Weezl and friends Phase 2 -giving it a whirl for Shirl! Testing meal plan for a month

weezl74

good, good, lets hone these down a bit more...

artybear wrote: »

Not sure what you would want me to do, but I have made some notes over the last week or so but they weren't important so didnt post them..here are my thoughts though.:o

On the cooking advice page, there is too much text in one go, you need a pic or two in the middle. Piccies of what would be good arty?

On the Meal planner page, 'month one-at a glance' needs to be a bigger font and bolder (maybe a different colour as it looks like a bit of an afterthought)

howzat now?

The text on the meal planner itself is IMO too small; some people may have problems reading it and everything is very grey

interesting... shouldn't be grey, should be green! Can you do a screen grab of what you're seeing and send it to me? Or did you mean sommat else by grey, text perhaps?

I would also like to do something with the vast white expanses of background but not sure at the mo. It looks like a very serious site (which is good) but maybe needs livening up so people aren't so nervous about using it

I think you have quite a large monitor/monitor resolution arty. Allegras lappy doesn't show hardly any white space... Minimise your browser window so that the top banner only displays the words '...arm and a leg' and no further width IYSWIM, and then, see if there's still too much white space.

PLEASE dont be offended, I purposely hadn't posted this before as it is aesthetic and not important really...

xxx

what would be more livening arty? photos, emoticons? Animation?

xxx

weezl74

artybear wrote: »

Ok Allegra -I didnt realise it was still a work in progress:). Ignore that point then weezlie:)

the whole thing is a work in progress:o. And also is 'good enough' at the moment.:)

That's the feedback we're getting anyhow.:beer:

Martin does upgrades to this all the time, but it was still good enough before that he's the 6th most poular website in the UK.:money:

But if he'd waited for perfection before publishing, that would be sad

So all feedback is great. (although I prefer it if it's gentle and constructive. As yours definitely was. And I know you've said your 'wow it's lovely! bits before already )

Kittikins

Personally I love the look of the site, gorgeous photos, nice font for the text, for me there's not too much text and it's "personal" rather than "corporate". I quite liked the squares too!

I don't mean this as a sucky-up kind of post, just my personal opinion as someone who spends a LOT of time mooching around the internet. Your site is funky without being crass, sophisticated without being pretentious!

Now if you could pop more vegan dinners in there, it'd be perfect for me Although I could happily live on the breakfast pancakes for a whole month, tee hee.

artybear

weezl74 wrote: »

good, good, lets hone these down a bit more...




what would be more livening arty? photos, emoticons? Animation?

xxx

I have two very large (22'') wide-screen monitors Weezl Your right when I minimize it to that size it doesnt look too white at all.

In regards the recipe page the back ground is green but the text is grey and you have put light green??? lines in that maybe need to be slightly stronger.

On the cooking page pictures of the finished recipes would add colour and help Shirl. The pictures on your blog always helped me out loads when I was trying to see of something worked well or not.

Month One at a glance needs to be bold and maybe red or vibrant green.

Um...thats all I can think of at the mo.:D

In regards to websites not being 'complete'. I dont think any website is ever doen there are always upgrades and new things to add so I dont think anybody will be surprised if it moves around or changes a bit.

ETA: this is in the long term I *really* think you tube videos of the tricker stuff would be helpful.

Also dont put animation/emoticons in as I think it would 'cheapen it' IYSWIM


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weezl74

wendy+5 wrote: »

*pokes head round door*

What about a 'How did you find us' question on the site? That way you'll get some idea about who is using the resource.

*backs away quietly*

hello wendy, nice to see you posting

around 40% of people are googling things like 'cheap recipes' and finding us, 30% is from referring websites (blogs/links from frugal living forums/mse) and the remainder is direct traffic (people already have the address saved as a bookmark for example.

about 88% of users are in the uk. a few americans have visited and a few europeans (and one canadian visitor-QOS I seeeee you!) This is good, as the prices etc are unique to the UK, so lots of american traffic would be disheartening and lead to a higher bounce rate.

Bounce rate is incredibly low at the moment, it's been hovering around the 10% mark. (most sites it's as high as 70-90%) so this is encouraging. A bounce is where you go to a site, and immediately decide it's not what you were looking for and bounce away.

I have lots more info like this about our users. But I don't want to be geeky or boring! But do please say if there's anything you guys would like to know

weezl74

artybear wrote: »

I have two very large (22'') wide-screen monitors Weezl Your right when I minimize it to that size it doesnt look too white at all.

In regards the recipe page the back ground is green but the text is grey and you have put light green??? lines in that maybe need to be slightly stronger.

On the cooking page pictures of the finished recipes would add colour and help Shirl. The pictures on your blog always helped me out loads when I was trying to see of something worked well or not.

Month One at a glance needs to be bold and maybe red or vibrant green.

Um...thats all I can think of at the mo.:D

In regards to websites not being 'complete'. I dont think any website is ever doen there are always upgrades and new things to add so I dont think anybody will be surprised if it moves around or changes a bit.
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Month One at a glance- I'd grown and made bold after you suggested that arty, is it not looking better now?

artybear

Yup-looks a bit more 'click me, click me' :j

weezl74

artybear wrote: »

Yup-looks a bit more 'click me, click me' :j

great!

How about a different photo to replace the green pumpkin seeds all around the white pages?

Might that add a livening feel?

It's one of the tweaks I've been thinking of....

artybear

You could do a different surround for each page?

All of a similar nature, food related that are in the planner. I'm not sure if it would liven it up or make it look disconnected hmmm....

xxx

weezl74

artybear wrote: »

In regards the recipe page the back ground is green but the text is grey and you have put light green??? lines in that maybe need to be slightly stronger.

so you're using firefox/netscape/safari then?

The lines are darker in internet explorer, and we're working to bring the whole table in line with that.

Erm, so to reduce greyness, did you mean change the font colour? I played around with a pink/purple a bit like the background of the menu tabs but that wasn't as legible. Enlarging the texton that page makes a horrendous amount of scrolling on a lappy-sized screen. So I'm a bit reluctant to up that size again...

artybear wrote: »

On the cooking page pictures of the finished recipes would add colour and help Shirl. The pictures on your blog always helped me out loads when I was trying to see of something worked well or not.

ok cool. Will do. This will mean a fair bit of scrolling so I might break it into a few pages with a <...more> to click on at the end of the first chunk