[Maxine]

Hi Sally

Thanks for your reply you are a star!

I like the express one too - very good. Nice navigation and very clear. Some good tips on there for me

Back to my drawing board....

[GreggJ]

Hi, I am the Marketing Man for Express and would like to put on record that neither myself or any of my fellow workers are Scum-bags.

I have to confess to not looking to closely at your ultimate aims. Are you a Credit Control Consultancy? Happy to help as long as we are not in direct competition

[Maxine]

Thanks GreggJ

I am indeed a credit control consultancy. Have been doing this for a short time but without advertising or marketing myself properly hence the website discussions... and didnt think for one minute you were scumbags Site looks fab btw - content as well as design and was pointed out to me as one to aspire to

Maxine

[sally]

Originally Posted by GreggJ

Hi, I am the Marketing Man for Express and would like to put on record that neither myself or any of my fellow workers are Scum-bags.

My apologies Gregg, my suggestion was not that you or any staff at Express are scumbags, simply that websites can be deceiving. Your website is the best I could find in your field, it looks professional, attractive and inviting but that is not to say the company behind any website can be judged on their website content alone. I trust that you are professional but hope you accept the internet is full of dubious companies and my comment was simply about that. I had no intention of offending anyone.

[Sam (Mr. Mu)]

Hi Maxine

Well done for asking for feedback on your site. It's a brave, but more importantly, smart thing to do. I specialise in feedback and why most of us find it so hard to give it, take it and learn from it!

When giving feedback, one of the things I try to do is to state openly where I'm coming from:

• My feedback is just a point of view (it isn't the truth)
• I give it as a gift (my motivation is to help)
• It takes courage to give it (I'm scared I might upset you)
• It takes courage to receive it (you're scared I might upset you)
• Your reaction is your responsibility (if it hurts, its telling you something)

For me, 'constructive' means that I follow the above rules. It doesn't mean I have to say nice things, or - an HR favourite - to sandwich a 'bad' bit of feedback between two 'good' bits of feedback.

In fact, if you follow those rules, there is no such thing as 'good' feedback and no such thing as 'bad' feedback. There's just feedback - given courageously in support of your development.

With that in mind:

My impression of your site is that it's DIY and just like home DIY, it can be great fun and a hugely rewarding and effective way to learn - but its unlikely to add value to your house until you get good at it :-) In fact, until you get good at it, it runs the very real risk of detracting from the value of your house (I should know... thinks of first and only 'attic conversion').

The problem with a DIY site isn't how it looks, or whether or not it's noble that you've had a shot at it (of course, it's a great achievement to even get it up there!). The problem is that the user experience (of which the 'look' is just one part) is less than satisfactory - and that will have an effect on people's confidence in your products and services.

One of the reasons I recommend blog software to non-designers who want to explore creating websites is that blog software is specifically designed to allow people like you and me who don't want to be HTML coders to get creative. IMHO 'concrete web sites' (as we knew them) are becoming history and the future is in blogging. Not 'blogging-as-diary-entry' but blogging as 'the most user-friendly, easy-to-use web design tool yet'. The reason the blog form works so well is that it gently pushes you to concentrate on content - and content, ultimately is what will keep people engaged.