SUGGETION: Focus on design and UI of the nopcommerce.com website and nopcommerce itself

Firstly Im a massive fan of NopCommerce and guys who build it. I hope this is seen as constructive criticism.

To me the nopcommerce offering has 2 main areas it should focus on:
1. Improving the design of nopcommerce.com, the default skin and admin system
2. Basic UI improvements of nopcommerce and the admin site.

1. Improving the design of nopcommerce.com, the default skin and admin system
When I quote for a project to a potential client I have to sell them NopCommerce as an offering. I do this by pointing them to work I have done in it plus the nopCommerce.com site. They compare it directly to products like Magento and WordPress/WooCommerce. If I look at nopcommerce.com and the default skin of both the public site and admin system it bears no comparison whatsoever. Nopcommerces offerings look 10 years behind.
One of my clients recently (who really loves nopcommerce by the way because we built https://www.mulberrybush.co.uk/ for them in it) suggested the admin system must have been built in the 1980s.
These things are VERY important to nopcommerces success because if we as developers cant sell it to clients it wont succeed.

2. Basic UI improvements of nopcommerce and the admin site.
To me there are very basic UI improvements which could be made rather than always focusing on delivering new features. Take one simple example... Im a not logged in customer and I see an out of stock product. I click to be notified. It takes me to the login / register screen with no explanation whatsoever. Assuming I figure out I need to register when I do so Im directed back to the homepage. Have I been subscribed? No. Terrible UX.
The same goes for lots of basic functions in the admin system, and bear in mind many of which will be used repetitively by staff so big time savings can be made. For example I go to page 3 of a product listing and edit a product, when Im done it sends me back to page 1. WTF? Equally Im on a product page and I flick to edit a specific tab. When I click and save it switched me back to the default tab. Again WTF.
There are so many examples of things like this which trust me are very important to clients and will make nopcommerce a significantly better product and one which is much easier to sell to potential clients.

Just my 2p.

I would also be happy to help out on these simple things and suspect a lot of NOP developers would.

I fully agree with both. For 1 you can vote a work item on the roadmap: Create a new VERY GOOD default theme

eadameg wrote:
Thanks have done so

johndillon wrote:
Hi,

I also agree it would be good to update the default theme again to make it look more modern and have better UI functionality if possible.  Do you have any examples of themes in other systems that you think would make nopCommerce look more modern?  Are you meaning incorporating CSS3 transitions or a full width page layout?  

On the other hand, I think there is a place for the default theme to remain somewhat simple.  If the default theme becomes too complex of a design, it makes it harder for designers to design a new website since they have to strip the default in order to put in their own design.  That being said, I am all for brainstorming on new designs... even if it does not become the default, we can still come up with a new modern theme to release for free.

Thanks a lot for suggestion! I also absolutely agree! All of these tasks should be definately done.

I can comment redesign of the default theme (the same is about admin area). I don't think that complete redesign should be done. I like how it was done for opencart recently. Please have a look at its demo site here. The design almost wasn't changed. There were done several minor enhancements. It allowed to keep recognition of opencart and at the same moment the default theme became looking really much better (if you have seen the previous one). And of course it's still very simple which is very important for developers (as Tim stated above).

One issue to keep in mind is the products in demo store. Some of them really look outdated and that projects the same impression on the store look. It is also important to be able to show as many features as possible in the demo store, not only for the showoff but also as examples for the documentation and forum explanations.

And I think we should use a CSS preprocessor to write entire stylesheets (Public store go first, and then Admin UI).
At the moment, I think we have 2 options:
+ {less}: http://lesscss.org/
+ Sass: http://sass-lang.com/

***PS: I'm converting entire stylesheets of the "DefaultClean" theme to {less}, will contribute it here soon when I finish :)***

Things that can be very usefull are option for editing the the stylesheets directly into the admin area and default bootstrap theme with default onepage checkout proccess

a.m. wrote:

I think its important to distinguish 2 things here:

1. The site/demo store to SELL nop as a product shouldn't have any bearing on what developers need. Its like saying "lets make a ferrari more like a ford so its simpler for mechanics to fix".

2. These decisions should not be made by developers, and I think this is at heart of the problem. NOP has fantastically talented developers which is why its so feature rich, it now needs world class UI and design input to take it to the next level.

If design decisions are taken by developers from a developer perspective, it wont make progress.


1. If the man NOP site is better this will matter less
2.

johndillon wrote:
I agree in that to make it popular the UI should  be very attractive and with some customization capabilities in administration (logo, backgrounds, color, typography, etc.) as in this template
Nop is serving 3 markets:

1)End users (store owners) which always represent the big number of users and have been the base in which other carts as Magento or Opencart have based their growth and popularity. This market requires a ready to use and very flexible solution in terms of features and of attractive design. Nop lacks the second. They frequently use others (2 and 3) products and services and would also prefer carts with more service and product suppliers.

2) Service providers (developing, customization, design, hosting, SEO, etc.)

3) Product providers (plugins, themes, extensions, etc.)

Both 2 and 3  would prefer an easy to customize UI, but for them is much more attractive to have more users (i.e. potential market). The more popular a product is the more suppliers will be attracted thus creating the snowball effect. Furthermore for developers is easier to sell/justify a more popular and fast growing developing platform.

So IMHO Nop should have 2 themes: One (default) with a very attractive and flexible design for end users (1). and another very simple for developers (2 and 3)

It would be very valuable to read others opinions