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Other sites to compare to:
> http://www.winemiles.com, has nice graphic/logo placement at top of screen, but rest of page is to busy w/ small fonts.
>http://www.vinfolio.com/, nice logo at top but eats up to much real estate, plus left side of page is confusing mish-mash.
>http://www.wineexpress.com., a shopping cart mess, plus to may small fonts.
>http://www.wineinsiders.com/, was able to view this page and immediately comprehend the options, but the left and right borders are a bit to big.
> http://www.wine-club-central.com/, don't go here or you'll switch to beer.
> http://www.vino.com/, looks like a blog so I exited quickly.
> http://www.winexperience.com/, the center area of the page caught my eye, but the rest of the page has to may image blocks of the same size.
> http://www.winelegend.com/, their "selectable search bar" could be an easy initial way to improve your search deficienies.
> http://www.primewines.com/, this site yells "search me" with various dropdowns and quicklinks, but doesn't is not very inviting.
>http://redtruckwine.com/toolbox/index.asp, a dramatic change of pace for a we site; memorble but way over simplified.
> http://mywinesdirect.com, nice basic layout; left & right borders to big.
> http://www.wine-searcher.com/, interesting only in that it is just a wine search engine and ask people to pay a fee for "advanced" searches.
>http://www.wineenthusiast.com/templates/land_wine.asp, like the 3 "start here" box areas, but rest of layout is not real estate friendly.
> http://www.cellartracker.com/, ???
> http://www.winesource.com/, interestings UI and search tool, but fonts are to small.
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Try these links:
> http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2...
> http://websitetips.com/webcontent/
>http://psychology.wichita.edu/optimalweb/visual.htm
>http://www.webstyleguide.com/site/menus.html
>http://www.webstyleguide.com/graphics/html.html
>http://www-03.ibm.com/easy/page/6
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I'm on a roll here looking over your web site.
I have questions about your Search Results list items. My first instinct is to click the product name, but it not clickable. Seems like you could roll the Buy From & vendor name into one line to save real estate and make the product clickable ... they'll get the idea that each product line is a different vendor. Also, every list item has a review box next to it ... but it seems like most of your products will never have a review. Possibly find smaller footprint for this next to vendor or get rid of it for now to save real estate. Also, one inconsistent thing I noticed is that some wine items in the list have Review and Discuss links (all with 0 Reviews and 0 Posts) while others don't. Propose that this creates user confusion about how the site works and subtracts points from their "user experience scorecard". Users need to feel that they understand how to navigate your site, what the features are, and how to use the features. Believe its best to not provide features/widgets that are not obvious to the user.
FYI ... Vinquire is actually a great name .. it kind of grows on you and is easy to remember.
$Bill.
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Just notices that your Forums area has several Topics/Subforums. Didn't see this because of your web page design has "real estate" issues .. eg., the entire top 1/2 of your page is void of content, which make you scroll down to where the content is. Upon doing so, you can't get to the non-descript nav bar (Home Forums). What looks like a side nav bar under About Vinquire ends up being a source of confusion. It just a mix of Content, Faux links (About Vinquire, Wine Search, etc), and actual links (Recent Seraches, Top Searches). In a nutshell ... your navigation need to be fixed ... most customer need you to KISS. Provide consistent locations on your site for navigation and content. Standard nav bar locations top and/or left (optionally bottom, hardly every right). Make link styles obvious and easy to pick out. Users kind-of get the concept of nav bar areas and that any thing in them is clickable, but links outside the nav area need to be obvious and consistently styled. Your nav areas could be enhanced with small styled buttons, but understand the real estate is an issue.
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Some thoughts:
1. If you don't know correct spelling of a wine, vintner, etc you won't get a match in the search. I think web folks expect this help feature. You can mitigate this by offering a search interface that included select lists of wine terms (wines, vintners, vintages, etc).
2. When searching, what does "# Retailers" do?
3. Could see potential benefit in setting up various forums based on what "wine people" (wine-o's?) ordinarly dicuss. Ex, Vintage Years Rated, Matching Wine To Food, What the Experts Say, Storage Systems, Vintners, Wine Tasting How To's, etc. Some of these ideas may belong in a Wine Knowledge area instead of Forums. Most customers initially need/want to be led thru a web site because ever site is so different. Real time up-to-date data (wine vendors, prices, rating, etc) may be the ultimate place user want to get to, but users want a to feel a sense of broadened knowledge on their way there. The main idea here is that your web customer needs to leave the Vinquire site with a sense that their "wine search" and/or "wine knowledge quest" was at least semi-enjoyable and thus rememberable (aka ... bookmarked in tech terms).
4. Elaborating on #3, think about a providing users a choice on how they start using your web site when they first arrive. Example choices might be: (a) Help, I nothing about wine but how to spell it, (b) Help me match the wine to the occasion/food, (c) Help, Just need to find a good wine asap. Not sure if these are the exact categories, but you get the picture.
Ta Ta for now. $Bill
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