Slitherine Online Store Redesign

[IainMcNeil]

We're pleased to announce a long overdue update to the Slitherine online store! Thanks to the feedback we have had from the community we've tried to design the site in a way that makes it easier to navigate and find the things you want. We've also made some updates to the home page, the login process and generally improved all the under the hood stuff you never see but that effects the day to day smooth running of the site.

Check it out and let us know your thoughts!
http://www.slitherine.com/shop

The key changes are:
* The shop button has 4 options - the shop home page, computer games, tabletop wargames and upcoming games.
* The shop home has been completely changed. The top section shows the last 4 releases in detail. Clicking the "See all" link takes you to a list of all titles by release date - newest first. The next section shows all our tablet releases for iPad and Android. The 3rd section filters games by series. You can select Panzer Corps and find all games in the series on easy page.
* The home page has been upgraded to a new system that is faster and a number of bugs have been fixed. The twitter feeds appear correctly, the rankings area never shows blank info and the community section is updated.

Things still to do
* We need to add some search and filter options to make it easier to find a specific title or a type of game. E.g. all turn based WW2 games, or real time American Civil War games.
* Make it clearer what platform you are looking at. We want to add icons of each platform (PC, Mac, iPad) at the top of the product page so its really clear which version you are looking at or buying.
* Improve the tournament system and rankings. These are more long term projects.

This update is for you so please please let us know if there is anything you think we could do better and we'll see what can be done. We think this is a huge upgrade over the previous site but there is always room for improvement!

Also with all new things there may be some glitches and if you spot anything that is not working or missing or just doesn't look quite right please let us know.

Thanks!

[avoran]

In the top 'newest releases section' clicking doesn't take you to a game's main page.

[IainMcNeil]

Thanks - how did we miss that... sigh! Will fix ASAP.

[borsook79]

Looks great, a pity there is still nothing like a wishlist...

[IainMcNeil]

How would you imagine something like a wish list working?

[borsook79]

How would you imagine something like a wish list working?

hmmm similiar to steam or gog? I.e. you can add games you like to a list either for viewing later or for sending a link to it (so it has to be viewable without a login) to family members etc for gift purchasing ideas

[huertgenwald]

A possibility to pay in Euros would be nice...

[IainMcNeil]

You can but we don't have it showing yet. That will come next week hopefully. You can pay in almost any currency.

[sbdb]

Those thumbnails are not small images, but re-sized images of a much larger image. Why an experienced web developer would do this is beyond me. One should only show a lager image if the viewer asks for it. Pages like this load rather slow for visitors with an average connection. Take the thumbnail of "Scourge of War" for example, right click and select "view image". If you then right click on that image and click on view image info, it shows that it's 226Kb, that's way too much. If you save the whole page to your hard drive, it's even 2.77MB and other pages like "all the latest releases" are even bigger.

You should small images instead and not re-sized representations of larger images:

a - people with a slower connection won't suffer or get irritated
b - you'll use yes bandwidth on the server every month
c - your server is going to be quicker overall, not just in the shop

Btw, that one image which is 226Kb uses way too little compression. If you take this image and save it in Photoshop for the web with a Jpeg high setting of 60 which won't show any jpeg artifacts visible to the naked eye unless you would magnify it in an image editor, then the image is only 58Kb. You're wasting way too much bandwidth and speed on this site and it might seem like a minor issue when you look at a single image, but it becomes a totally different story if there are tons of them on a single page and this page is viewed almost tens of thousands of times each month.

One last comment: the thumnails will also look better when you use images that were not re-sized on the server, but in an image editor instead:

[IainMcNeil]

Yes it needs to be done - thanks for the reminder!

[Byeohazard]

Need to know wether the games are Digital express or Collectors Edition ....I am more apt to order the physical copies if they are CL.

[IainMcNeil]

Ok good idea. We'll see what we can do.

[Old_Warrior]

I MUCH prefer the new scheme, Iain, and applaud your move to have a Tablet section that quickly tells those customers that own one the titles that are supported on such.

VERY nice move as the older site was terribly confusing - so hard to find all of the Field of Glory modules for instance on the storefront.

Good move guys and this will help your customer base find what they are looking for.

However, your store front should have a section along with the Tablet and Series that is for the tabletop games. Not sure why you restricted it to computer games.

Yes, you have a section in the pull down menu that is for Tabletop Wargames but why highlight the PC stuff over them? Just stick a section under the Tablet or PC games that is for the Field of Glory rules and addons as well as any other tabletop item?

Also: the Tabletop section should have links - FoG Napoleonic, FoG Ancients, FoG Ren, and then just have all of the books that apply to those on a separate page. Much easier to find the books that apply to each if done that way.