of Info Dense, the whole site feels like it could fit on a single page. Make the images smaller, compact it all, and it becomes "Oh, hey, you were already here, and by the way I sell cool stuff too."

3. Other links.
I'd suggest making "Support", "Forums", and "Toolbar" equal links on that horozontal row, with their own pages. Toolbars are suspicious these days, so you really need to make it clear the toolbar isn't going to live in my browser and oops-crash because you forgot that Firefox is at 3.1 beta.

In summary if you can program that well, I would like to be impressed into tomorrow at your skills. When that doesn't come through it's scaring me.

Respectfully,

TaoPhoenix
 
Left Field New Offering?

Dan said:
Thanks mate.
Yeah still doing stuff to it offline so will be adding stuff as I go along.
I do agree it is quite wordy on the index page. I will try to cut it down some.
I am making a few more Software Boxes etc at the moment and will be adding them too.
Click to expand...

Hola Dan.

Your little software boxes are close to stealing the show. If you're that good making cool little icons, .. why not sell icons? I have a fun little site in Terminal Alpha which desperately needs icons. I swiped some Bottom-Barrel stuff from one of those free sites just to get the page laid out.

Seriously, what would be your rate to sell a package of custom designed icons? Especially if you've seen my copyright wanderings elsewhere, the custom-designed aspect with a certified -type statement that they were made just for the site owner feels like a cinch. In my particular case I'd also likely need some medium-size bar graphics that the little icons live in.
 
I have taken all suggestions into consideration and removed the specifications that my site is a scam-like site.

What "icons" are you talking about?

Regarding "web 1.0", if you read my post carefully, instead of scraping through it and the site and trying to nitpick you would see that I mentioned about "Doing stuff to it offline"

Regards,
Dan
 
More feedback, Never Abusive.

Hi Dan.
I appreciate the work you are doing, and I am honored you saw fit to apply some of my notes.

"Web 1.0" was not a disparagement to a site in progress. Even prototypes are honorable now, usually called "Alpha, Beta, Release Candidate, and Version X.X". I freely admit my own little site has been "terminally parked in Alpha with a broken tour bus behind it" for years.

Web 1.0 is a Backronym (since the Web 2.0 term came into use) to describe the *mood* of a site. It has to do with what the consensus was of what a web page was "supposed to do". The first time around, it was "Stores without Borders". Each page was a sales page. You showed up at the site, and were met with Things To Buy. Wholly separate from the fiscal disasters *also* prevalent, (which I am sure you will avoid), was the phenomenally subtle realization that if you can't "do anything" on the site, it isn't any FUN. Tons of mid line sites failed from lack of customers for this reason.

Web 2.0 evolved on the idea of interactivity. It's like playing with the stuff on the shelf with no pressure. Some business classes call this "soft sell". It also leads to questions about custom work, which is usually how people make the butter for the bread.

Starting "backward" with the "free gift", and treating it like the front line promo, I see 4 funky little utilities. I'd want "Get Up & Stretch" to perform an ACTION once x minutes. Even something as simple as a mouse click. There's tons of sites including some I visit which have irritating time-outs. Just set "Get Up & Click" to keep that site active. A warning like "Taking control of mouse in 30 seconds" would be nice.

See, already I as a potential customer am getting involved. Presuming you whipped back that utility either free or with some kind of Micropayment, I'd slowly begin to form an impression of you towards a bigger ticket purchase.

Meanwhile, the little icon is one of these fellas:

http://www.danriordan.net/images/boxes/small/html-editor.jpg


html-editor.jpg


That's pretty well designed. Makes me want to toss you a buck or three.

Those little puzzle games are great to having something to latch on to in between sales. It's that it keeps the site from being forgotten, so that whenever one DOES get inspired to drop $20, they're already hung out for a while and know the scoop.

Regards,

--TaoPhoenix
 
TaoPhoenix said:
Meanwhile, the little icon is one of these fellas:

http://www.danriordan.net/images/boxes/small/html-editor.jpg


html-editor.jpg


That's pretty well designed. Makes me want to toss you a buck or three.

Those little puzzle games are great to having something to latch on to in between sales. It's that it keeps the site from being forgotten, so that whenever one DOES get inspired to drop $20, they're already hung out for a while and know the scoop.

Regards,

--TaoPhoenix
Click to expand...

I will have something on the site later today that may interest you.
Will also be working on the layout and design.

Thanks very much. :)
 
I must admit you did a pretty good job on those boxes too, they look professionally done but the site allthough is nice and clean and well laid out, is a little on the simple side for my liking, but that may just be my own personal taste, allthough saying that I admitedly have a site which is quite simple looking also. It makes sense just to do things yourself sometimes rather than hire often unreliable designers.

If your products are good people won't care much for the design of the site as visitors will be coming to buy your products, however there's a fine line between simple and too simple, if your site for example just has a coloured background and a few links to the products (geocities style) it would make them think twice but your design ain't going to scare away any customers lol, as I said, nice clean and simple without crossing that line.

Good job!!! - and to be fair a hell of a lot better than some designs i've seeen lately
 
Thanks mate. I appreciate that.
I am testing a new shopping cart script at the moment on another server and if I am happy with it, which so far I am more than happy, I will change DanRiordan.Net to use that script as its base.

Thanks again for the comments and suggestions.
 
I much prefer that logo you have as you avatar than the one on the site.
The eye seems to generic.
 
Shopping Carts

Dan said:
Thanks mate. I appreciate that.
I am testing a new shopping cart script at the moment on another server and if I am happy with it, which so far I am more than happy, I will change DanRiordan.Net to use that script as its base.

Thanks again for the comments and suggestions.
Click to expand...

Does it have to be a paypal cart? I am boycotting Paypal because I think they're just a little fishy. Not to mention I get paypal spam and I don't even have an active account.
 
Yes, PayPal only for now. I will be adding more methods later such as moneybookers, 2checkout and even Mail-In Payments.

Keep an eye out for updates.

Regarding the Logo, yes, you are right. I was kind of iffy about the eye myself and plan on changing that.

Thanks again guys.
 
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