OUR NEW WEBSITE.. IN DEVELOPMENT. Your feedback appreciated
 

Hi Guys

The old TSL site is getting a little tired now, and with the forthcoming launch of our new mail order site "XLR8".. we thought it might be nice to involve you, the punter, before we sign of the look and feel of the site.

Basically, there will be two sites.. TSL will go back in time and just be for Group N rally prep, Road Car Conversions, Hiring Richard and Engineering etc.

Whereas XLR8 will be a seperate Tart Central for anything shiny, plastic or flashing ;).. This way we appeal to most of the people most of the time..

Have a peek if you would be so kind,... at the proposed homepage, to give you some idea for the feel of the new site.. We want to make it feel the the "Set Up Screen" that the old site was. ie.. Something out of a quality arcade game.

Obviously there is a lot missing, info wise.. it's more the concept, style, layout and ease of use I would be grateful for feedback on. Each car takes you to the appropriate part of the site for secure on line shop.

Just a little something we roughed up for now.. ;)

http://xlr8-xlr8.com/playground/index_day.html

A big ta to Cousin Tom for the couple of hours he spent knocking this together ;).. Beer sir?

Anyways.. Over to you, my dear buying public...

Over and Out

Trouser :)

Looking Good :)

No sorry thats Better than Looking good thats ORIGINAL !!! Folks !!!

How much to let one of those garages ? ;):D

LOL

you might want to get the landlord to give it a lick of paint first :D

oh.. and by the way.. when the site is up and running... if you log on during the day.. its light, night its dark etc.... very funky :)

If my lazy assed cousin pulls his finger out ;););););):D:D:p it might even work up here if i change the URL

Did you notice the cars slide out?? we were wondering if that was obvious enough??
Many thanks

Trouser

Thats Trumpton isn't it?

You could make them more obvious by having the headlights flash and horns beep. Just make sure the Subaru horn sounds really weedy :D

Apart from that, looking good.

looks better to me :D

corradoboy, great minds dood.. that was on the to-do list !!.. we actually have an engine sample too!! :)

mmmmm, flat 4 burble. :D The Evo will sound a little dull though ;)

Looks good Trouser.

As a thought... It would be great for all us punters to be able to customise our cars online - by adding certain items on our cars (not our cars but examples of classics, new age, evo's, etc) - wheels, exhausts, spoilers, etc - bit like you can on Gran Turismo when you change the wheels, colours, etc of the cars.

I think that this would be pretty unique too.

Would take a lot of time and effort but the end result would be a huge hit.....

What do ya think??

thats really cool :cool: :D

I like the 3d garage model ;)

Funny that, I thought it was the old Scoobysport works... ;)

...or is that just the three "To Let" units on the end???? :confused:

as above a great home page that really grabs the attention. Just one thing though, could you make the mitsi crawl out of the garage, hence giving the impression that the scooby is quicker off the line

Not a lot happens when I click the car. When I mouse over either car, it pops out of the garage. But when I subsequently click...nothing.

Its a demo ;)

personally I dont like it.

but then it matches your taste in modding cars :D

David

great website layout, except small error on the page header it says welcolme to xlr9-devotion to motion (instead of xlr8!) only trying to help not nit picking tho! :D

Not too bad mate.. Although would`ve at least thought that the scoob that comes out the garage would be your own 22b. ;)

I don't like it... It's funky enough, but I think there's a reason why internet shops mostly have the same basic structure to them: people are used to them and therefore will know how to use them without being frustrated and go somewhere else... Remember that not everyone is an uber-geek :)

I like TerryB's idea with customizing cars online though, that's really cool :) Obviously if you're going to keep the design as it is, it needs to have buttons for 'Slamming da ride to da ground', neons etc etc :) Also, make sure that the pictures are of real cars with say pictures of real wheels automatically added to them, because if it's say a cartoony-looking subaru it will look weird with different wheels etc etc

I have to say that after putting much thought into whether or not i like it i'm giving it a http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/images/icons/icon14.gif. I'm really not usually a fan of gimicky sites but i do find that home page rather eye catching.

Only minor aesthetic suggestions i have is for a more subtle navigation panel and title header. I'd prefer smaller buttons in the nav bar and maybe stretch it along the foot of the page? Personally i'd shrink the title a little aswell as it's a little over powering. All in my own opinion of course!

Other than that i'd fix the rollovers (the popping-out of the cars) to be instant for browsers with slower connections (pre load the images). I'm sure if you really wanted to you could use Flash and have them roll out. ;) :cool: :D


On the whole though i like it. :)

Top job ! Nice to see sumthin different & a nice touch putting up a little preview :)

Chris

Thanks for all the positives guys!

After the amount of time that it takes to get all this together, its easy to loose sight of the 'initial impression' a design gives. Its a bad trait we designers are often quite good good at. :) so please keep the constructive criticisms coming too!

The actual shop itself is very much of the 'traditional' online store. With a very quick and easy navigational structure... The purpose of the craziness in the home page is simply to get you the right shop for you particular make... We dump you back in familiar territory then. There is also a shed load of 'normal' text to go on there (where, is another question!) - this is really just a test chucking all the rendered graphics together.

The current miss-focus is a good point though, and something which is a design issue, and needs some attention! Maybe writing "SHOP" on the roof... :cool: The buttons on the existing switch panel are for the more ancillary sections of the site.

Which kind of ties into:

Good idea Carl, funnily enough me and trouser were discussing this this afternoon. I got to get me a small screen too - Im always making things to big ;-) or going to far and making them too small.

Thinking more along the lines of something like this:

http://www.xlr8-xlr8.com/playground/rough.jpg

The images are already pre-loading, just that I haven't really looked at any of the optimisation yet... Flash is something were going to use to some degree. its likely there will be a html and a flash version. With the html version begin done first.

thanks again for all the kind words, all the feedback is much appreciated. And please keep letting us know about the things the bug you!

take it easy,
Tom

1280x1024 here by the way. :p :D We won't go into the white expanses around the sides... ;)

Seriously, i understand the reasons for building in your chosen resolution and will not criticise because of those reasons. :)

The second nav layout is more to my taste although i'd still shrink the buttons a touch - that's just me though, i like things to be neat and compact rather than large and 'clunky' even. I'd also lose the phone number, stick it in a seperate window or even a hidden layer (along with all the other contact details) and link it from the navbar. Or you could even link it from somewhere cunning in the main image! :cool: So long as it's obvious enough.

The other other gripe i have (and it is very minor) is the TSL banner doesn't follow the curvature of the armco. I'd guess straightening the barrier may be easier than bending the banner?

Again, top marks for a really individual initial design. And tell me to get lost if i'm annoying you. :o

PS: could you PM me the details of the program you used to design the main image?

Thanks, Carl.

looking good

:D

Looking good guys! Very original! :)

I would definitley like to see a section showing different alloy wheels on the cars, I have looked everywhere for websites that do this as I find trying to imagine what wheels suit the car very difficult, there don't seem to be many sites that do it (that I can find :rolleyes: ) and the ones that do are normally American sites that don't stock a lot of UK style wheels.

looks good so far and another vote for Trumpton :D

But use an Evo 8 and you're sorted guy!

paul whens the rolling road finished m8 ;)