Hey, I need some help. I am going to totally overhaul the Dark Sword site as it has been over 5 years since we built our V 2.0 site that you see now. I want to really streamline things and make the online store much stronger (smaller pics for easier scrolling). This will be a whole new site from the ground up. The mini gallery pages for each miniature will remain intact (with nice large painted pics), but everything else will get overhauled from scratch.

Please let me know what you like and do not like about our site. This way, we will know what things to stay the course on (except improve the look/feel) and what things to change. You can also drop me an email with your thoughts as well. The site was really cool and in balance until about 2-3 years ago when our catalog started to grow quite a bit each year. The site has gotten a tad bloated and is busting at the seams in certain areas and looks cluttered in other areas (in my opinion). Any feedback is appreciated.

Sound off folks!

Regards,

Jim
www.DarkSwordMiniatures.com

Hi Jim,

I do like your front page a lot - at least the layout. Big pictures of what's new, the date of the last update and in short words the news - everything important at a glance, that's very convenient for visitors who check your web site on a regular basis, which I obviously do ;-)

Your navigation is quite neat - except for the subnavigation of "Miniature Lines". The different entry points to the miniature details are a bit confusing. At least for the Elmore and Parkinson miniature lines there are three more or less short ways to get to the miniature pictures - the links labeled "Elmore Masterworks" and "Parkinson Masterworks" just lead to the boxed sets (with their "View the miniatures"-links) - whereas all the single miniatures are listed in the "Gallery", those ways are redundant - and then there is always the online store itself. The most important pages for me (besides your home page of course) are the details of each miniature. Why not making it all one and offering to put an item in the shopping cart directly from each page with the detailled description of the miniature? Users tend to browse on one-way tracks. But now, after they found the detail page of a cool mini they still have to go back, enter the store and need to find it anew in the store.

One of the most important things to preserve are the URIs, I think. You can never tell who's got links to the old URI and you've got tons of cool stuff and pictures on these pages here, so it'd be a shame if all the links and bookmarks were broken once you've redesigned your pages. Since you intend to keep the mini gallery pages this might not be a problem at all since these make the large part of your web site but I think it might be a good idea to keep an eye on that. Designing the URIs is so inconspicuous and as a consequence often uncared for yet it is so important, I think.

I'm looking forward to seeing your new web site.

All the best,
Ralph

This is awesome feedback Ralph and I was actually considering the concept of simply adding "Add to Cart" on each mini page.

This info will for sure be used as we resdesign the site.

Regards,

Jim
www.DarkSwordMiniatures.com

I know it's been quite a while since you asked for feedback on this, but hopefully it's not yet too late to chime in and hopefully help out...

A way to search/sort/filter the items available in the online store would make shopping here a lot less troublesome. Just try and see how much work it would take to purchase all the frog minis through your site and you'll see what I mean. Especially for someone who isn't already familiar with all the frog minis to begin with! Finding 9 of them together in the ViF gallery didn't make it any easier; in fact it just made me spend an hour or more hunting through gallery entries to find the missing king and queen (which I only knew to try due to already being a little bit familiar with the frog court minis) - finding the mention of Parkinson Frogs and King Ploogak in the blurb atop the jester's gallery page was a major A-Ha! moment, but turned out to be disappointing and misleading since the Parkinson Gallery showed no sign of them. Eventually I found them (by sheer chance, after accidentally hitting the PgDn key a couple of times then scrolling the wrong way trying to get back to where I had been) in the Limited Edition minis gallery, but there's still no easy way to find them all in the store itself, and no way to be sure you haven't missed some even if you do somehow find them there. The online store link at the top of the gallery's group of 9 frogs was equally disappointing, as it just goes to the top of the whole store and you have to scroll through the entire catalogue to find the well-scattered frog minis.

I was only searching for them to see how difficult it might be to buy them all though, so as to be able to post this example - not to actually buy them. If I had really been shopping, I know I would have given up much sooner.

'Add to cart' buttons in the gallery are a must-add feature, I agree, but it wouldn't have made it any easier to find the king and queen, or to determine how many minis there are available in the frog line. So IMO a search feature (in both galleries and store, ideally) is also needed. Something similar to the Figure Finder over on Reaper's site would be great. Then I could just type in "frog" (or ie. "GRRM") and start clicking everything that turns up directly into my shopping cart. "Cha-ching," at your end, in other words.

Hopefully you'll find this helpful,

Jeff

This is great feedback. Our Online Store is really bloated and ungainley to be honest and it is all my fault.

I will for sure take this feedback into our site redesign

Regards and thanks again for taking the time to provide such great feedback.

Jim
www.DarkSwordMiniatures.com

Just some food for thought - if it is at all possible, it would be helpful to have the items in the Cart link back to their Mini Gallery (i.e. click on the item # or description to open the appropriate Gallery)... or to have a thumbnail image of the mini in the cart display. This way it would be easier to see what is what at the end of browsing... and to make sure a shopper actually grabbed all the minis they were after.

Please--could you possibly add pics of all the separate mini pieces/weapons choices for each miniature? i.e.--the GRRM Gold Cloak with both sword/shield/spear/cudgel options so one knows what their getting in the blister? This would be quite helpful in my opinion.
Thanks,
Juba

I like that idea! Not only for the resons you gave, but also because it's just one short step away from being able to order the bits themselves online separately as well, which would be sort of cool for anyone looking to, say, build a well-stocked goldcloak weapon rack for a diorama, or convert a mini to represent Rorge wearing the Hound's helmet, or what have you...

Jeff

Nitpickiest suggestion so far and probably way more specific than you wanted:

I just noticed you've got colour scheme info from GRRM for Brienne on the page that has all the pictures of her - why not add this to the Official colour schemes and commentary section of the GRRM line's main page, which hasn't been updated (at least not there) since Wave 1? You also were kind enough to dig some other colour scheme info (for Wildlings in general, Goldcloaks, Lannister Lady in Waiting, Mance, and Dany (well, her dragons anyhow)) out of some old GRRM emails that Matt Verzani used in painting your studio models and post it in a thread where I'd asked about it at some point. It might not sell more minis for you, but it'd sure make a nice reference for people painting them to see all of this in one place.

Jeff

Here's an idea.

Dark Sword offers a discount for purchasing "boxed sets" rather than individual minis.

Why not allow customers to create their own box sets for the same discount price. For instance, say that if a person purchases 10 minis of his/her choice (or whatever number you think is best), that person gets a discount similar to that of a boxed set.

Jim
my little input into an otherwise great Web site! ill go along with the what others have said, i'd love to see a painting referance page, and maybe if time and space allows, painting tips etc, hope thats not too much hassle! Cheers: Gerry.

These are all great comments/ideas and will be brought to the table for the Dark Sword 3.0 site.

Thanks again and keep them coming.

Warm Regards,

Jim
www.DarkSwordMiniatures.com