This is the first individual plugin review I have done, and it was prompted by the beautiful simplicity and elegance of the Star Rating plugin by eyn at Channel-Ai. The plugin that eyn’s created is very easy to use, but has a whole selection of features and options that you can use if you have more advanced needs.

Adding a rating to a post is nice and intuitive…

[rating:3.5] = Rating:

…and a plethora of fraction and decimal options are supported: [rating:3/4], [rating:3/5], [rating:82/100] , [rating:4.5], etc.

The little stars can be changed to any other image that you may desire, and the plugin will output text ratings for RSS feeds. If you prefer just plain text ratings site-wide, then you can customise it to that end as well. By default database writing is turned off, but I’d recommend anyone intending to heavily use the plugin to enable it.

For more information and to download the plugin, visit Channel-Ai’s page on the Star Rating for Reviews plugin.

I wanted to do a little web design showcase this week. I’ve just finished working on a small site for a B&B located on the Gold Coast, Australia. The aim was to make a simple, yet effective design to showcase the features of Waddiwong House.The site runs on Drupal, so there is a very solid CMS behind it, which will make updating a breeze.

Icons were custom made for the design, and the colour choices used throughout the site are fairly neutral and relaxing. So if you are interested in booking a holiday house for your next trip, then Waddiwong House may be something to look into.

Update: Domain has been changed to http://www.goldcoastbedbreakfast.com.au/

Well I have set aside $100 to see what I can do with some Google ads sending people to a site with RocketProfit offers and promotions.

It’s not an extravagant amount, it’s really quite modest, but if I can’t make it work with $100, then it isn’t going to work any better with $1000.

So I have set up a few landing pages, tried to make them as human-friendly as possible, and hooked up some Google ads to get people to the sites (where the budget comes in). I have tried the whole idea before with some other affiliate networks and the last attempt was just awful. The particular affiliate network I was part of had an issue with reporting or something during that period and not a single click or hit was recorded. Nothing. So all the money spent on Google ad campaigns then just went to nothing.

We will see how it goes. If you have any tips or advice be sure to let me know. I’ll post with my experiences and learnings as it goes along, and hopefully by the end, I’ll be ahead.

I wanted to share the very first question from an ICT competency skills test (that’s right, at the end of this test you are graded, and if you have scored well enough, judged ‘competent’). Well only one thing is really clear, the testers are certainly incompetent.

The test is trivial, pointless and utter rubbish. The questions are inane and any infant who has used a computer could pass. What’s worse is that some questions are grammatically and technically incorrect (going something along the lines of: “which of these items can you use to control the computer: mouse, microphone, sledge hammer, screen, a computer application - pick one”. Urgh. the mouse is correct but you could use all of the other three to control the computer - I just don’t recommend the hammer).

Anyway, it was funny and an easy way to get a perfect score on an exam. Enjoy the screen capture of the first question, there were another 72 just like it ;-).

I was just reading Smashing Magazine’s post on good and bad shopping cart designs when I get a call from an associate asking if I can critique an online ordering system that a company had recently developed. Coincidence?

So I went to the website (which I’m not going to post here, because the business is nice enough but their ordering system is not nearly up to scratch) and… I couldn’t find how to order online.

Well that’s a bad sign. I looked again. And there, in the top right hand corner of the website was a little rectangular ad for online orders. It looked like an ad, it was an ad, and so my eyes just skimmed right over it. I had gone straight to the menu bar and couldn’t find it there.

Tip #1: Make sure it’s obvious how to get to your online shop. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel, a menu (as in navigation, not food menu) is used for a reason, and that is to link people to other aspects of your site. If an important part of your site isn’t obviously accessible from the menu then people might miss it.

Okay, well now that I found it I decided to dive in and try ordering for myself using the system.

“Sorry, your postcode is not accepted, here’s a confusing error screen that seems to imply that you can enter your address in full instead but all the fields are disabled”. Ouch. From one hurdle to the next. I understand that there might be a limited service area for delivery, but if you then provide those people with text boxes below the error message (disabled because the postcode wasn’t in the delivery area), you are just confusing them. The boxes asked for my address, which I tried to provide but I couldn’t enter anything into them. Nice, obvious, linear ordering structures will keep people happy. It may not be exciting or creative, but people want something familiar when they’re handing over money. If their location means that they can’t use the system then tell them that and provide them with another option, don’t just leave them stranded.

Tip #2: Direct your customer where you want them to go in each step. Don’t leave them alone, isolated and confused.

For the sake of testing the system I then found a postcode that the company did service. Up came those text boxes again for my address, but this time they were enabled. Okay, that’s fine - it wants my address. I enter in a street I found using Google Maps and it then says: “Sorry! We haven’t yet had an order from that street. Please place an order via [phone number]”.

No. That’s just making the process even harder. I don’t want to have to now call you to place my order, I expect you to accept the street address or at least check it against a database of streets in the area, rather than one you have compiled from a limited number of past orders.

Tip #3: Do not make the customer jump through hoops to order your products

The ordering process so far was looking bad.

Well I then found a street that it would accept (someone must have used it before for an order). I got to progress through to ordering the products that I wanted. There was a nice visual selection of what was available, so I clicked one that looked interesting and up pops another window with about two dozen optional extra choices to customise it. Sure, giving the user choice is good, but only give them that much choice if they ask for it. I just wanted the standard issue, not something customised ad nauseum.

Tip #4: Sometimes less is more. Options are good, but only when people want them and know what to do with them.

The rest of the process went sufficiently smoothly, but I was not happy with the system as a whole. It might have worked on paper, sure it may be logical for people fairly technologically savvy, and sure it made things easier coding up the backend, but by the end of it all the process was driving away customers and costing sales.

So that is why you should check your online ordering systems to make sure they are straightforward and obvious to use. Then you’ll have very happy customers.

Do you have any similar experiences with an incredibly frustrating checkout process? Or have you found one that pulled it off perfectly? Comment about it below.

I’m sure everyone out there has probably heard by now about the latest security vulnerability in WP. It’s a nasty one too, letting registered users edit your posts.

You can either update the whole installation (there are a couple of bug fixes in the release as well) or download a new version of xmlrpc.php (which will fix the security hole).