Page layout

[Sadoun]

Hi Guys,

We have done a few subtle changes on the look of our website's navigation:
Check www.sadoun.com

Also, check the SEARCH feature on the top left hand of the page.

Do you like it?

[rainman]

was on there earlier very nice liked it alot.

[satnutwillb]

Everything seems to be in one location to easily find what you're looking for.

[boroda1]

Did you have a "Bargain Bin" before? I see it today only for the first time.

[rainman]

yeah the bargin bin has been there for awhile.

[Sadoun]

Yes the BARGAIN BIN was there before on the Top RH corner.

What we did is simply swap the right and left columns. And modified the search engine.

[Iceberg]

looks really good. Took me a bit to find the install page

[elgemcdlf]

Great start. I would regroup products though. It would be my thought that many visitors to your site may not know all required for each system. I would group as:

FTA - DVB MPEG2
Satellite Dishes
lnbfs
Motors
Receivers
Complete Systems

And so on. Maybe make a main heading of Satellite Television. List the subcategories in alphabetical order. So under Satellite Television you would have: C Band, DirecTV, Dish Network, FTA - DVB MPEG2, Globecast. Each broke up as exampled above.

Same for Radio and so on. Somehow work switches and misc into each category. The human mind groups in groups of 5 or less. So you want to avoid numbers like 6 sub categories. This forces your visitor to think and thus making the visit somewhat uncomfortable. They will group into 2 3's mentally. Listing alphabetical is an automatic list arrangement for human thought. Easy to follow and locate info in.

As to search. While a great feature to have and easy to incorporate with a db driven site it is your primary focal point on the main page. Perhaps making it the first on the list in the products menu and downsizing the physical size. Utilize the space currently held for search for perhaps a rotating spotlight product area. Create a small flat file with info as to products you want in the rotation and everytime someone visits that page a different product pops up. Linked of course to the appropriate info page for that product.

Use some form of seperator in your menu to keep main groups seperate. Something as simple as a block of color. Example. Dark blue head for main category with a light blue area for sub categories. Follow this color scheme into that area of your site. As for DirecTV and Dish Network I would use their established colors in their respective areas.

Just some preliminary thoughts

[Sadoun]

Originally Posted by elgemcdlf

Just some preliminary thoughts

Very nice suggestions. Spoken like a champ Are you a web designer by any chance?

[elgemcdlf]

I do not presently build sites. I hold a masters certification in HTML 3.2 along with a certification in Linux System Administration. I was in the loose knit group who threw code back and forth for the concept of what we currently know as E-Commerce. You know before Internet Explorer even existed

I am proficient in PERL programming for server side "toys" and while probably rusty at one time could program a server to draw. This cuts down on your actual images loading thus decreasing load time for pages. Also gets a text file when right clicking and "save image". Server instructs

I also got into what makes a really great site versus just a good or average site. This was marketing basically but not just throw it in your face advertising. How color affects the human mind and what doses of color and balance to use to create a desired response from visitors. If you are tracking average visit time per page of your site you will see some pages simply have way lower retention time than others.

Some of this is due to clicking on something they did not want but some is due to how the page stimilates them mentally. With color and grouping you can actually control how a person "reads" your pages and gently push them through your site.

By color coding the areas of your site your visitors do not feel lost. They may be on the wrong page for what they are looking for but they know they are in the correct area as all pages for that area carry the same color theme.

You have a good (concept wise) base in your site being db driven. Without actually seeing your databases involved to run the site I would hope they incorporate fields which allow you to categorize and subcategorize each entry. This allows you to write code that will generate your product menus on the fly (server builds them based on db entries). Thus whenever you enter or delete products your site automatically updates itself to accomodate the change.

I would also hope you would have a file hiding somewhere with color coding. This allows you to write pages with color coding such as bgcolor=1 and so on. Now anytime you wish to alter color on the site you simply redefine what 1 is in your colors db not edit every page and every color entry.

I still see a REAL Audio and Video area on the main page with FTA broadcast showing

Have a great day.

[elgemcdlf]

I am posting a second as I had more thoughts and did not want to simply edit the original. Dishes and lnbs go hand in hand so instead of seperating them make them one subcategory. This allows an open spot for something like "installation" under which could be a link to the forums, tools, switches/misc accessories and a link to the installation info area.

By creating an installation subcategory under each category you can eliminate some of the support menu listings. You would also in effect eliminate the switches, installation, AV accessories and remotes categories from your menu area. This would greatly clean up the left menu area.

Ditch the Channels category in favor of programming and sub under with the appropriate links or perhaps further thought into your product areas and incorporate programming under each category as I just have with installation.

I think this is enough of a start for now If you actually incorporate these steps we will go from there and work with what remains. If I get time I will work on hard coded menu layout for the left side and send as a visual for you.

Have a great day