When I was at the IANDS conference in Chicago, one of the ladies there asked me if I could show her what my website looks like. I watched her fiddle around on her phone, confused, trying to get from the Home Page to the American Girls doll clothes pattern page.
It was kind of a disaster.
So I thought, “Oh man, I’ve got to make it easier to navigate on my website.”
You may have seen that I’ve added a few navigation tutorials on my YouTube channel recently and a new “Navigation Guide” button on the Home Page, but also, I think I need to do a few cosmetic changes to ChellyWood.com.
Yesterday and today I received emails from the same person who was lost on my site, struggling to figure out how to find what she wanted.
So I’m reaching out to all of you, my regular followers, asking for advice. Think back to when you first stumbled across my website. What was difficult about navigating on my website, and what might make the experience more user-friendly?
In 2019 I did a complete overhaul of ChellyWood.com, creating the Home Page I now use and all of its myriad of links to various pages. This improved the original website which had very few buttons and images linking out from the home page. (That’s also when my color scheme changed from dusty rose to lilac and turquoise.)
However I’m going to do a little more work as we close out 2025, to make the site even more simple to navigate. Let me know what changes you’d like to see in the comments section please, so I can take your ideas into consideration as I re-vamp the overall look of the site.
Here are some more specific questions I have:
- Would it be easier if the blog posts started with text instead of an image? Would people be more likely to stay and read the text if they see text first?
- When you click on a doll size, should that send you to another button? For example, if you click on “11 inch dolls” right now, it takes you to a page with the names of dolls in alphabetical order, offering links. Would it be easier to find if I offered images instead of the names of dolls in alphabetical order?
- Is there too much horn-tooting in terms of advertising? How would you like me to mention the classes I teach, the store page on the site, and things I’m offering for sale, so it’s not annoying?
- Where do you find yourself getting lost? What pages do you have a hard time finding? And can you offer suggestions to help me place them in a location that’s easier to find when you need them?
Your input is deeply appreciated!
Disclaimer/Credit/Affiliate Marketing Link:
Chelly Wood and the ChellyWood.com website are not affiliated with any of the doll or toy companies mentioned in this blog post, but Chelly enjoys designing her doll clothes to fit a variety of dolls. To learn more about the doll companies mentioned in today’s post, please visit the doll or toy company’s website.
Hi Chelly, unfortunately I can’t offer too much advice since I have been surfing the web for many years (almost from the beginning) since I was newly divorced and lived alone and had no other entertainment. One comment I have is if you are new to surfing the web, what would you look for on a website? Perhaps for the most popular dolls, there should be a direct link on your main page to those particular patterns like Barbie, 18-inch, etc etc. Although I have many 18″ dolls, they are not my primary interest and never had been. I bought my first 18″ in 2016 when Melody came out since she was the 1960s doll and we were both 10 years in 1964. Actually the 14.5″ Wellie Wishers piqued my interest in dolls that I have carried on since then and I believe they came out around the same time as Melody. I can’t remember now how I found you but I have been following you for a while now and have no problem navigating your site.
Thank you, Judy, for offering your thoughts on the topic.
I hope more people contribute to this blog’s comment section, so I get lots of ideas to complement yours.
I would like to be able to read other people’s comments. Instead, I only find this place to LEAVE a comment.
Hi Carol. Thank you for your comment! After reading this, I went to my husband and asked, “Will you please go to my website and see if you can read the comments under today’s blog post?”
My thought was, “Maybe I inadvertently turned off comment readability.”
But no, my husband could read your comment, Judy’s comment, and my own. So I believe the ability to read comments is open to all visitors to my site.
What you may not be aware of, Carol, is that I have to “approve” comments before they can be read. So some blog posts won’t show any comments because they’re new posts and I haven’t yet checked for comments that need approval. Other posts won’t show comments because nobody has commented on them.
Hopefully that clears things up. I did check though, and if my husband can read the comments from other people, you should be able to as well.
Hi, Chelly, what I can suggest is a different possibility to access you website.
I never knew what was Barbie size before entering this site, and I have learned a lot about dolls’ size.
I suggest you to add a double possibility to access the site, one by size as it is and the other by doll’s name in alphabetical order. You can leave every content as it is, because it is great.
Maybe it can be easier for a first access.
The size division is very useful in case you cannot find the exact doll you are looking for and need some help to sort a good pattern to modify.
I hadn’t thought about that. Thank you, Marco! You’re always full of good ideas!
Hi Chelly,
I’m a computer nerdy type and even though I’ve been to your site many times, I never thought about layout, etc, as I’m one to somehow find what I’m looking for. That said, with your Categories drop down part, it’s not immediately identifiable as somewhere to look for the doll sizes. Perhaps adding doll size to the name might make it easy for others.
As for your classes, I would put a title above them too. People need to see that you are professional in what you do.
I think how you have the dolls now, with the alphabet list/links is sufficient.
Keep up the great work!
Lynette
Lynette, thank you so much for your careful assessment! If you don’t mind, I’d like to shoot you an email with questions to help clarify. You don’t need to put your email in the comments section; I can see it from my admin page. I only use people’s emails if I need to reach out for some reason, as in this case. I value people’s privacy.
But thank you so much for adding your expertise to the dialog here!
Just another observation, it was difficult to find the next/previous links for the blog, they need to be bigger, maybe a brighter colour, and bolded.
I’ll certainly look into changing that.
Thank you so much for contributing to the discussion! I hope more people chime in. Every voice, every person’s experience with the site, is really important to me.
Thanks so much for your explanations my first time visiting to your blog is memorable wishing you more power to your elbow. Expand it more to attract more people to your blog who had the same vision with you. Thanks again Chelly Wood
Welcome James! And thank you for taking the time to leave a thoughtful comment!