GOG website - cant find any diamonds?

[idealbrand]

I am following along and doing my best to review everyone's concerns, the old site can be viewed on archive.org, its not a perfect version but it is generally a good reference, see here: https://web.archive.org/web/20150802035611/http://www.goodoldgold.com/ecommerce/diamonds/round.html

I can update the layout to be more like this: http://www.goodoldgold.com/mock/gog-diam2.jpg

We were discussing this version and having the option to switch back and forth from list to grid view.

As for the education its my understanding we did transfer it and even kept a very similar menu structure however we organized the pages to be much more clean and easy to read while not losing any content. Please see our example here and let me know if I have missed something, we did work the better part of a year and hundreds of hours, we really put forth quite a bit of effort and we really felt we did a good job but there is always room for improvement and I am all ears.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150808044312/http://www.goodoldgold.com/diamondcolor.html
http://www.goodoldgold.com/diamondcolor

The speed of the site is tested daily using fairly costly software named New Relic, and to get a bit technical and nerdy we have a $40,000 server in place, we are switching from west coast to central america to ensure better ping from anywhere in the USA, we run 5 levels of caching as well as CDN and we optimize all images, and minify CSS and JS, we are however in mid development and when we push through changes it does tend to run slow while building up the caching. We have 2 full time staff allocated to ensuring the speed as well as a dedicated team on our hosting end which monitor spikes, and our load balancer will pass traffic to the proper redundant web app server while all back end processing is handled by a 3rd server administration server. With all that tech stuff, if you do find it slow I would love feedback, such as browser and mac or windows which may help me pinpoint a flaw in our system.

One of the primary purposes for this website aside from a more visually appealing ascetic, which I feel is very very very far from Bluenile, was to ensure its friendliness on mobile and tablet devices, most of the rest of the site we feel has just been improved but again I am more interested in fixing specific problems than defend our current work, lets just make it better together!!

Thanks again!!!

 

[Garnetgirl]

I also found the old website easier to use. One thing I find annoying about the search function: You enter your parameters for cut/brand, carat, clarity etc and start searching. If you click on a specific diamond to see it more detail, when you try to return to where you left off, you are sent back to the beginning of the search. You must then re-enter your choices for cut, clarity, carat etc... A very frustrating waste of time.

 

[LLJsmom]

Ok, so I just tried to search for AVRs 1 carat and under. I selected August vintage round, and specified the other parameters. The result gave 121 diamonds, and it was every kind of round, not just AVR. I interpret that as NOT working.

To be blunt, it doesn't matter what you were trying to achieve, how many people you have working or monitoring the website full time, etc, the result is a non-functioning search engine. So with all respect to the company creating the new website, it doesn't work for the GOG's potential and current customers, which then completely defeats the , entire purpose of a website. It's not the job of the customers to "make it better". It is the job of GOG and the company they hire to work on their website to "make it work". If potential customers cannot navigate the site, they will just buy elsewhere, which is what I just did.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

I never, ever used the search on the old site that produces a written list of diamonds and I won't use it on this one, either. 100% of the time, I opened the page of all Ascendancy diamonds or AVR diamonds, cushions, etc. I sorted by weight, and then I could scan the diamonds easily. This is essential on fancy cuts, especially. I did mention this to Jon and expressed concern that the new site was launched before this was in place. He said he would work on it. I am glad to hear it will be soon.

 

[Garnetgirl]

I never, ever used the search on the old site that produces a written list of diamonds and I won't use it on this one, either. 100% of the time, I opened the page of all Ascendancy diamonds or AVR diamonds, cushions, etc. I sorted by weight, and then I could scan the diamonds easily. This is essential on fancy cuts, especially. I did mention this to Jon and expressed concern that the new site was launched before this was in place. He said he would work on it. I am glad to hear it will be soon.

That's how I used to search on the old website also. I usually sorted by carat weight, after specifying the type of diamond, for example, AVR, AVC. It was so easy to see all the diamonds show up with their images.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Ok, so I just tried to search for AVRs 1 carat and under. I selected August vintage round, and specified the other parameters. The result gave 121 diamonds, and it was every kind of round, not just AVR. I interpret that as NOT working.

To be blunt, it doesn't matter what you were trying to achieve, how many people you have working or monitoring the website full time, etc, the result is a non-functioning search engine. So with all respect to the company creating the new website, it doesn't work for the GOG's potential and current customers, which then completely defeats the , entire purpose of a website. It's not the job of the customers to "make it better". It is the job of GOG and the company they hire to work on their website to "make it work". If potential customers cannot navigate the site, they will just buy elsewhere, which is what I just did.

Did you click round and then go to brand and click AVR? In that case, all the rounds come up. If I click no shapes and go to brand and click AVR, the AVR's only come up. You do have to refresh in order to clear the last search.

But, this example illustrates how non-user friendly the search is.

 

[idealbrand]

Thank you for the great feedback, I do have several of the requests in production now and I am hoping to finish them today if possible.

Garnetgirl - We are working on setting a cookie or a url parameter so you can go back and be at the same results.

LLJsmom - We are making all shapes independent, I also agree the shapes function is complex and we will simplify it to be clickable as seen in this graphic at the top: http://www.goodoldgold.com/mock/gog-diam2.jpg

Further we do beta test and use study groups however Good Old Gold offers unique branded diamonds and we have been creating functions to ensure its success, we only appreciate your feedback and hopefully we are not causing you to feel its your job, I just wanted to express our gratitude towards your feedback as it is very helpful.

Diamondseeker2006 - This Search will be that you just click the shape and the diamonds below will filter down to only that shape, you can further sort by carat weight however we do default sort by carat weight smallest to largest, we can switch this easily to largest to smallest.
I do 100% agree with the shapes being very complex, round including all branded diamonds is difficult to find what your looking for.

I hope you guys stay tuned you will see your suggestions in place very soon.

 

[Gypsy]

https://web.archive.org/web/20150808044312/http://www.goodoldgold.com/diamondcolor.html
http://www.goodoldgold.com/diamondcolor



Thanks again!!!

I can't find the VS and SI clarity tutorials. The links above were not helpful.

 

[Rhino]

Greetings PS friends

THANK YOU FOR THE COMMENTS. John, whom you've met is attentive and let me just say ... your input is motivating as it inspires this IT team to get the job done as quickly as possible and truly there is nothing more than I want than to make it as PS friendly as possible. Nobody knows searching sites like you guys.

John, please take note of the user comments. You will not find better input than you will here.

Peeps... thank you kindly for your patience as we get the issues taken care of. I sincerely can't thank you all enough.

Warm regards,
Jonathan

 

[arkieb1]

I went to the archived page (the previous site) and here are the searches I did timed by my Iphone.

Search 1 - 1.02 I VS1 Octavia, found two clicks in around 5 seconds old site. Your new site, I clicked on the Asscher Icon, zip. Can't find the stone. Put that one in the fail basket.

Search 2 - 1.36 J SI1 August Vintage Round. 2 clicks and then I had to scroll down the page. Scrolling down the page meant it took me longer, this took 7 to 8 seconds and I found a stone with the imaginary specs I wanted. Your site, I clicked on rounds, get a page of Round brilliants only, no custom cut rounds, once again epic fail.

Search 3 - 1.26 I VS2 Ascendancy round with H & A, two clicks and scrolling down the page and hey presto again around 7 seconds and I find a stone that fits my criteria. Your new site which has RBS should have been easy to use, instead because I don't bother to waste time to put in the margins of colour and clarity I want, the pages shows me all the smaller stones first, I don't even get to a page with stones as big as 1 carat in 7 seconds or less. Again epic fail.

I am one of the people that used the search engine on the old site before especially for things like fancy shapes like pears, ECS and so on for new people looking for them on here.

But like the others if I was ever after a custom cut and even RBs I used to just go to the page of in house stones, click on the one I wanted then scroll down if needed and hey presto in seconds I could find and link a stone in the potential customers price range. Now I have to put in specs for each stone which takes time. I am not saying this is not useful because it is but you need to start thinking about ease of use and speed of use as I have pointed out to you before.

I think the issue we are all pointing out is that you need to go back to having a page of in house stones people can find quickly and easily as well as a general search engine. It can only be classified as an improvement when it improves the ease of use for the customer, if you are going to amalgamate the two make it faster, better and easier to use. So far it's none of these.

 

[Gypsy]

I think the issue we are all pointing out is that you need to go back to having a page of in house stones people can find quickly and easily as well as a general search engine. It can only be classified as an improvement when it improves the ease of use for the customer, if you are going to amalgamate the two make it faster, better and easier to use. So far it's none of these.

Agree. It's not just the speed. It' the amount of clicks and the amount of effort on the users part. The old site allowed you to find what you needed quickly. Not because of loading speed. But because the organization of the site was more user friendly and you could get whatever you needed with two or three clicks of the mouse at most.

What I need is to be able to access the in house stones, of all colors and sizes and types and shapes, as easily as possible with the least amount of hunting.

 

[arkieb1]

I totally agree with Gypsy. My point is it's two fold ease and speed. The speed of finding anything now, as I was trying to demonstrate above is slower not faster because of the way the site is now set out, not because of page loading speed. It's now such a mess you can't find things easily or quickly. The site needs to have a section where users can find in house stones easily and a section where they can just generally look for a stone be it in house or ones they can call in. The same with the tutorial pages, they were much easier and faster to find before too and that was a product of the site layout being much more user friendly before the new changes.

 

[mrs-b]

I also found the old website easier to use. One thing I find annoying about the search function: You enter your parameters for cut/brand, carat, clarity etc and start searching. If you click on a specific diamond to see it more detail, when you try to return to where you left off, you are sent back to the beginning of the search. You must then re-enter your choices for cut, clarity, carat etc... A very frustrating waste of time.

This. Sends me out of my ever-lovin'.

 

[idealbrand]

I have a large update going in right now you may find many issues for the next couple hours during the update.

 

[puppyguts]

yep not good especially if you are after something specfic

click on avr from the main page, cant search for avr from this lnk

click on diamond search click round click avr, brings up all round... etc

 

[lknvrb4]

I am one of those who liked the old website better.

 

[MarionC]

Why are people still complaining?!
The issue is being resolved.

 

[rainydaze]

Oh thank goodness! I thought I was going nuts every time I tried to search on GOG. The new look is great, a lot more sophisticated... but that doesn't matter one whit when usability is zilch. Glad to hear it's being addressed and I look forward to the revamp.

 

[Arcadian]

One question I have isn't about the diamonds per se but about accessibility. I'm hoping that your team takes this into account and is using WCAG 2.0 Spec. Some of us use screen readers and/ or screen magnifiers (and even itty bitty phone screens!), so having accessible features is key. I'm more than happy to test out that functionality. FWIW, Pricescope isn't exactly accessibility friendly either but they also don't sell anything.

 

[Rhino]

Oh thank goodness! I thought I was going nuts every time I tried to search on GOG. The new look is great, a lot more sophisticated... but that doesn't matter one whit when usability is zilch. Glad to hear it's being addressed and I look forward to the revamp.

One of the reasons for the switch is how "mobile friendly" the new site will be. I agree, at this moment the former was more functional but I am praying this is all resolved quickly with images as the default search view (individual videos coming btw) and quick/easy access.

I can't thank you guys enough for your constructive criticism and thanks for your patience while we get it worked out. They are hard at work on it even as I type.

Kindest regards,
Jonathan

 

[leukolenos]

I have a large update going in right now you may find many issues for the next couple hours during the update.

I'm also wondering if there isn't something weird going on with the cookies?

I've had issues with the site arbitrarily limiting my searches based on past views (eg I looked at a diamond which is 2.0ct, then all my searches max at out diamonds that are 2ct- I view a diamond priced at $21k, then all my searches max out at $21k), which then requires me to wipe all my browsing data basically every time I use the site- I don't think it's just my device since it does it across browsers on my phone, laptop, and my husband's computer too.

 

[Fantspants]

Why are people still complaining?!
The issue is being resolved.

The issues for me personally stem beyond just the diamond search issue which is being addressed.

As someone who has actively been talking to GOG about a diamond (high five to Stephanie she's a gem) and setting one thing I find frustrating is the lack of things on the new website vs the old website.

For example the estate jewellery area had 1 item, it now has 7 items which is an improvement of course but surely that isn't it.

On the front page of the website you have a link to http://www.goodoldgold.com/the-august-vintage-european-cut which last week had nothing, today it has a few sentences. But there are no products.

Previously you could see preset rings, which were great for people trying to get an idea of how an AVR would look with a certain setting or a radiant etc etc.

Finally I have spent far more time on other vendor websites, looking at settings they have vs on GOG's website as the choice is better, especially for non-designer settings, and the fact they include prices.

As someone from Europe I don't have the luxury of calling to see how much a setting is then calling again 30 mins later as I have seen another, I rely on the live chat and email services which are a pain if I want to look at something in the morning here, or on a Monday when the internet part is "closed". A price on a page is instant. Something like "From $1500" would be amazing, just for a rough idea.

I totally understand that a new website is a lot of effort, and there are a lot of products to put on the new website, but there seems to be no actual progression with the addition of these things.

Anyway this wasn't intended to be a wall of text or a big whinge... I just wanted to bring up a couple of things

tldr; Will prices be put on more things? As "Call for price" on everything is boring

 

[kenny]

Why are people still complaining?!
The issue is being resolved.

I appreciate what you are saying.

But while general complaining doesn't help, the team has asked us to bring up specific issues for them to address.

 

[beaujolais]

It isn't complaining; it's discussing.

If that were my company, I'd want all the feedback possible from clients/potential clients. esp. while the IT guys are working on it. This can make the difference between "great" and "good enough".

Please be sure, JW, that it is also easy to search for fluorescent stones.

A few years ago, I was considering another stone but gave up as that darn website was too hard to use (and I'm a huge GOG fan, too). Truth.

 

[kenny]

One search parameter I'd like to see, but rarely do, is price per carat.

Some people want to sift through the largest stones for their budget.

 

[sarahb]

One of the things I absolutely loved about the old site was the ability to select my own diamond search criteria. It was immensely helpful as no one else had that search-ability/function--that I knew of. I loved--ok, I was completely obsessed with looking at AVC's in all sots of combinations, color, weight, dimensions, budget etc., etc., the features on the old search criteria page were plentiful and plain fun to mess with. Am in total agreement, the GOG team rocks! I look forward to your new & approved web site Jon!

 

[Volvoqueen]

Thought I'd chime in as well, new site looks updated, but needs tweaking to be more user friendly.

I like to window shop AVR, but couldn't find them on the new site, had to live chat GOG to figure it out.

Diamonds > Diamond Search > This gets you to a new page.

The tricky part, there is a little grey box that on the left side that says "Search by Brand", click that.

This was the part that needs improving, when you click on diamonds, you should be linked directly to this page.

 

[diamondhoarder]

I agree with many of the comments already made, especially about not being able to search the August vintage stones by photo. But I have also noticed that with the august vintage stones, some of the wrong photos and wrong AGS certs are coming up for certain diamonds. You can clearly see that the carat weight on the cert doesnt match the item description for instance. That seriously undermines all the good work GOG has done to provide such in-depth information about each diamond.

 

[Tourmaline]

It's quite a loss to not be able to see a page full of images of a certain kind of diamond (like AVC). People don't want to have to hover over one spot at a time. The old site worked perfectly on my iPhone. This website change is really unfortunate.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

The search is working better today than yesterday, but the defaults on carat size and price need to be set at 0-(whatever the max is) so all stones show on the list and only does it narrow down if the person changes those settings.