[AmpDesigner333]

Please take a look and comment:
http://prosperlink.com/cmstest/

Note that this is under construction, but we are not too far from releasing it.

Some known issues:
1. Reviews need to be updated (a LOT)
2. Pictures of the various Cherry versions on the home page need update
3. Shopping cart needs testing

Thanks for taking a look!

[JohnR]

What kind of comments are you looking for?

[Jonathon Janusz]

Mac OS 10.4.11 Safari 4.1.3

The header with the amp photos isn't lined up right on the page (spills over to the right with no scroll to pick up the missing stuff).

I don't know if the shopping cart button is supposed to be in line with the top header or not, but it shows up below it on the right for me.

. . . and this is just a personal thing, but the animated text with the slideshow in the middle just doesn't seem to be up to the same level of quality/polish as the rest of the site; seems kind of like something tacked on as an afterthought rather than an intentional part of the design.

Otherwise, overall, seems to track with the vibe of today's vision of website design decor'.

Sorry, but I didn't have a lot of time to do a better functionality check this morning.

[AmpDesigner333]

What kind of comments are you looking for?

More or less the general format and look for now.  We want it to be smooth and easy to navigate as well as easy to read.  Thanks.

[bpape]

Seems easy enough to navigate.  Not sure about the warranty items under the PRODUCTS menu drop down.

Is shipping included?  I put something in the cart and no way to see shipping cost unless it's after the CHECKOUT is hit which I didn't do - just poking around.

The blue in your company name at the top tends to get lost and blend into the background. I'd think you'd want that to stand out a little more.

Just my 2 cents.

Bryan

[AmpDesigner333]

Seems easy enough to navigate.  Not sure about the warranty items under the PRODUCTS menu drop down.

Is shipping included?  I put something in the cart and no way to see shipping cost unless it's after the CHECKOUT is hit which I didn't do - just poking around.

The blue in your company name at the top tends to get lost and blend into the background. I'd think you'd want that to stand out a little more.

Just my 2 cents.

Bryan

Good stuff.  We will take your comments into consideration.

[AmpDesigner333]

Mac OS 10.4.11 Safari 4.1.3

The header with the amp photos isn't lined up right on the page (spills over to the right with no scroll to pick up the missing stuff).

I don't know if the shopping cart button is supposed to be in line with the top header or not, but it shows up below it on the right for me.

. . . and this is just a personal thing, but the animated text with the slideshow in the middle just doesn't seem to be up to the same level of quality/polish as the rest of the site; seems kind of like something tacked on as an afterthought rather than an intentional part of the design.

Otherwise, overall, seems to track with the vibe of today's vision of website design decor'.

Sorry, but I didn't have a lot of time to do a better functionality check this morning.

OK, thanks.  Working on it.....

[firedog]

I found the reviews page very difficult to read. It needs a different layout so the eye can scan the text more easily.

[skenderbeu]

too many photographs.I think you should cull some and keep the best and the more meaningful ones.I can help you post process them if you'd like .

I'd line up the photos to the menus above,visually speaking.

The animated show , has to go

[JohnR]

More or less the general format and look for now.  We want it to be smooth and easy to navigate as well as easy to read.  Thanks.

Black backgrounds are hard to do right. If you want easy to read, then a black background isn't the right choice. And, they make *everything* else harder to do, for ever and ever. I would seriously recommend going back to a white background.

The textured background image (visible to the sides of the main layout) makes it worse by providing an unwanted visual distraction.

As mentioned by someone above, you have some layout problems, with images bleeding over the edge of the fixed-width layout. It happens on several pages, including the home page.

Clicking on e.g About leads to a page with nothing but large text links. The links are also not consistent with the About dropdown menu.

The animation on the home page doesn't add much value. On my laptop, I only see the top half. In fact, there is no useful information at all visible when first visiting the home page.

[Don_S]

Sorry,  I have always passionately hated black backgrounds.  After just a minute my eyes hurt and then my head. Then I am gone from the site. That is why I did not further explore your new website.

I also think websites should use all the space available to them.  I don't like wasted space on each side.  I viewed the site on a 22" monitor.  I am not sure what the site would look like on a mobile device.  I would think any website should be designed to give the best display (read that biggest and most legible with no wasted space) on mobile devices.  Maybe later today I will check the site on my iPad. I don't have anything smaller to try.

[watercourse]

Tried it on my iphone, the front page does not center the product icon buttons, it appears that there may be more than 6 icons because they go off the page on the right. Resizing the page is of no help. Although hitting the "Cherry Mono" button still functions.

The "Products" pull-down sometimes takes you directly to the product sub-page, sometimes not (Cherry Plus takes you to another product list, but the link there takes you to the right place).

Looks good so far. I'd add captions to the photos, and include less of them.

[Zynec]

Some suggestions I can see:

1. Some of the animation is okay, some of it is not.  In particular, exploding text looks cheesy, it's okay to have some text in the animation that communicates your companies values/technology, but the manner in which its done should follow the "less is more" philosophy.

2. I would get rid of the pictures included in the Cherry Ultra/Cherry Plus/... selection bar.  They don't add anything and you have nice pictures once you follow the links.

3. Some of the pictures on the product pages, such as Cherry Ultra, are clearly photoshopped - which is fine if you do a good job of it, but currently it looks like the handles of the Ultra were machined with a drill in the garage 

4. Most people buying amps look at 2 specs first - power and freq response.  So what does it mean that an amp has an 750W transformer?  If there is a reason to spec your amps this way, you should communicate it and the philosophy behind it.

5. About Us page has one paragraph using a different background color.

6. I like the photos page, a few suggestions: (a) increase the delay by 0.2-0.5s; (b) get rid of more or less duplicate photos and photos that aren't in focus - should be able to reduce it to 120-140 pictures I think; and (c) add captions instead of "image02.jpg".

Besides the above, I almost feel some (not all) of the info in your FAQ page should be on the front page as it is informative and interesting, further drawing the more technical audiophile in.  I also think you should add things like FR curves to the product pages if possible.  I see your products and company as appealing to either the technically literate or those that are technically savvy in other areas and want to buy from technical companies rather than bling-focused companies.  But that is just my impression...

Sorry for the brutally honest feedback, but hope it helps! 

[Jonathon Janusz]

Sorry if my first notes came off a little off-mark.  I was typing quickly this morning and . . yeah. . .

Getting on to what you are looking for in commentary, I want to make a few notes on a few points others have brought up.

First, the black.  I agree that it is very hard to pull off well, and does make everything else on the back end harder.  Further, as was also already noted, for some people the black background/colored or white text thing is a problem in use.  I am among that group of folks; funny it came up, but that (the color scheme) is actually the first thing that got me out of spending time at AVS and on to looking for other places to hang out in sharing this hobby.  (No offense intended to AVS, just that if  I can't read a website for more than five minutes without getting a headache, that's about all the time I'm ever spending there.)

On another tack, regarding color in general.  I really think it is an important decision in regards to overall branding of your company.  As example another now-defunct audio company with a forum had spent quite a bit of effort in generating their branding, and translating that branding to their web forum.  When the forum software went awry or an update was done, the first thing that everyone had to say was something about putting the colors back to "right".  It was that noticeable.  Kind of like, from what I've seen, the header font, color, and the disc/rercord/driver graphic have become the mark of AC's "brand".

The "black" look is kind of the flavor of the month recently around the web.  A year or two ago it was "white", before that "black". . . you get the idea.  What I suggest is that you look at it less as a redesign of the website and more a chance to define and establish your brand - a set of style/color/font/graphic/etc. that when people see it will at some point make them subconsciously think of your company.  Right now, I see two very different "looks" to what you have going on - the delicate traditional "light" look on your old website, and the very different look you have going on with the front of the face plates on your amps.  Maybe now is a good time to start getting everything aligned to get the whole house in order, from a marketing/image standpoint?

Second point that came to mind reading others' responses reminded me of something.  I really dislike having to scroll around at all on a site's home page (this might gel with the thoughts about translating well to mobile devices).  Think of the home page, in terms of a book, as being the cover, dust jacket, and table of contents combined.  Having more than one screen worth of information further into the site is fine as needed, but the home page says concise, clean, and simple.

Last, try to get me to the meat of the content quickly.  Clicking three or four links deep before getting to whatever content someone is after means both that the average tiny attention span is more likely to pass for something easier,  and that automated software designed to dig for search-related indexing (read: google, bing, yahoo. . .) can't as easily just skim the top and populate search results with "you" at the top.  There is a lot more to getting the search engines churning, but why make it harder on yourself?

Hope all this helps.  Also cheers on asking folks for input - the more critical the constructive feedback, the more it just shows we all really care and want to see you succeed!  It takes tough skin and a lot of courage to ask for opinions on the Internet, as it can be a very unforgiving place.

[AmpDesigner333]

Wow!  Great feedback so far.  We're working on it.  It's a long process, so thanks for your patience.....

Thanks so much