I ran through it and was generally pleased with the appearance. There are a few things that stood out that are a problem, though:
1. Front page, prominent links to LEARN.PARALLAX.COM, the FORUM and the OBEX are needed. (only 1/3 is there now like it should be.)
2. SX and SX/B information aren't there anymore. This may be a deprecated product, but those of us who spent a lot of money on SX are depending on those online resources that were on the old parallax page. There are some searchable downloads, but the previous SX page was a content and pictoral critical mass for me.
1. Links to external web sites are now located int the footer, and available from every page.
Here's a couple of examples of how it looks for me with NoScript default blocking enabled.
First image is of the downloads page snapped back on 28 May. You can see most (all?) of the menu entries are simultaneously visible.
Second image is of the same page from yesterday, 24 June, with many entries on top of each other.
Interestingly, the various entries have valid links. It's just a bit hard working out which one belongs to which section.
Ok so I tried to shop on the Beta site, 10 percent off and everything, and there was that new memory board.
But the shipping options aren't there! The only one was UPS, at $147! Obviously I cancelled. Where did the affordable cheapest USPS option go?
Ok so I tried to shop on the Beta site, 10 percent off and everything, and there was that new memory board.
But the shipping options aren't there! The only one was UPS, at $147! Obviously I cancelled. Where did the affordable cheapest USPS option go?
-Tor
I shopped there today. All shipping options were available to me....
I shopped there today. All shipping options were available to me....
But you're located in the US, aren't you? My international shipping option was a single one, UPS at no less that 147 dollars.
If that's how it's meant to be then there won't be much shopping from me anymore, unfortunately..
I emailed the link at the website and Parallax fixed the problem. USPS international shipping is back!
My order went through with the good old shipping price. Thanks Parallax!
I have the same problem as Ron. I posted about it in the Prop1 forum thread about the memory card which I guess was the wrong place. I didn't know this thread existed.
edit: Per some of the posts in the other thread and here, I turned off Comcast's spam filter and also set it to put copies of any spam in my spam folder. I logged out and back into Comcast and tried to get a new password again, but no luck. No e-mail showed up after over 30 minutes.
edit: I think it may be overly aggressive spam filtering by Comcast. I supposedly turned all spam filtering off yesterday, but after over 12 hours I still haven't seen spam of any kind show up, so I don't think that's working right. By the time it occurred to me to use a non-Comcast e-mail, the price had gone back to normal, so I guess I missed out.
I got 5 emails this morning from the Beta Parallax registration process -
See this post, it appears they were hung up on the Parallax server since it was received from 67.104.29.59 (Parallax) on Monday when it was generated on Saturday.
Sure enough. I just checked my e-mail for the first time since Saturday afternoon and between 9:42 am and 10:36 pm this morning I received 10 Replacement log in and 1 account info e-mails from Parallax E-Home (beta).
I was looking for information on the Propeller Activity Board on the new site just now and noticed that it isn't listed under Microcontrollers/Propeller/Boards - presumably because it is currently out of stock. I see that as a problem that you can't find information on current products just because they are out of stock? Seems like a lot of lost opportunity if you don't show current products even if they are out of stock.
If you know to go search for product ID 32910, you can find it (and it shows it should be under Microcontrollers/Propeller/Boards) but you sure can't just stumble upon it or look up information if you don't know the product number.
I used the new site to order 2 of the new memory cards.
Registration was without problems. I used a gmail account and after completing the process, I received the email to link back and complete the process.
I logged in and ordered and went through checkout. It all worked fine.
I received an order confirmation email as expected.
I also noticed a lot of discrepancies in how items are listed.
For instance if you go to "Integrated Circuits > Transistors" all you see are two items, both are transistors, not integrated circuits. But if you go to "Components > Transistors", you get five items. Four are transistors, but one is an integrated circuit.
That's just one example.
I have to agree that most of the product photos are way to small with too much white space.
Another thing that kind of stands out to me is that the background image of squares is not well color matched to the rest of the theme. It's a perfect gray (equal parts red, blue and green), but the rest of the colors are proportionately lower in green and much lower in red.
The diagonal stripes background used in many other places has the same problem.
Attached is an image where I modified a section of squares to match a little better. It's hard to get perfect because in the gradient behind the menu area at the top of the page, the RGB values don't change at the same rate.
I'm sure it's a matter of personal taste, but I think I like the current color better than the blue.
I'm inclined to think a much subtler shade of blue would be better than the blue you posted. I'm not entirely convinced any blue really needs to be added.
I did not say whether I liked or disliked the colors, I only pointed out that there was a mismatch. On a properly color calibrated monitor the bad color match is very obvious. Here I have used the same exact colors as on other parts of the page.
Does the original background not look a little "pink" to you now?
My original adjustment looks a little too blue to me also. Here is a third try. Lighter than the above but still in line with the other colors.
I'm actually not a fan of "busy" background images at all. I think solid colors look better and are less distracting.
It's not in beta anymore, but I figured I would post this here. The product title for the 5MHZ Through Hole crystal calls out "SMT" http://www.parallax.com/product/251-05000
I mentioned this before but since there has been no change I will mention it again.
I think it is... well, very bad that after entering in my CC info I click a button that says "Continue to next step" and that next step actually takes me to a page that says "Checkout Complete".
The button label is inappropriate. On any other site the "next step" would be to review the order. The button should be relabeled so that it is clear that clicking it is a commitment to purchase and it is in fact, the last step.
I do not like the idea of using non standard formatting, and looking towards a specific group of browsers. I think that it is better to stick to the standards strictly, and then your site would look correct regardless of the Browser so long as the Browser supports the standards used. I did not look at the source, though I am using a browser that is fully HTML4 complient, CSS 2 complient, and the site layout is messed up. The HTML 5 standard is not yet completed, so it does not make any sence to use that yet, unless on an experimental site that is optional for development purposes. And even this there is a good start on HTML5 Support in NetSurf (the web browser that I use). And if you are using any ECMA script (as said I have not looked at the page source), where is the NON JS verient of the site?
.
Other wize the site is navagatable. I have not attempted to purchase anything recently, so I can not comment on that.
It's not in beta anymore, but I figured I would post this here. The product title for the 5MHZ Through Hole crystal calls out "SMT" http://www.parallax.com/product/251-05000
Thanks, Andrew. Changed that description to through-hole.
Sorry we did not get to this sooner. Web fixes can also be sent to webmaster@parallax.com for a faster response.
I mentioned this before but since there has been no change I will mention it again.
I think it is... well, very bad that after entering in my CC info I click a button that says "Continue to next step" and that next step actually takes me to a page that says "Checkout Complete".
The button label is inappropriate. On any other site the "next step" would be to review the order. The button should be relabeled so that it is clear that clicking it is a commitment to purchase and it is in fact, the last step.
I'll mention this as well. The button label is not correct! It's an easy fix for at least an interim fix: change the label to "Place Order".
Also worrysome is the SSL certificate mis-match when you first go to checkout (www.parallax.com vs parallax.com). At the very least you should post something before you get there that warns users (who would see that) that the certificate mismatch is not as bad as their browser might say.
I mentioned this before but since there has been no change I will mention it again.
I think it is... well, very bad that after entering in my CC info I click a button that says "Continue to next step" and that next step actually takes me to a page that says "Checkout Complete".
The button label is inappropriate. On any other site the "next step" would be to review the order. The button should be relabeled so that it is clear that clicking it is a commitment to purchase and it is in fact, the last step.
I just wanted to mention that this is still an issue... "Continue to next step" is misleading.
Comments
1. Links to external web sites are now located int the footer, and available from every page.
2. SX downloads have been added to the system.
Yes. The 'News' link in the upper navigation bar will lead you to the news archive.
http://beta.www.parallax.com/news
First image is of the downloads page snapped back on 28 May. You can see most (all?) of the menu entries are simultaneously visible.
Second image is of the same page from yesterday, 24 June, with many entries on top of each other.
Interestingly, the various entries have valid links. It's just a bit hard working out which one belongs to which section.
The Like buttons (for Facebook) shows a nice lookin' scrollbar
Using Chrome
Btw Ken, nice video! Hope to visit it once
But the shipping options aren't there! The only one was UPS, at $147! Obviously I cancelled. Where did the affordable cheapest USPS option go?
-Tor
I shopped there today. All shipping options were available to me....
If that's how it's meant to be then there won't be much shopping from me anymore, unfortunately..
-Tor
My order went through with the good old shipping price. Thanks Parallax!
-Tor
Tried with two different email accounts...
Also tried the Request New Password button with same results.
Update:
It worked using my gmail account but not with my Internet Provider Service email accounts
More info
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/149654-Interesting-New-Product-Propeller-Memory-Card?p=1201633&viewfull=1#post1201633
edit: Per some of the posts in the other thread and here, I turned off Comcast's spam filter and also set it to put copies of any spam in my spam folder. I logged out and back into Comcast and tried to get a new password again, but no luck. No e-mail showed up after over 30 minutes.
edit: I think it may be overly aggressive spam filtering by Comcast. I supposedly turned all spam filtering off yesterday, but after over 12 hours I still haven't seen spam of any kind show up, so I don't think that's working right. By the time it occurred to me to use a non-Comcast e-mail, the price had gone back to normal, so I guess I missed out.
See this post, it appears they were hung up on the Parallax server since it was received from 67.104.29.59 (Parallax) on Monday when it was generated on Saturday.
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/149654-Interesting-New-Product-Propeller-Memory-Card?p=1201918&viewfull=1#post1201918
I was looking for information on the Propeller Activity Board on the new site just now and noticed that it isn't listed under Microcontrollers/Propeller/Boards - presumably because it is currently out of stock. I see that as a problem that you can't find information on current products just because they are out of stock? Seems like a lot of lost opportunity if you don't show current products even if they are out of stock.
If you know to go search for product ID 32910, you can find it (and it shows it should be under Microcontrollers/Propeller/Boards) but you sure can't just stumble upon it or look up information if you don't know the product number.
I hope this isn't how you intended it to work.
Thanks for listening.
Registration was without problems. I used a gmail account and after completing the process, I received the email to link back and complete the process.
I logged in and ordered and went through checkout. It all worked fine.
I received an order confirmation email as expected.
YAY!!
For instance if you go to "Integrated Circuits > Transistors" all you see are two items, both are transistors, not integrated circuits. But if you go to "Components > Transistors", you get five items. Four are transistors, but one is an integrated circuit.
That's just one example.
I have to agree that most of the product photos are way to small with too much white space.
Another thing that kind of stands out to me is that the background image of squares is not well color matched to the rest of the theme. It's a perfect gray (equal parts red, blue and green), but the rest of the colors are proportionately lower in green and much lower in red.
The diagonal stripes background used in many other places has the same problem.
Attached is an image where I modified a section of squares to match a little better. It's hard to get perfect because in the gradient behind the menu area at the top of the page, the RGB values don't change at the same rate.
I'm sure it's a matter of personal taste, but I think I like the current color better than the blue.
I'm inclined to think a much subtler shade of blue would be better than the blue you posted. I'm not entirely convinced any blue really needs to be added.
Does the original background not look a little "pink" to you now?
My original adjustment looks a little too blue to me also. Here is a third try. Lighter than the above but still in line with the other colors.
I'm actually not a fan of "busy" background images at all. I think solid colors look better and are less distracting.
http://www.parallax.com/product/251-05000
I think it is... well, very bad that after entering in my CC info I click a button that says "Continue to next step" and that next step actually takes me to a page that says "Checkout Complete".
The button label is inappropriate. On any other site the "next step" would be to review the order. The button should be relabeled so that it is clear that clicking it is a commitment to purchase and it is in fact, the last step.
Thanks, Andrew. Changed that description to through-hole.
Sorry we did not get to this sooner. Web fixes can also be sent to webmaster@parallax.com for a faster response.
I'll mention this as well. The button label is not correct! It's an easy fix for at least an interim fix: change the label to "Place Order".
Also worrysome is the SSL certificate mis-match when you first go to checkout (www.parallax.com vs parallax.com). At the very least you should post something before you get there that warns users (who would see that) that the certificate mismatch is not as bad as their browser might say.
I just wanted to mention that this is still an issue... "Continue to next step" is misleading.