X-Cart forums

[SystemSkins]

What is a recommended headder "height" ? or just the smaller the better?

[balinor]

The smaller the better...you want as much content (i.e. product) visible at any time as possible.

[carpeperdiem]

Doug,

I'm not a web designer "pro" -- but as a business owner, I needed to learn as much as I could over the years... one thing I AM is a web consumer and I buy almost everything in life online - from groceries (freshdirect.com) to electronics -- and as a consumer, I know what kind of stores I like, and what store experiences are easy...

If all the big boys do it one way, there may be something to learn from them. Granted, Amazon.com's checkout may be a bit extreme (ever try to add something to your cart once you've started checkout on amazon? it's not easy!) -- however, if you visit the top-ten sites in your space, you can learn something.

My primary screen right now is a 17" laptop 1680x1050 - but I also have a Dell 30" in my studio and also have a bunch of 1024x768 screens -- my wife's laptop is 1152x768. If a page doesn't put the good stuff into the top 90% of a 1024x768, I probably can't expect the user to scroll. What would Jakob Nielsen say on this?

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/screen_resolution.html

[SystemSkins]

carpeperdiem,

yeah, I read that article before I started designing my site, thats why i made it "optimized" for 1024. But I ignored the"fold". My girlfriend is working on resizing the header as we speak. She's down to 375 from 500 already. Going to try to work it down to 250 i think.

[SystemSkins]

Ok,

I have redesigned my header from a wopping 489px height to a small 233px height. A big difference. I lost my ability to place my searchbox in the header and am left to think of a new location for it.

I was originally happy with the dea of the searchbox in the header and on the other side (not designed yet) I was going to put a minicart on the left side above the products menu.

But back to the main focus of my initial post topic.
You suggest that I do not place my category menus or any links in the cart/checkout pages eh? It just seams naked without anything on the left IMO.

[balinor]

Strip EVERYTHING out of the checkout...don't give the customer any chance to back out. Look and feel has no value whatsoever here, and can in fact be a negative if it makes the page more confusing. Once they commit to buying, you don't want to do anything to distract them. I've done a lot of conversion studies on this, and if you strip out all of the links, you'll find a significant increase in customers completing their transactions.

[balinor]

By the way, MUCH better on the header, although the logo still looks fuzzy to me...

Put the search box right above the product menu.

[SystemSkins]

fuzzy huh.... The System Skins Logo on the left you mean?

My girlfriend got frustrated last night and went to bed early, so she's not done with the background images being all smooth and all

Oh, and I did what you said about the checkout. No left side links.... I guess I can take them out of the header as well then too

[balinor]

Yea, the text does not look sharp at all...maybe it is just the outer glow...

[intel352]

much better header design, i can see the page navigation and products now