I would like your opinions on my site. I have attempted to make it clean and efficient yet visually pleasing.

TLC Web Enterprises (http://www.tlcwe.com)

Thanks

I'd work on the logo and the links to make it errrr, a bit less bland. The rest of the site is clean and easy to navigate. Also, how you have it set up, when a customer orders, they will not be billed next month automatically. I'm sure they don't want to enter their cc info in every month?

Thanks for the comments, Chicken.

Actually when they order it sets them up for recurring billing that will be effective each month for the next 2 years without any additional CC entries. This is being handled through Instabill at the moment. Maybe I didn't quite make that clear on the site.

Reasons that will deter me from signing up:

1. Your site looks a little too boring... a little too amateurish. Ok, I know the quality of service from a host does not correspond with the quality of their site design, then again, looks DOES matter... for most people anyway. The logo looks kinda "unprofessional", maybe too simple. And I actually prefer the menu without the background image (the gradient thing), its taking too long to load anyway.

2. There is no "contact us" link on every page... makes me feel you arent really keen on having me contact you prior to ordering.

3. There is no "about us" page. I always look for this on any website offering services I'm interested in. What is your company mission, when was it set up, ... etc. I think its important that I know more about a company before engaging their services.

Ok, thats it. Hope I wasnt being too "un-kind" :D

Originally posted by Marty
Thanks for the comments, Chicken.

Actually when they order it sets them up for recurring billing that will be effective each month for the next 2 years without any additional CC entries. This is being handled through Instabill at the moment. Maybe I didn't quite make that clear on the site.

Unless I'm wrong, how you have it set up is though the shopping cart. Last time I checked, I didn't think you could have reocurring billing using the shopping cart (verses direct sale). I use instabill as well, so this is something I have to check again. Hmmmm. Are you sure???

Also notice that since the cart lists items in alphabetical order the packages are all out of order on the check out page. A bit confusing.

I just checked you order link again, and usually when the billing does happen every month, there is a statement, "I understand that my card will be charged every month yadda yadda..." - on yours there is no such statement. I am 99.9% sure that this will not bill every month.

[Edited by Chicken on 10-24-2000 at 10:42 PM]

Oooops!!! I should have known better than to stand up the the Chicken, the infamous leader of the the of the CDS. And me just a Junior Guru Wannabe. I bow to your superiority. You were correct. Despite it not being very clear, designating an item as a shopping cart item instead of a direct sell item disables the recurring billing option. Thanks a bunch. I have changed the order page and made the necessary changes at Instabill.

I am now working on adding links to each page that would include contact information. And I will also add an "about us" type page in the near future.

I do need to work on the logo, but I am currently having a moment where I appear to be very close to a creativity black hole.:)

Thanks

Marty,
Definately work on the logo. You may not need this info, but just in case, have you visited the sites listed below? I've been pulling my hair out about my own logo and got some really cool ideas from these links.
http://www.gotlogos.com
http://www.whatalogo.com
http://cooltext.com

Thanks Kymber.

I have another version up for review. This is just a demo so all of the links are broken. It has a different logo and contact information that will be on every page.

http://www.tlcwe.com/demo

Give me the good the bad and the ugly

You might want to color-match the plans.gif on the right and get some of the zaggies off the logo. In fact, I'd probably just do the plans.gif as text in a table.

Believe me, we all sweat bullets over design. (By this point in my career, I've scrapped, literally, hundreds of them.)

It does make a difference, though; and on sites like this, I think clean, uncluttered styles are best, with plentiful, redundant, and unmistakable navigation.

On content, as a frequent buyer of hosting services, I'd really like to see much, much more about support, too!

etLux,

Please elaborate on what you mean by "more about support".

If you go to the actual sight you will see a complete support guide and tutorials covering all aspects of the control panel and how to's on FTP etc.

I assume that you are talking about something different. Please let me know what you mean from a customers prospective.

I knew the new logo would need to be cleaned up a bit, but a though popped in my head and I produced that rough logo in about 10 minutes just to see what it would look like.

Thanks

As a customer, I want to know how you can be reached, when you can be reached, and how fast you respond. If there's telephone support, I definitely want to know about it. If you have HumanClick, I want to know that, and when it's available. If your facilities are (or aren't) manned or monitored 24/7, I want to know.

The number one, number two, and number three complaints I have with hosting services -- and I've dealt with a good fifty or sixty of them by now -- are, respectively, support, support, and support.

I doubt I'm alone in that, either!

Nope, still don't like the logo. Sorry. Actually the first logo is better than the demo logo. Just my opinion though.

Marty- just wanted to save you from losing thousands of dollars every month and certain disaster once you found out NONE of your accounts re-billed. Eaak.

Also, errrrr... you might want to hold a logo design contest. You'd be surprised at what the young whipper snappers can do around here. If so, make sure you list it in the Advertsing/Offers forum. :)

Oh!! I have seen the CDS in action. I would never do that anywhere except in the advertising forum. I may have to consider doing that after I exhaust my brain.

Chicken, didn't I see a brain for sale in one of the other threads today? Maybe we could take up a collection, help Marty out here and buy it for him. Last bid was around $2.00...

Thanks etLux,

Sometimes I think I need a new one. I have another version up. It has way to much white space at the top right, and I still haven't fixed that plans gif, but it does have a different logo. I think I am going to bed, maybe I'll dream something.

Thanks guys and gals,

You know, it's a really smart idea to just put it down for a while, sometimes... I know after I've been doing design work for twelve or sixteen hours at a clip, absolutely nuthin', no-how, no way looks right.

Yeah, I usally lose it when I check the site in another resolution or on Netscape. Yeeeee-uh, time to go and beat the cat. Today a very special thing happened, but I'll complain about it in the general forum.

Netscape? Is that thing still around... lol?

Oh, Netscape is still around. Especially the Netscape 6 beta, er I mean preview addition.

Now that I have had some sleep I have a new version with new logo. Give me you opinions on this one.

http://www.tlcwe.com/demo

Thanks again,

Hey, that's shaping up, Marty...

I take it then that a good nights sleep improved my graphics design capability and I came up with a decent logo?? I will be working on a contact page with a link on each page and, I will attempt to to develop the support information that you suggested.

Thanks,

Yeah, Marty, I'd say some shut-eye did you some good. This design is much more comfortable with the eye.

For informational sites like this, I generally try to keep the color-count down; maybe two or three colors at most... and stay to fairly pure colors.

Overall, keep it simple. Unless you're a reasonably talented and able graphics designer (a skill I do not pretend to have), you can spin your wheels for days trying to come up with fancy goods; and I really don't think it impresses anyone much -- whereas a clean, clear presentation does, even if the design is plain.