Donek 04/05 site live

[Donek]

It's finally done. Take a look. Let us know if you find any typos.

Donek (www.donek.com)

[oldvolvosrule]

Sean, the new site looks great, I like your layout of the specs on the boards, easy to read!!

[lonerider]

I have literally been checking every week to see when this happens... sweet. Except for the part that I promised myself I wouldn't buy a new snowboard for at least another 2 seasons... unless I can trade my freestyle and freeride boards in for a Phoenix.

[gdboytyler]

Sean,

You've got a typo in your links section under "Favorite Sites". You've got "Tahoe Cargers" instead of "Tahoe Carvers".

I'm glad you're getting into "freestyle" boards this season. Good luck with the new line of boards.

[Gecko]

What's with the Gator colors on the ski's...I mean I'm a big Florida fan (thank god Zook is leaving) but my wife (the skier in the family) is a die hard Seminoles fan and wouldn't be caught dead in Gator colors:D OK back to a serious question will you tailoring the the skis to weight and style the same way you do Snowboards? Love the new site BTW

[Velveeta]

On the "Products" page, it looks like the blurb for the Phoenix should be longer than the one line that is shown.

On the "About Us" page, under "Technology Matters", the word "it's" should be "its".

Otherwise, so far so good - excellent site, Sean (and Jen and everybody)!

Eddie

[Ray]

Very clean and easy to navigate...

[Tommy D]

Oooh! I would LOVE to demo a pair of those! I've been longing for a pair of skis to round out my ski quiver, and those might fit the bill: I've got park noodles, and GS...time for something in between!

Definitely liking those pre-set inserts!

[Neil Gendzwill]

I dunno, I find all the little windows with scroll bars a bit annoying. It would be nice to be able to click on those and get a seperate window with all the text nicely readable. I always prefer nice, big, high-resolution pictures to be available. All the topsheet stuff is too small to get a really good feel for how it looks. Also, I don't like the legend for all the spec charts - there's room to put proper titles for the columns, or at least abbreviations that make sense (Len or L rather than 2, for example).

[Arnaud]

nice site, Sean, with good readability (text was too small before)

Just one remark : you should allow the possibility to enlarge topsheet pictures

[Private message ON]
Sean,

I want to buy an Axis board, and have sent you 2 messages to get advice (in September and October) and I'm still waiting any answer. Do you have received these mails ?

[Private message OFF]

Arnaud

[Carp]

Boy your quality control inspector looks like she runs a tight ship.

[Rodger Arnold]

Site looks great! I clicked on a couple of links and got an error on Keystone Skiing. It may have a bad link.:)

[Arnaud]

[Private message ON]

Sean,

Your spam filter should block my email.
Please try to accept email coming from a.col1 (at) free.fr
Let me know

Arnaud

[Private message OFF]

[Randy S.]

I liked it better when my picture was on the front page!

Are the skis Tele only? Its not apparent, but that's the impression I got. If they have inserts, does that preclude me from using normal bindings?

Looks great Sean.

[Jack Michaud]

http://www.donek.com/07_team/team_greenwood.jpg

[AlpentalRider]

Hey. you have a javascript error on all your subsequent pages. Most people won't see it becuase IE's default setting are set to suppress the errors, but if you look at your status bar (lower left of the browser) you'll see it finished with errors on page. You can then click on that page icon with the yellow triangle on it and the error will pop up for you.

The error is due to an object not existing. I would have whomever built the site look at their code and find what the issue is.

BTW i'm running IE 6.0 SP2 on WinXPPro.

[Donek]

Originally posted by Randy S.
I liked it better when my picture was on the front page!

Are the skis Tele only? Its not apparent, but that's the impression I got. If they have inserts, does that preclude me from using normal bindings?

Looks great Sean.

At this point we just have the inserted version. We are doing some testing to verify that the screw retention will excede the ASTM standard for regular alpine bindings. Assuming everything looks good, we will release an alpine version without inserts.

[Dave Pushee]

The first thing I checked was the specs page.

I see the Axis 162 that I requested has been added to the line.

Great job Sean. Also, thanks again for the Axis demo and shop tour when I visited Colorado last spring.

- Dave

[Dave Pushee]

Sean,

It looks like the Effective Edge values for the Axis line are messed up (longer boards with shorter edge, etc.)

- Dave

[Hagen]

...note to myself - must save money for new board...

:cool:

[lonerider]

Originally posted by Neil Gendzwill
I dunno, I find all the little windows with scroll bars a bit annoying. It would be nice to be able to click on those and get a seperate window with all the text nicely readable. I always prefer nice, big, high-resolution pictures to be available. All the topsheet stuff is too small to get a really good feel for how it looks. Also, I don't like the legend for all the spec charts - there's room to put proper titles for the columns, or at least abbreviations that make sense (Len or L rather than 2, for example).

Well I didn't want to be the first to point out website design issues - but now to give me actual thoughts... while I love reading about the new boards. I actually liked the older site design better, it was simpler, cleaner, and let you get to the information more quickly and with *less* mouse clicks. top bars like the "products : graphics : tech info : specs : team : about us : links : sitemap : purchase : home" are the best in my opinion as they take less space and are quick to view in one shot, putting them on the bottom instead of both top and bottom is okay... EXCEPT... that many of the pages break the basic rule that all the important information should be at the "top" of the page "above the fold" unfortunately, most of that prime real estate is taken up by pretty, but content-less graphics.

Big h-res photos are great, but this was an understandable compromise for people who still use dial-up.

I too am a little against embedded frames with scroll bars. But the information there isn't that important to me, so it's ok. I like the old pop-ups style - I don't mind pop-ups when they are user-initiated.

I definitely agree that the metallic/solid topsheet samples are way too small to get a good look at them. I would much prefer full board photos that appear in pop-up window when you click on a topsheet color (if it is already open, it switches to the latest selection)

I definitely agree about the legend for the spec chart took me over 15 seconds to notice the little legend on the left - it's just not intuitive - and I sit in front of a computer 12 hours a day minimum. You can easily fit in the stuff on top if you space the columns properly. It looks like the web designer gave a LOT of space to the first column because of longer model names for one particular board model (why does he include length of the board in the model name if he also includes the length as a colmn) so you could view all the board specs at the same time (http://www.donek.com/specs.htm#).

Also I dislike the fact that you no longer than view several styles of board in the same frame... now you have either click on BACK or click on the product page again to switch between say "Phoenix" and "Freeride". What you should have on the left side is a kick "board legend" sidebar that lets you jump to other board style without going through the front page again.

[CarvCanada]

I like the site, and love my Donek board :) but I agree that I would like to see a picture of a whole finished board for each topsheet color.

Also, the link to assembly video doesn't work (maybe my computer's problem)

And, when you're describing how you make the cores, at one point you say "much like you slice a loaf of break" instead of "bread"

I like the part on sidecut math! I love that stuff!

[Baka Dasai]

The coolest thing is the stiffness index in the specs. It's great being able to compare stiffness across all models - right from the Twin to the stiffest alpine board.

If only every manufacturer did this. Whatever happened to BOBSI?

[Neil Gendzwill]

Originally posted by lonerider
Big h-res photos are great, but this was an understandable compromise for people who still use dial-up.

The hi-res photos don't have to be the only ones - the medium-res ones they have are good, just let us click through to some really good photos of the boards.

[Oldsnwbrdr]

Why isn't The Starting Gate near Stratton, VT listed as a Donek retailer anymore?

[philfell]

I really like the pic of Greenwood doing the big method. I might be mistaken but that green sidewall looks alot like a Louis, not a Donek.

[Donek]

Originally posted by Oldsnwbrdr
Why isn't The Starting Gate near Stratton, VT listed as a Donek retailer anymore?

Someone probably wasn't thinking straight. It should be Starting Gate, not Racer's Edge. We'll fix it.

[fishrising]

Hey Sean, I see some of the suggestions the folks on BOL have made going into effect at your site, it looks great! And thanks for asking us for our opinions!

[Dave Winters]

Sean, congratulations, the site looks great! And thanks for keeping my pic on there, psyched to be in the graphics section.
For what it's worth, I ordered a fc 179 with a custom topsheet and Sean was great to work with on it. I sent my fabric (aloha) and he made up the board and it's unreal. So I'm stoked on that, not to mention the fact that the board CRANKS!!!