Makeover: The Toymaker of Williamsburg
	The main thing we attempted to do is get the page into a size that is printable. Consumer research is showing that a large percentage of consumers of packaged goods will print the page, or at least do screen captures. The original page is unprintable and it took us 9 screen captures just to show you the whole page. You webcrafters out there need to read the latest GUV Survey. 1) Logo much smaller, present an inviting headline. (Caslon Antique, of course, mainly because I've never heard of a Garamond antique.) 2) Lets start loading inviting toy copy as soon as possible. We want to hook and keep those readers. 3) All the toy pictures reduced and compressed as small as possible. We want them cranking in there as fast as the modem will send them. We rendered them down to a uniform 125 pixel width to keep the column consistent. 4) Move the descriptions closer to the toys. (Remember: things that belong together should be close together. In the before, the descriptions were too far away from the pictures.) We'll also do a little wordsmithing of the text so it's less telegraphic and perks up the user benefits. (Here's the actual make-over sample page)
5) Allow blow-ups of the pictures in separate windows. This lets them see details if they want. We yearned for larger, more clear pictures for the pop-ups -- which can be as large as 40K if need be. Shots of boxed goods should be large and clear enough to read the main labeling -- for shelf recognition. 6) Push the ordering detail toward the bottom, clean it up and compress it. A separate "Ordering" page would facilitate in the nitty-gritty, so ordering detail could be eliminated. We kept it here since it was on the original page. Overall: * Tighten the page, eliminating trapped white space * Sell the products with a more friendly hand * Get content on the screen as soon as possible. We liked the Toymaker of Williamsburg, and all resolved that if we were buying toys this year, and the Toymaker offered appropriate products for our recipients, we would purchase there rather than the mass merchandisers -- even if we had to pay a few more percents. Hope you enjoyed this review! Also see the reader review of Toymaker

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