We just finished a significant upgrade of our KathisKrystals.com website.
Although Kathi has handled upgrades on her own in the past, there was so much that needed to done this time that we hired a web developer for the job. We got lucky and picked a real pro.
Undergoing such a process with a website that is as important to us as is this one is, well, stressful to say the least. We have something like 40,000 photos on the site, and even though we always maintain backups, one just never knows for sure until the new site is up and running smoothly.
We have had to change web hosts in the past due to poor performance, and we do everything that we can to insure that the site is safe, fast, easy to understand, and simple to navigate. We sincerely believe that we have one of the most elegant rock and mineral websites going, and hope that you enjoy browsing the incredible stones.
The upgraded site has many important new features, many of which you will not see, and many of which you will.
Besides the many technical improvements, there are several features which make the site more user friendly and simply more fun. These include:
- The inclusion of Social Media in order to provide a more interactive nature to the site.
- The addition of this blog in order to provide more frequent and more in-depth communication to our clients.
- When looking at the various stones, the coolest new feature has to be what is called the “Lightbox”. When clicking through to one particular stone (on what we call an item page), if you click on any of the thumbnail photos of the piece, an enlarged picture will quickly open up in a very pretty window against a darkened background. Further, if you then click anywhere on the left or right side of that enlarged photo, the feature will immediately switch to the previous or next picture in the grouping.
- On any page where we show a list of all of the various offerings for one particular kind of stone (say Blue Lace Agate Palms), you now have the option of viewing that page in list or grid form. The default is set to list, but one quick click will change it to grid format if you so desire.
- Also on those same pages, there is now a drop down menu so that you can order the offerings in different ways. This is much like how one can order searched items on eBay.
- For our international clients there is a huge fix. Our previous shipping module, which is our connection to the U.S. Postal Service, did not offer First Class Shipping quotes for international orders… only Priority Mail which is prohibitively expensive for cross-border mailings. Our new module does offer International First Class shipping quotes.
- The page is now wider for easier and more typical viewing.
There are other smaller changes which, we think, make the site more pleasing to browse and easier on the eye.
If you ever have trouble with the website or have any suggestions as to how it could be improved, please do not hesitate to let us know. We want your visit to Kathi’s Krystals to be as enjoyable as it possibly can be.