Parallax Store and credit card info concerns
garyg
Posts: 420
Hi
Recently I've placed two small orders through the Parallax store.
I just thought you'd like to know about what I find troublesome.
1 - In the new store, I have much trouble finding particular products.
Things do not show up in areas that I would suspect that they would.
For example, your 3 pin long header #451-00303 did not appear anyplace that
I looked; However, when I searched by part number, I found it immediately.
2- When checking out by using credit card, your system does not allow spaces
when entering the credit card number.
I tend to enter numbers the way my card shows them.
This generates an error on your store site.
I figured it out, but haven't seen that anyplace else that I've been using credit card
purchases.
I understand that the new store site may still be in development/improvement stage.
I just thought I'd feed you my 2 cents worth, maybe it will help you out.
Thanks
Recently I've placed two small orders through the Parallax store.
I just thought you'd like to know about what I find troublesome.
1 - In the new store, I have much trouble finding particular products.
Things do not show up in areas that I would suspect that they would.
For example, your 3 pin long header #451-00303 did not appear anyplace that
I looked; However, when I searched by part number, I found it immediately.
2- When checking out by using credit card, your system does not allow spaces
when entering the credit card number.
I tend to enter numbers the way my card shows them.
This generates an error on your store site.
I figured it out, but haven't seen that anyplace else that I've been using credit card
purchases.
I understand that the new store site may still be in development/improvement stage.
I just thought I'd feed you my 2 cents worth, maybe it will help you out.
Thanks
Comments
-Phil
This is my experience as well.
I do agree with point #1. Things can be pretty hard to find. It took me a while to find the narrow VGA connector which can be used on the Propeller Project board. It wasn't in the related items section nor was it in the accessories section. As search for the item turned it up.
There is something I've read about over the past 10 years or so that is very much mis-interpreted.
It's called creative destruction.
What Creative Destruction is, is that you maintain old systems while developing something that
will make the old system obsolete.
At that time, the old system will go away.
I'm truly hoping that Parallax is not destroying something good to build something else from scratch hoping
that it will be better than the past version.
I truly like Parallax products, services, forum interaction and everything else parallax.
I'm not truly current on all of the new technologies, as I'm somewhat of an old guy.
It's maybe just that I don't understand some of the new stuff that's going on.
When looking at the layout of the new store, Simplicity in the menu system is very good.
Please think about a menue selection that shows all Parallax products and components possibly in a
single list.
The credit card number format would be greatly improved with a note above the credit card entry box saying
no spaces allowed.
Thanks for listening
The Search function will continue to improve. As of last Friday it has improved quite a lot. Please let us know what in particular you continue to have problems with.
Thanks Jen
As my small projects continue, I'll keep looking at items in the Parallax store.
from time to time, I'll send a message concerning finding your items or other things that I believe could be improved upon.
Please take No Offense.
Thanks
The list of news articles (once I found it by clicking on news on the header) is a bit plainly formatted. Besides title, it should at least include posting date and author.
Do all of the news pictures have to be in the carousel on the top? That could be a bit limiting to authors, and distracting for readers.
You also get an SSL error when you click on "register" for a news article comment.
The "Time Zone" option while registering is pretty intimidating. I couldn't find my time zone (EDT), so I left it on default (something in LA).
The registration email looks pretty suspicious, and is poorly formatted. This is exactly how it appeared, no linebreaks or text formatting (link changed for privacy):
The breadcrumbs for an article aren't very useful. It should have a link back to that article's position in the list of all articles. For example, here is one article's breadcrumbs: "Home" isn't all that useful. It would be better to have:
Hmmm, maybe the reason why you don't have many comments is because of the awkward commenting form? I'd suggest making it about half the height, with a better format. And what subject am I supposed to choose? That's confusing and unnecessary, I think. Why is it "Submit"? Wouldn't "Post" be a better choice of words? And isn't usually the done action on the right, not the left?
Why don't you trust your users? That's the message that I get from this: You don't trust me, so you have to double check everything that I do. A disincentive if I ever saw one. This might be because it's my first post, and you want to make sure I'm not a bot (ps: where's the CAPTCHA on register?). Fine, but reword the message ("Since this is your first post, we need to review it before it goes public. Thanks for waiting!"). If this review is for all posts then I think you have a problem.
The little shopping cart icon is really hard to see on my screen. It looks more like a splat than a cart to my eyes.
It would be nice if you could dismiss the welcome. I find it a bit annoying after a while.
Is there a reason search is on the left? I think in most sites in on the upper right. At least that's where I immediately looked.
In any case, the styles of the various page components looks a bit plain. I'd look into something like Bootstrap to make it look modern. And why is some of the links on the banner white and others blue? That's confusing. Why are the social media icons grayed out? They seem to work fine for me. The carousels for pictures and the welcome banners are nice, but it's really difficult for me to see the "switch" arrows. Most of the time I can't even tell if they're there or not on hover.
In summary, I don't feel any joy at using the Parallax site. It's not all that fun to browse, so I avoid going to the site as much as possible. Sorry for the criticisms, but I like Parallax and would hate for a bad website to get in the way. If it's just me then feel free to ignore.
and ps forum members: feel free to disagree, but these are my initial reactions while using the site. YMMV.
We will be addressing some of your concerns in the future in order to improve the user experience. Commenting in News posts will continue to be moderated as we want the site to remain completely spam-free. Our web team is a small, yet dedicated group and our goal is to always be improving. Thank you for understanding.
I agree that moderation is needed. My disagreement is with the review queue.* Instead, I think it should be like these forums: when spam is detected then it is removed, but anti-spam efforts don't get in the way of the site. A review queue is good but should be used to delete the spam posts, not authorize the valid posts.
Maybe an authorization review queue would be helpful if you had thousands of comments and you wanted to select the best ones. Like some of the popular news sites. But you don't: The 15 latest posts have 5 comments in total. Wouldn't it be better to accept as much as you can, to encourage (rather than discourage) use?
* A authorization review queue for first time posters might be helpful, however.
On another note, I don't know how feasible this would be, but it would be nice if the forum account and the store account were automatically linked. It would also make it easier for first time buyers if they automatically had a forum account (because they created a store account). Plus you could then show avatars on the comments.
Single sign-on is on our list of goals, yes.
I noticed today that the Parallax Insider commenting no longer requires admin approval, at least for me. Thanks! I think it's a great move towards more usage of the commenting.
I do have another feature request: the ability to edit, or at least delete, comments. Currently, as it is once the comment is up I have no method of changing it.
Also, the "PERMALINK" option is redundant: clicking on the title generates the same link.
Finally, in the short term before the comment system is upgraded, could you add in HRs between the comments, and maybe indent the body of the comment? They sort of mesh together now.
We will be working on styling the comments section as time/resources permit. Thank you for your suggestions. All good.
Cheers, JJ