I'll throw in my 2 or 3 cents on this one since, while I'm a numismatic newbie, I've been doing HTML and Web design work since 1996.
I like the site; it looks good, loads relatively quickly through my cable modem, and works fine in Firefox/PC and Safari/Mac. All big issues for me on the Web. Most importantly, it's fairly easy to find what you are looking for. And it avoids most of the Flash cliches that are rampant these days! This is one of the (unfortunately few) good uses of Flash I've seen. I would've liked to be able to reorder the columns, by price, grade, etc, but the basic functionality they need is there.
Having said that, however, I think they should've taken a serious look at their intended audience before they jumped willy-nilly into Flash-land. For instance, what is the mean system their client base is using? Just because two thirds of your audience has a P4/G4 and is on broadband doesn't take away from the fact that the remaining one third may have un-upgraded, seven-year old computers, on dialup using Netscape 3, since that's always worked for them. Why should they be forced to upgrade just because their favorite Web site decided it was time? Maintaining usability on the Web is a tough sell these days, with all the fun toys available, but it is still necessary. Decide on a lowest comon denominator system, and make sure that your site works with that.
As an example, I used to work for MyPoints.com, and we needed to test everything we sent to our users multiple times. We had a testing lab in 2001 that had everything from WebTV and Windows 95 to an original iMac and a brand new P3 laptop running Win2k. We ran browsers back to v2.0, multiple versions of AOL, and every combination we could think of. A job would not go out until we knew it would work for everyone. And you know what? Our user complaints dropped drastically once we started doing this! Every Web designer out there would do well to pick up a copy of Designing Web Usability, by Jakob Nielson. The 7th printing is a couple years old now, but the concepts are still valid.
As the design director at MyPoints was fond of saying, when confronted by a new idea (usually from someone in marketing): "Yeah, we could do that. But why would we want to?" If you can't come up with a better reason than "it's cool" and "everybody's doing it," trash the idea!
To get back to Pinnacle, it is a good site, but not very accessible, and it probably doesn't degrade gracefully. If they surveyed their audience and that's what 90% want/can use, then great! More power to 'em! As long as they're comfortable alienating/losing some portion of their client base (And, since they're using .asp, they don't mind one typo bringing down a whole page, if not the entire site!). They could have just as easily done a database driven, but wholly html-built site that would've looked about the same and would've avoided these issues...if issues they actually are.
/steps off soapbox
//I gotta admit, that magnifying glass thing is cool and useful!
Should go with a CSS-based layout. It'll degrade gracefully in even the oldest browser - yet look good today and be easily updateable for the future. Only caveat is IE doesn't treat CSS the way every other browser does (to standards) and most still use it. So much so that my company recently stated they'll only code sites we make to IE standards - forget the rest - too much time wasted fixing the minor glitches that surface.
I dislike it too and have already cut my time their in half. After waiting minutes for a photo to show up I gave up and left. Prior to this it only took a few seconds....which is still on the slow side. The old site worked perfectly fine imo. Why money was spent to make something useful "worse" is beyond my comprehension.
Another comment: when I go to a retail dealer site (Pinnacle, Legend, Whitlow, Lawrence, Albanese, Delaware Valley, RCNH, Laibstain, Northeast, Alpine, Aspen, David Hall, etc etc etc) what I mainly care about is: "Show me the inventory !!!!!" (by series, with pics) ..... and "Show me the newps !!!!!"
When I go to an auction site (ANR, Bowers, Goldberg, Heritage, Superior, Stack's) what I mainly care about is: "Show me the auction lots !!!!" (by series, with pics)
The rest is just a sideshow.
So, the faster you get me to the coins I want to see, the better. That means reducing the number of clicks or amount of navigation required to get there. Some sites (like David Lawrence or Teletrade) allow you to save searches with specific criteria. You can then bookmark those links. Thus, with one click from my browser's "Favorites" menu, I can go right into toned PCGS Morgan dollars at David Lawrence. (Of course, if they don't have any coins that I want, no website can improve that !!!!! And the coin selections at Pinnacle have always been great !!!)
Now, I just visited Pinnacle's website again, and I am getting used to it. Maybe some of us are just such old curmudgeons that we hate any kind of change, especially when it comes to something we LIKE. So Todd, maybe all this fuss just shows that people like what Pinnacle has been doing ....
As a loyal customer of Doug and Pinnacle, the change in website functionality is not going to drive me away. Heck, they could get rid of the website entirely, and I would still shop there--the old fashion way. It does concern me that other potential customers are being annoyed by the new site, but as Lucy would say, "More Pinnacle for me!"
It's five additional clicks, but if you adblock the small images as they come up, you get the larger image, without the magnification-ready images, faster.
Now, Laura, admit it, did you sell Todd this system?
Todd, I have to say I don't care for the new design. As many have stated the magnifier is a joke. I would love to just click on the thumbnail and see a larger image. Also, I use to read your descriptions first to see if I even wanted to open the image. Now, I don't have that option. I don't like having to navigate 3 or 4 menus to finally get to the coin I'm looking for. On a positive note, I do like the search for new coins feature. John
I like the new site overall. Now if RYK would just loan me some dough so I can make more purchases, that would be even better.
Always took candy from strangers Didn't wanna get me no trade Never want to be like papa Working for the boss every night and day --"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
I completely agree, and this is something I've harped on for years. A commercial web site should be designed for ease of use and speed of loading, not as a showcase for some ego driven geek developer who wants to one-up his geek buddies.
Russ, NCNE >>
Wow, nice to know there are others out there who get it.
I've never been been on the Pinnacle site before so can't compare the old with the new. However, I don't have flash or macromedia on my machine and the site loaded pretty fast. I had no trouble getting around the site and again it was pretty fast. The large pictures jumped right up. I run firefox, Win XP Pro and have a cable modem so maybe that combination speeds things up.
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
The search feature isn't working properly--when I search coins up to a few hundred dollars in value, I get coins returned that are $15k and more. It's like I never searched for anything. You can't read the descriptions without clicking on the coin--then you have to wait for a new page to slowly load. I, like Tom, liked scanning the old site, and seeing what I wanted to look into by reading descriptions--now I have no idea if any given coin is worth a look or not. The site is, simply, much slower.
In the beginning, I was all positive, thinking that some server upgrades and small tweaks were on the way, fixing a few problems--that hasn't happened, and I'll be like many others--I don't like the site as it is.
My first post, being in the vernacular Jersey/hillbilly "patois" I sometimes use, came across pretty strong.
I have a new machine (not new to YOU guys) but it still is squoze down thru a 56k modem.
Since we all seem in agreement that "the coins speak for themselves" it just seems that getting them to the podium should be the primary aim.
Shoot, the BST forum is even a good format. IF....the seller puts SOME hint to the content in the title.
A "cut n paste" word processor document can do the job with links. And even so fast and manageable that it probably wouldn't even take a technical department to handle it.
But it would lack "glitz." I like Laibstain and Lawrence sites.
Lawrence: See the summary.....count the coins....read the description.....click for pic.....click pic for enlargement. The balance by phone if necessary.
Laibstain: Choose the series......read the list......click the stock number......WAIT for a download of the pic (tsk tsk) but there it is.
Site loads fast was up in about 1.5 secs. My station is over 5 years old. I do have DSL though. You people with old systms need to upgrade. It baffles me that people who drop $300 to $20,000 on coins every week or month won't bone up the $1400 to get a modern system or pay the $25/mo to get High Speed. One great coin find would be worth it. Those of you with 1000's of posts would save hours of time per week if you upgraded. When I went from dial up to DSL my surfing time was cut by 2/3rds. My time is worth that little investment.
Excluding coins, the internet world will leave you behind if you don't upgrade. You people amaze me.
"As most of you know, we have been working diligently on our new web site. While the site was launched late last month, we are still ironing out some of the inevitable issues that occur when new technology is introduced. We sincerely believe that we will soon have one of the most valuable sites for collectors in the coin industry. Among the improvements is a Log-in feature that allows clients to manage their own wantlists; a superior inventory search engine allowing the ability to save customized searches, as well as view those coins newly added to the site. We are also putting finishing touches to the client Purchase History access, which allows clients to view past purchases, including descriptions and images.
We have heard from some clients that the web site is slow to load, and we are working with our programmer to fix this issue. As a result of many clients’ comments, we are most likely removing the magnifier feature on the image page. The feedback we are receiving will influence the decisions we make about changes to the site, so please contact us with any of your comments. It is our goal to make this site, and Pinnacle Rarities itself, the one you turn to first when buying and selling your numismatic treasures."
I guess I am nuts, I like both the old and the new.
The magnifier should stay though. If you don't like it you don't have to use it. I like it because it gives me the ability to look closely at the cheeks of faces because that is important to me.
Pinnacle has tweaked the inventory pages of their website. As if in response to the forum, the inventory pages have an instant thumbnail image with the coin description and the ability to get a larger picture if you desire. The zooming feature has been removed (Yea!). Also, the photography is noticeably improved.
YES!! The site is really much better now, I bought the Lafayette pcgs 65 that is listed there and the image looks just like the coin. I have been brooding since Scott Schecter left Pinnacle but at least the new repaired site with the thumbnails has made it fun to go window shopping there again.
Comments
I like the site; it looks good, loads relatively quickly through my cable modem, and works fine in Firefox/PC and Safari/Mac. All big issues for me on the Web. Most importantly, it's fairly easy to find what you are looking for. And it avoids most of the Flash cliches that are rampant these days! This is one of the (unfortunately few) good uses of Flash I've seen. I would've liked to be able to reorder the columns, by price, grade, etc, but the basic functionality they need is there.
Having said that, however, I think they should've taken a serious look at their intended audience before they jumped willy-nilly into Flash-land. For instance, what is the mean system their client base is using? Just because two thirds of your audience has a P4/G4 and is on broadband doesn't take away from the fact that the remaining one third may have un-upgraded, seven-year old computers, on dialup using Netscape 3, since that's always worked for them. Why should they be forced to upgrade just because their favorite Web site decided it was time? Maintaining usability on the Web is a tough sell these days, with all the fun toys available, but it is still necessary. Decide on a lowest comon denominator system, and make sure that your site works with that.
As an example, I used to work for MyPoints.com, and we needed to test everything we sent to our users multiple times. We had a testing lab in 2001 that had everything from WebTV and Windows 95 to an original iMac and a brand new P3 laptop running Win2k. We ran browsers back to v2.0, multiple versions of AOL, and every combination we could think of. A job would not go out until we knew it would work for everyone. And you know what? Our user complaints dropped drastically once we started doing this! Every Web designer out there would do well to pick up a copy of Designing Web Usability, by Jakob Nielson. The 7th printing is a couple years old now, but the concepts are still valid.
As the design director at MyPoints was fond of saying, when confronted by a new idea (usually from someone in marketing): "Yeah, we could do that. But why would we want to?" If you can't come up with a better reason than "it's cool" and "everybody's doing it," trash the idea!
To get back to Pinnacle, it is a good site, but not very accessible, and it probably doesn't degrade gracefully. If they surveyed their audience and that's what 90% want/can use, then great! More power to 'em! As long as they're comfortable alienating/losing some portion of their client base (And, since they're using .asp, they don't mind one typo bringing down a whole page, if not the entire site!). They could have just as easily done a database driven, but wholly html-built site that would've looked about the same and would've avoided these issues...if issues they actually are.
/steps off soapbox
//I gotta admit, that magnifying glass thing is cool and useful!
Do you haters also dislike the ANR website? It's very similar.
The old site worked perfectly fine imo. Why money was spent to make something useful "worse" is beyond my comprehension.
roadrunner
When I go to an auction site (ANR, Bowers, Goldberg, Heritage, Superior, Stack's) what I mainly care about is: "Show me the auction lots !!!!" (by series, with pics)
The rest is just a sideshow.
So, the faster you get me to the coins I want to see, the better. That means reducing the number of clicks or amount of navigation required to get there. Some sites (like David Lawrence or Teletrade) allow you to save searches with specific criteria. You can then bookmark those links. Thus, with one click from my browser's "Favorites" menu, I can go right into toned PCGS Morgan dollars at David Lawrence. (Of course, if they don't have any coins that I want, no website can improve that !!!!! And the coin selections at Pinnacle have always been great !!!)
Now, I just visited Pinnacle's website again, and I am getting used to it. Maybe some of us are just such old curmudgeons that we hate any kind of change, especially when it comes to something we LIKE. So Todd, maybe all this fuss just shows that people like what Pinnacle has been doing ....
Sunnywood
Sunnywood's Rainbow-Toned Morgans (Retired)
Sunnywood's Barber Quarters (Retired)
It's five additional clicks, but if you adblock the small images as they come up, you get the larger image, without the magnification-ready images, faster.
Now, Laura, admit it, did you sell Todd this system?
I have to say I don't care for the new design. As many have stated the magnifier is a joke. I would love to just click on the thumbnail and see a larger image. Also, I use to read your descriptions first to see if I even wanted to open the image. Now, I don't have that option. I don't like having to navigate 3 or 4 menus to finally get to the coin I'm looking for. On a positive note, I do like the search for new coins feature.
John
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
<< <i>topstuff,
I completely agree, and this is something I've harped on for years. A commercial web site should be designed for ease of use and speed of loading, not as a showcase for some ego driven geek developer who wants to one-up his geek buddies.
Russ, NCNE >>
Wow, nice to know there are others out there who get it.
Ken
Old site much better!!!
Guess it's because I'm from a "red state".
I like the overall look--that's appealing... BUT
I don't like:
The search feature isn't working properly--when I search coins up to a few hundred dollars in value, I get coins returned that are $15k and more. It's like I never searched for anything.
You can't read the descriptions without clicking on the coin--then you have to wait for a new page to slowly load. I, like Tom, liked scanning the old site, and seeing what I wanted to look into by reading descriptions--now I have no idea if any given coin is worth a look or not.
The site is, simply, much slower.
In the beginning, I was all positive, thinking that some server upgrades and small tweaks were on the way, fixing a few problems--that hasn't happened, and I'll be like many others--I don't like the site as it is.
Jeremy
I have a new machine (not new to YOU guys) but it still is squoze down thru a 56k modem.
Since we all seem in agreement that "the coins speak for themselves" it just seems that getting them to the podium should be the primary aim.
Shoot, the BST forum is even a good format. IF....the seller puts SOME hint to the content in the title.
A "cut n paste" word processor document can do the job with links. And even so fast and manageable that it probably wouldn't even take a technical department to handle it.
But it would lack "glitz." I like Laibstain and Lawrence sites.
Lawrence:
See the summary.....count the coins....read the description.....click for pic.....click pic for enlargement. The balance by phone if necessary.
Laibstain:
Choose the series......read the list......click the stock number......WAIT for a download of the pic (tsk tsk) but there it is.
ANYTHING but "23 items loading" is fine.
?????????????
Excluding coins, the internet world will leave you behind if you don't upgrade. You people amaze me.
<< <i>You people amaze me >>
You WOULD be amazed at what my old 56k modem can find. Suggest you upgrade your contact base.
"As most of you know, we have been working diligently on our new web site. While the site was launched late last month, we are still ironing out some of the inevitable issues that occur when new technology is introduced. We sincerely believe that we will soon have one of the most valuable sites for collectors in the coin industry. Among the improvements is a Log-in feature that allows clients to manage their own wantlists; a superior inventory search engine allowing the ability to save customized searches, as well as view those coins newly added to the site. We are also putting finishing touches to the client Purchase History access, which allows clients to view past purchases, including descriptions and images.
We have heard from some clients that the web site is slow to load, and we are working with our programmer to fix this issue. As a result of many clients’ comments, we are most likely removing the magnifier feature on the image page. The feedback we are receiving will influence the decisions we make about changes to the site, so please contact us with any of your comments. It is our goal to make this site, and Pinnacle Rarities itself, the one you turn to first when buying and selling your numismatic treasures."
The magnifier should stay though. If you don't like it you don't have to use it. I like it because it gives me the ability to look closely at the cheeks of faces because that is important to me.
Oh well, guess I will get along without it.
I don't understand the displeasure....
More coins for you DSL'ers.
Other sites are just super FAST for dial up.
I just am more selective now and don't view as many coins.
An "audience" problem more than anything else, I think.
Commems and Early Type
K S