A comparison test

[fisicx]

Which one looks better?

http://clean.testblog.co.uk/

http://onepage.aerin.co.uk/

I sort of know the answer already but it's good to get a second opinion

And can you tell me what device you used (phone, tablet, desktop, microwave, airfreshener)

 

[Kelly Drewett]

Hey @fisicx,

I am on desktop, but I minimised my browser so I could see the mobile version too.

I like aerin.co.uk best. The buttons are bigger, and I can see a landscape logo looking good at the top. Have you tried making it full width, and having the navigation system next to the logo to bring the body text up a bit? Google does look for instant information for the user.

If you are looking for good search results maybe put the 3 images underneath an intro paragraph.

I think aesthetically it is a matter of personal taste though

 

[NewGardenStyle]

The second one. Purely because it's visually more appealing.

Viewed on a laptop, which I reduced down in size.

 

[fisicx]

OK, so left the onepage alone but have been tweaking the variant.

This one: http://clean.testblog.co.uk/
Or this one: http://onepage.aerin.co.uk/

The customizer lets you change the colours, header, page layout, background images and switch back to the single page homepage.

 

[Kelly Drewett]

Looking good!

 

[aflat9]

Aerin. Much cleaner - better fonts!

 

[fisicx]

It's the same fonts, same colours and same content. All I did was centre the header and make the headers a little smaller.

So this demonstrates how small differences can make a big change to people's perceptions.

 

[Kelly Drewett]

I would totally agree with that. The tiniest changes are needed to make a site look and feel how you want it to. Compressing the header helped a lot.

 

[scdirect]

Can i say neither?
Very very basic templates... Whats the website for?

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Another vote for the second too, good work.

Nice looking theme.

Personally for the image popup I'd prefer there to be a gap from the top of the window, so it's not at 0 height.

Also I think the hover states for your buttons look better.

I guess you could have been trying to avoid too much blue, and I see you're carrying over the header/grey colour, but I'd be tempted to switch the hover state and normal state.

Also I'd go for white or grey on the charcoal rather than the blue font.
I'm not sure blue on charcoal works, and the contrast is rather low.

I would probably use the hover state as the normal state, and then have a darker/slate/purple blue like the shade created by the grey semi transparent header on the blue background as the hover state, with the text still white.

Perhaps the same for the Top button, or at least keep the text of the Top button white.

And I'd apply the same hover states used in the header for the footer links - they currently don't change.

For the text boxes I'd be tempted to use a more subtle border, or none.

Most of the theme has clean borderless blocks, so I'd be tempted to extend that styling.

Could do with a higher res background as well.

Looks good though!

Dan

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Also, apologies, realise you didn't ask for general comments.
I prefer aerin, and viewed on a desktop (although did squish the browser for both to test).

 

[fisicx]

Very very basic templates... Whats the website for?

Very very basic because umpteen tests over many years have shown the simpler the site the higher the conversions. The website is just a showcase for the theme - it has no other purpose.

@Dan_HiHosting - I agree about the images, the hovers and other styling features - they are still a work in progress. As to the background - making it more high res means a bigger filesize and I'm trying to keep everything compact (for now). The whole theme weighs in at a tad over 600Kb - and 400kb of that is images and the font files. The homepage is loading in under 2 seconds (testing from Dallas) with only 24 requests so it's pretty efficient. Pingdom is telling me the site loading in under a second from Sweden. And if I drop the analytics it drops another 300ms.

I've just undone some tweaks and now the only difference between the two is the header centering. Still prefer aerin to testblog?