(Disclaimer: The following is intended as a tongue-in-cheek window into my own psyche, not a complaint about critiques of any kind!)
Today we got a heads up from buddy Elaine about a post on a site called TeleRead about Lynn’s comments on AvsM and the CC site. I’m glad she let us know. It was a very nice post and the comments were all very encouraging and understanding… except for one chap who, while very positive about the whole idea, voiced some… concerns… about the CC site, implying the webdesigner was (erk) incompetent and old fashioned. 
Now, I tried hard not to take this personally, and you all know I’ve been more than open to constructive criticism, and overall, his observations were constructive. I’m glad he mentioned his concerns, and maybe he thought he was dealing with a professional webdesigner, which I most decidedly am not. I’m sure he didn’t realize how hard we’ve been working to put all this together. But as I say, he definitely made some legitimate points: mostly things I’d been meaning to address eventually anyway… So I spent all Sunday evening checking out the site and trying to “fix” that which probably wasn’t all that broken in the first place.
First, he said there was no access to the store other than from the main page. This one truly had me scratching my head. Isn’t there a “products” tab at the top of every page? The one right on a line with “Home” “About” “CJ” “Jane” and “Lynn”? That’s a live button to the catalog. Now, that “products” tab arrived with the plugin that gave us the shopping cart. I wasn’t sure if it was safe to change it, so I’d never bothered. Seemed clear enough to me. But evidently it wasn’t as obvious as I thought. So, I went and checked out some other sites that used the same shopping cart and saw that they called it other things, so… back to CC where I changed it to “Catalog”…which is what it says on the page, right? Because that page isn’t all there’s going to be. We do still plan to have Cafe Press and maybe more. Calling it “catalog” put its tab right after the “about” tab and before CJ’s, (the program puts the tabs in alphabetical order—except for “home”) so I thought, OK. That’ll work.
And went on to the next constructive criticism.
“A short synopsis of every book would be great…” Okay. That’s definitely legit and something I, at least, plan to do. Lynn and Carolyn can handle their own books however they want. I’ve got to draw the line somewhere where it comes to working on the page. But so far that project has been cursed. Every time I start working on a format for the individual pages, something like this comes up and I never get around to it. Someday. In the meantime, each of us has written a little piece on each project under our names. (His comment said he didn’t know anything about us or our books…Ummm… That’s what those extra pages are all about.) But now, rather than on the backburner, the indi pages are on the front, so I imagine I’ll get it done tomorrow.
Next!
He said the page looks old fashioned with funky colors and lots of pics! I mean…
well…we like color! And pics…here I thought I was being so conservative, with just the little slideshow of our bookcovers and my single “indulgence” of the horse-drawn shopping cart. I mean, sure, we’ve got specialized buttons, but we need buttons! and there are the pictures of us in the “about” section, but that’s pretty innocuous. Other than that, it’s just the catalog. I mean…what could he have been talking about?
But something gave him that impression…So…I went back to the page(s) and actually addressed another minor problem that’s been bothering me ever since I put the little animated shopping cart up: I put the slideshow on the left rather than under the shopping cart. Now the page is sort of “generically active” rather than just on the right side. It does balance better. Of course, when I moved it, it naturally had problems with positioning. After about an hour and a half work, I finally got it to look acceptable, tho it’s still not what I want. And…the pix I used were pngs, which I should probably changed to Jpgs, which are smaller…but…sheesh. Ah, well. It’s just time. (After finishing this post, I brought up PSP and made the change to jpgs….I’m such an obsessive-compulsive.)
Then, on the catalog page, I again did something I’d been meaning to. I sent all the “how to” stuff to the other “how to” page and got the product up where it should be. I also, thinking of his “graphics heavy” impression, changed the “Name” buttons out for simple text. I have to admit, it does look better.
Then, being wide awake, I sat down to write this post and suddenly, I found myself thinking about that first comment, where he said the only access was from the entry page. So…just what did I call it there? I checked and (ack) it was “store.” So, I changed the page name…again. Then thought, maybe I should clarify further, just in case someone thinks that dropdown menu for “cafe press” is the “store” in question. So I called it “E-book store” but that put it in between CJ’s button and mine, which looked dumb. So I named it CC E-book Store, to put it ahead of CJ’s, but that looked even dumber, so I went searching for some way to make the tab go where I want it and found a little square well down the edit page that lets you force the page order.
Snoopy dance! I put a little 6 in that little box, renamed the page one more time to E-Book Store, saved and called it good.
The real point of this post is, given a hint that something might possibly be problematic, the creative mind can make it be a problem and find some way to change it. Whether that change makes the end product better or not is frequently debatable.
In this case these comments basically gigged me into doing some things I’d been meaning to do anyway on a project that is near but not necessarily dear to my heart, and far from finished. I’m actually glad he made an issue of them, as it got some round tuits off my list. But imagine if we allowed book reviews on the site? Reviews we would have to vet in order to maintain the site. What if we got a review that had the same sort of nitpicking, but possibly marginally legit comments on one of our stories? Or even one that praised it to the sky, but for all the wrong reasons? I know I at least would start second guessing myself and my story, maybe even fight an ongoing battle with myself against editing the book yet one more time, since that’s so dangerously easy to do on ebooks….
Yup…I think maybe it’s best just to let people review our books someplace else. Now, I’m going to have a nice cuppa tea and go to bed.
I do NOT think you should have reviews at Cafe Press. BAD BAD idea. for all the reasons you mentioned.
Hey, it isn’t easy to run your own website. Most authors don’t. The best you typically get is a static page or something run by someone else. This is CC v1.0. I’m sure you know so much more than you did before you started. Maybe in a year or so you’ll be inspired with v2.0, but I think most of us here prefer you, y’know, write and stuff. I’d just leave well enough alone, maybe keep an eye out on other sites to see stuff you like from them from the consumer side of things, and then come back later to make improvements.
To quote Edna from The Incredibles……..’NO CAPES!’…………..they can suck you into the machinery and destroy you!
:D:D:D I gotta watch that again. Such a fun movie.
Ah…as long as you’re in the mood to fix things, please allow me to describe a grumble and offer a possible solution. (For you to consider in your hours of spare time… :angel:)
When I click on one of the nameplates on the Closed Circle door, I go to that person’s Comments or Notes page. Yours ends with “I’m so excited about the possibilities inherent in this site, I can hardly control it. Please, poke around, sample a book or three, and if you have fun, come back, poke around some more…there’s lots to do in these sites and blogs…” CJ’s ends with “Our best defense is your loyalty and the quality of what we put out. We’re proud of both.” Lynn’s ends with “In the meanwhile I have prepared several short stories from various periods of my writing. Enjoy!”
Oh yeah! Right on! Woo Hoo! …Screeech!!… Full stop.
Now I have to turn left and figure out where to go.
You could make it easy for me. How about a link at the end of each Comments/Notes essay that takes me to the E-Book Store? And/or a link that takes me to the appropriate person’s individual “Books pages”?
Hmmmm…sure. I guess we didn’t think of it because there are links on the sides and on the top. That dynamic, within the text linkage is something I need to really use a lot more, even on the blog. ARGH!!!! Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll pass it on to my buddies.
Sorry…!
Like I said, a grumble. I think that a problem for websites in general is that there is no “established” way of setting them up…so people do them however they want – like if some books had the Table of Contents at the end or an Index at the beginning, and some had all the Footnotes gathered together in a green section in the middle. And everyone approaches things differently, so an arrangement that makes perfect sense to one person is confusing to someone else. Purely a user’s viewpoint here, you understand, I’m by no means an expert on any of this stuff.
It seems to me that what a person with a website should do is keep firmly in mind the “Purpose” of the website. In CC’s case, the purpose of the website is to make it easy for people to find and purchase the CC’s authors’ books, short stories, art, goodies, etc. To that end, there is information about the stories, about the authors, about how to read the e-books, links to blogs, all kinds of useful and enticing stuff. It’s easy to get lost. Someone told me once, Remember to ask for the sale. I’m not a natural born salesperson, and that is the hardest thing for me to do; it seems kind of embarrassingly obvious…but you don’t want people to not think of it and just go away. Anything you can do to make the way to “Buying a story” as clear as possible seems to me to be a good thing. (Notice of Ulterior Motive: I want to be able to keep buying stories here!)
Meh. Don’t let one hyper-critical person get you down. These things are fashion, as ephemeral as a fruit fly and about as intelligent. On another site, someone proposed a black product box. He was immediately told by scads of graphic designers that black was “bad”. (“I’m kind of fuzzy on the whole good-bad thing”–Ghostbusters.) I proceeded to show a bunch of products rated highly on the site, including award winners, that had black boxes. No matter, they proceeded criticizing as if they had just come down from the mountain with Moses. Take it as a list of things to consider, not as gospel.
Yipes…no kidding. Don’t get me started on the “white” vs “black” mats question! I used to horrify graphic designers by matting my work in colors which (shock) enhanced the glow of the picture! Never mind their eyes would light when I showed it to them, they’d still maintain it was “wrong.” Personally, I positively hate white mats…mattes?…on just about anything. White is supposed to be used sparingly, not blast your eyeballs out of existence before they get a chance to focus on the picture.
The pupil dilates according to the amount of light coming in. A white mat blasts the eye with light, ergo, it shuts the pupil down, meaning less light from the painting getting to it, meaning the subtle colors being lost. How can that possibly be a good thing? 
hmm, can’t agree. I do like the design of your blog, but it difficult to read since is has a black background.
White text on a black background is and always has been worse to read than black text on white background for most people [1][2].
Once in the 80ies one did use white or green or amber letters on black background – since the awfull cathode ray tube screens of that time did hurt the eyes that much.
Nowadays everybody uses TFT screens, so that reason is gone.
I might agree, that if you have a fotography web page the pictures could look more colorful. But if there is more than one line of text use black on white as once Gutenberg did it, nearly every online newspaper does it, amazon does it, google does it (and they all know, why).
—-
[1] “Black text on a white background is the safest combination and much more legible than white on black — white backgrounds also look more professional.” http://articles.sitepoint.com/print/colour-checklists-web-design,
[2] “Black text on a plain background elicited reliably faster reading performance
than on a medium-textured background. When compared to reading light text on a dark background, people read black text on a white background up to thirty-two percent faster.” http://usability.gov/pdfs/chapter11.pdf – http://usability.gov/guidelines/index.html seems to have some other good sources which might help to develop the look and feel of CC and your web pages.
Actually…I was talking about mats for pictures, not the website.
I kinda like the white on black that this theme has, but I do know it’s not as legible. I’m trying to get time to work on a more personalized blog theme that will probably be more “traditional” in that sense.
ah, mat as in passepartout …. haven’t known that word in this context (I train my English vocabulary mostly on SF&F and IT-lish where I’ve never encountered that word in a prominent way). Sorry, non-native speaker, I’ve completely missunderstood you there
… (even if I’d prefer white passpartouts for light colored watercolor 
). You deed your good deed for the day: tought a new word to an hopefully not to obnoxious foreigner.
Heh heh heh. :D And I get one in return. “passepartout” That’s a mouthful! I have to agree…on a nice light watercolor, a light passepartout is definitely nicer.
You amaze me Jane! I wish I had half as much energy as you do. The sight has the flavor of you all. Don’t go tryin got make it more generic. I applaud you again for all your great efforts! Website design is like so variable its likely nobody would ever agree on exactly what they like best. Put up what you like and damn the torpedoes!
thanks everybody…I think I kinda needed to hear that. What would we do without you all? (Virtual group hug!)
What I love about these sites and blogs….they are personal…..there is a *you* there that gives us so much….the downside being that you give us so much of yourselves.
I admire the way you and CJ (and Lynn, faraway) look out for and tell on each other…….leave the nits to the nitpickers….they obviously have nothing better to do
Most critiques are ego trips for the critic……but a good one opens new possibilities……remember,,,NO CAPES!
(virtual hug)
BTW I really like the new layout, its smart and fresh and easy to navigate! (Golf clap)
YAYAYAYAYAY! Thanks!
Thanks for your work, we fans appreciate it!
First thing: You don’t have to do, what every visitor or customer tells you. It’s the decision of you three what you put on your web pages and how you put it there. And it is only your decision, not of any body else. And it is also the decision when to do it, if you want to.
But: it might be a good idea to collect ideas of fans / visitors / customers. Lots of SF-Readers have very much experience in using the web (Techies, you know … my first browser was mosaic … ).
There are semi-standards how good web shops look like – for a good reason – they want to sell. You have a high quality product to sell – and it is worth the best presentation possible. (We fans hope you to have much success, we hope your shop will develop to the best shop, will sell lots of books to new readers and will create more fans and let you live and write in all comfort possible. And inspire other authors to do the same …)
So you have started, which is a good thing. You can collect first experiences. Put books in your shelves. Write. Collect ideas of your visitors (“here we collect ideas to improve our shop” – and don’t publish these ideas but collect them and think about it).
And then: Read about Web design. Read about Shop-Design. Read about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Maybe there also is a fan who works in the web business and likes to assist you … (you could pay in exchange to some books ;-))
I’ve waited long for the opening of CC and bought already some books there. My impressions of CC are mixed: “friendly, very homegrown, very US” and “why have they no link to X, where have they hidden Y, why is Z behaving different than in most other shops …”.
To say the truth: there might be some room for improvement in usage and design. (I’m not a web designer, but sysadmin who takes care of some very big professional media web pages in Europe.).
Of course there is a cultural difference in typical design styles between Europe and the US, so take my ideas with a big grain of salt :-).
Good writing, good sales & good success (and don’t forget to sleep)!
addendum: I think Lyns Blog (http://lynnabbey.com/blog/) has a nice clean layout (except for the font…. font-family: Comic Sans MS – next to the hate from graphic designers (http://bancomicsans.com/ e.g.) this font is also bad to read on a web page.)