Suggestions on How to Improve SmugMugs User Interface

MarianaMariana Registered Users Posts: 14 Big grins
edited July 21, 2010 in SmugMug Support
Suggestions on How to Improve SmugMugs User Interface :thumb



SUGGESTION # 1:

I think that SmugMug should incorporate more features to help customers and SmugMug users have a better shopping experience. One thing I would like suggest is a Visual Representation of the Merchandise Menu. From my point of view, if I purchase a T-shirt or a Mug or any kind of product, I would like to see what the image will look like on the T-shirt or Mug before I purchase it. People are more likely to buy products when they see what the image will look like on the product they are buying. Having merchandise without a visual representation is like shopping with a blindfold on. :hide

The option to rotate and scale the image should also be available on the visual representations of the product with the image the customer will choose. Just like the customer has the option to crop and adjust the image when buying prints, they should also be able to do the same on the visual representation of the product they are applying the image to.


Having complete adjustment control of what the image will look on the product they selected is a great option for the customer. This will really give SmugMug users and customers a visual idea of what they are buying and make adjustments to their products. This improvement may help generate more sales of products for all SmugMug users.

Products (Merchandise) are much more likely to sell when the customer knows what the products they are purchasing look like. If I was buying a Mug, I would want to know what the Mug will look with my kid on it before I buy it – and I would also like the option to scale, and crop, the image on the mug, shirt, button, mouse pad ect. This concept also applies to prints. People who are not familiar with Giclee Canvas Prints, or Metal Prints or Thin Wraps are NOT very likely to buy them because they have no idea what they are spending so much money on. Without a visual representation people have no idea what they are going to get. I like the idea of what you see is what you get. When people SEE a product they like they will most likely get it. :clap


Unless the customer is familiar with all the high quality prints products and knows their individual value, they will not jump on the opportunity to purchase them, and to average customers the high prices may even scare them away. People need to SEE when they are shopping that Giclee Canvas Prints are truly Museum Quality prints and are worth the extra money. There are no images on SmugMugs shopping cart that show the professional quality of the prints like canvas or metal ect. when a customer is trying to purchase them. I think the overall structure of the shopping cart lacks visual representations, and needs a great deal of improvement in the visual department. :help



SUGGESTION # 2:

I think SmugMug should offer beautiful Templates that don’t display the SmugMug logo on them so that users can have a more professional look to their custom photo albums, I also believe that a much larger variety of templates should be offered. SmugSmug offers the option to remove the Smug Mug Logo for Pro Users but it doesn’t give users professional looking templates that are free to use without the SmugMug logo. I think the option to remove the SmugMug logo is not helpful when the logo is stamped on the templates; I don’t think Pro Users who pay for the service should have to choose from a small list of branded templates. Some of my favorite templates on SmugMug all have the SmugMug logo on it. It would be great if SmugMug would offer hundreds of templates for users to choose from instead of a few and the best ones are all branded. :deal



SUGGESTION # 3:


Sometimes in a gallery a SmugMug user may want to set prices for individual images. I think SmugMug should create a system where the images can be selected individually. Currently if a user wants to set prices on individual images, they have to go though the entire album, then go to set prices for the image, then select the image in the set prices menu, then set the prices for that image, then save the prices for that image, and then repeating this process for every image they want to price individually; this process can get very frustrating if a person has many images they want to price individually.

SmugMug should incorporate a system similar to the select to remove images system, letting the user set his/her prices for individual images by selecting them, instead of going through the entire menu dozens of times to change prices for individual images. I think it would be much more effective if SmugMug users could simply select the images they want to apply the individual prices to, have a simple drop down menu to select their prices, and with a few clicks they are done pricing the individual images. It will save a lot of time and frustration for the users and is worth the improvement. :encore


SUGGESTION # 4:

I have a photo gallery lagging concern. When viewing images of others SmugMug users and viewing my own images, I noticed that there is a pause between viewing each image, and as a result people have to wait for the image to show up, and sometimes the image doesn’t show up at all. Sometimes, I have to wait a long time, go back to the previous image and hope when I go to the next one, the image will finally show up. The images need to be much more fluid, and be available to view much, much, much faster when people are viewing them in order to keep the interest of the viewer. :snore



SUGGESTION # 5:


Before checking out and paying for the order, the customer has the option to adjust and crop the image. My suggestion is to improve this option because some customers tend to overlook this and the result is cropped feet, and parts of the image are cut off.

I know there is an image delay option allowing users to improve the cropping but I have a concern about the delay option. If the customer intended to crop parts of the image, how would the SmugMug user really know? Maybe the customer saw a picture two chairs and they chose to crop out one of the chairs. To the SmugMug user it may seem like the image was cropped wrong, but the user had no idea that was an intentional crop by the custome and it’s what the customer wanted, resulting in an unhappy customer. When the item says; this image needs to be cropped at checkout, it doesn’t make it obvious how the image will be cropped. I think the adjust option and the image previews need to be larger so the person can see clearly where the image will be cropped and ho it will be cropped. :dunno



IMPORTANT QUESTION ???


Recently, I noticed that sometimes the option to BUY THIS PHOTO is grayed out, is there a reason for that? Why is such an important buy option grayed out sometimes? I looked at other users SmugMug pages and noticed the same problem, when I went to buy this photo, the option was grayed out. Customers cannot purchase prints from SmugMug users if the BUY THIS PHOTO option is NOT AVAILABLE???????????????


I hope the SmugMug development team will address these issues to help improve the overall experience for people.


Thank you

~Mariana

:s85
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