[the_bee]

This site is not a flashy super-duper web 2.0 kind of thing (although the search does not reload the entire page, almost like Ajax but better ), it aims to be easy to use, comprehensible and conveying trust as an online store. Please comment on those aspects primarily. Comments on visual appeal are also welcome: verkoso.com

Edit: I made a mock up of a different design for the site, see attached image. I was hoping to make it more in style with the flash intro. Plus the intro would be reworked to a smaller canvas size and included on the first page. That should stop the annoyance factor for those who don't like intros, because you can click on the top links right away, no need to skip or wait for intro to finish. The picture in the middle is the last frame from flash intro, as it would stay when the movie is done. The look of the content of all the other pages would remain unchanged, just fitted inside the big rounded box.

Maybe I really went over the top with the entire thing and it just looks cheesy, it is hard for me to judge at this point, so please help! Is this worth coding up?

[i3lance]

Review your flash intro, the width is duff on widescreen laptops and monitors with anything above 1280.

[brooks]

it may not be your input but the tagline 'diamonds beyond ordinary' is horrifyingly bad. Few things to comment on:

Pinkish header doesn't look all that nice, could be more predominant and sharp.

Not sure on your use of type, lucida doesn't look elegant and the type clashes quite a bit.

Right hand side is miles away, keep it to a structure and let the images breathe. The tiny shopping basket picture you've got, as small as it is, is quite bad.

Bottom footer, sits in the middle, why? nothing else does, and the decorations with that look forced, they don't sit well either.

[iblastoff]

ehhh. i don't think i'd buy a diamond from this place due to the looks of the website.

first of all, i dunno what kind of form validation you have with the search functionality, but i just typed random letters in the weight and price fields and it somehow still brought me a list of search results??

for example i searched for "3sfda" to "342a" carat. and for price i used "ass" to ass" USD. and yet i still got 79 diamonds found.

and those random patterns in the header look terrible. why does shopping cart and checkout not at least line up with your navigation? just seems to be randomly floating there.

[chazthetic]

couple questions:

why the flash intro?

why the little decorations on the bottom corners?

in fact, in the special offers section, there are little decorations everywhere, why?

Is this supposed to be a christmas themed website? the shapes in the top header looks like ornaments or snowflakes.

[the_bee]

I edited my first post to include a redesigned layout. Please review!

As to the previous comments:

Icons and pink header, agreed, they have to go.
Right hand side being miles away, well, that really depends on your window size. If your screen is very wide, what are you, looking at webpages maximized? Things are aligned to the right, that is the idea that they stick to the right. If it were possible, I would put a max-width CSS property to the main div, but unfortunately IE would still ignore it, as far as I tested. If you know how to create a max-width property that would work across all (or at least the major) browsers, please share the knowledge.

The search form accepts all kinds of input, but invalid input is treated as if there were no input - minimum is set to zero and maximum is not set at all. In my opinion it works fine, plus if you actually were interested in buying those diamonds you would not be asking for "ass" price, I am content that MySQL injections are not going to work, what else is there to validation?

The little decorations... That is why they are there, for decorative purposes.

Please comment on the new design that is attached to the first post!

Thanks everyone!