Lie-Nielsen's new website- I finally found the tools on it.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I thought I'd help Lie-Nielsen out here- If you are trying to figure out how to actually see what they sell, I finally found how to do it. There is a tiny little icon almost hidden in the upper right corner next to the shopping cart. It is three little lines as the icon. That brings up a drop-down where you can click on tool categories similar to the old site... the newer old site, not the older old site.

The search brings up multiples of the same tool and random tools not related to the search. The banner ad showed a moulding plane video that very much interested me, but clicking it got me nowhere. I do intend to notify them in the morning of the issues, as the bar at top says, and I really hope they get things ironed out. My birthday is next week, and my wife needs it to be as easy as possible to buy me tools!

[Mike Brady]

I thought I'd help Lie-Nielsen out here- If you are trying to figure out how to actually see what they sell, I finally found how to do it. There is a tiny little icon almost hidden in the upper right corner next to the shopping cart. It is three little lines as the icon. That brings up a drop-down where you can click on tool categories similar to the old site... the newer old site, not the older old site.

The search brings up multiples of the same tool and random tools not related to the search. The banner ad showed a molding plane video that very much interested me, but clicking it got me nowhere. I do intend to notify them in the morning of the issues, as the bar at top says, and I really hope they get things ironed out. My birthday is next week, and my wife needs it to be as easy as possible to buy me tools!

I don't see the the icon by the shopping cart that you are mentioning above. Also unclear is how much they have dropped from their offerings; for example, I see no O-1 blades for any tool. The drop-downs require very precise use of the mouse, or they disappear easily. It appears to be a work still in progress though. I was disappointed that there seems to be nothing new at this time.

[Jim Koepke]

Maybe most of my fondness for the old site before the two (or was it three) recent changes was it was familiar and easy to find what ever was on my mind at the time.

It also seems there was a deeper level of information on most of the tools.

Maybe the major problem is web designers live to change things. They would all be unemployed if they couldn't convince clients they need to update everything.

jtk

[Lonnie Gallaher]

I just went to their web site and had a very nice experience. There were no problems navigating to the hand planes - I did not go to any of the other pages. There is a warning bar at the top of the home page stating that they are working on the site and there could be problems. There was a phone number to report issues.

[Terry Beadle]

Plus 1 with Mr. Gallaher. Went to the site. Found the hand planes no problem but was looking for a bronze #4 and Kristen ( in site chat box gave me immediate help ) was working away
on their site.

I guess site changes are like furniture. It's the finishing the finish that can take a pretty good bit of the project and not just the construction.

[James Conrad]

...for example, I see no O-1 blades for any tool.

From a recent visit, I was told they are dropping O-1 for in house Cryo A2.

I'm a bit baffled on the recent site changes, especially not using a test site to ensure their changes are functioning before pushing live. Big mistake.

[dan sherman]

the 3 bars thing is because your screen is to narrow most likely. It looks like they are switching their site over to a responsive design to better handle touch devises.

[Keith Mathewson]

You may have found the tools but try placing an order. Over a week ago I ordered a rasp via the phone because I couldn't find it on the site. The person who answered the phone found me in their system. She knew my name, address and phone number and while placing the order I asked for 3 day shipping. She then put me on hold while running my card and I was told to expect the tool within 5 business days. Shortly there after I received and email indicating the tool would be shipped and then nothing. Today I checked my bank account, THE CHARGE WAS NEVER RUN. One might think that if I was willing to pay extra for fast shipping I might really want the tool and since they had my name and phone number they might have called to say something went wrong. So for the job I was expecting to use the rasp for on Wednesday I'm going to be SOL, I'm so happy….

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I am viewing on iPad. It was the weekend and live chat wasn't working. Good to know that on a desktop/laptop it works because I couldn't figure out why they wouldn't put a radio button that says "click here to see our tools" or something.

Keith M., I have never had a problem with service. In fact, I usually end up chatting with the person taking the order, and it always arrives fast.

James C., I wonder if O1 just wasn't selling. It kind of gets a bad rap these days. I kind of prefer it for spokeshaves and paring chisels.

[Joe Close]

I agree, the site is terrible. It's clunky, the menus come and go. The help chat constantly pops up, up down up down.... Navigation is not intuitive. Info on the products is not as extensive as the old site. Checkout is inaccurate, descriptions don't match what you ordered. Billing is a mess. Got billed twice for a single order, and neither amount matched what I was expecting. They were preauths, but amounts were way out of wack... That said, LN customer support is AAA. It is just that their web designer has their head up their 4th point of contact...

[Randy Karst]

I recently phoned an order in to LN and inquired about 0-1 bevel edge chisels since I could not find them on the website any longer. After checking, they said they still had some 0-1 stock on hand. fortunately, what I wanted was available. I was informed that few people were ordering 0-1 in favor of A2 and they were sidelining the 0-1 so to speak. I was also told, however, that I could still order 0-1 items not currently in stock but it would be about a 6-month wait. I want them to figure out that while some will be happy with A2, there are still many of us, particularly in certain tool patterns (for me its their 0-1 bevel edge chisels), will prefer 0-1. LN (if you happen upon this), its good to have options please!

[Bill Sutherland]

Gotta agree with the critics on their site. Using iPad is not much fun on this site. Someone really dropped the ball letting this siten go live. I guess I'll take a look at what Veritas has to offer. I wasted 1 hour trying to make things work.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I did finally get to log in on a Windows based computer, and the site works fine from there. iPad is not that great. Most of the time I use the iPad for personal web browsing, so hopefully they will get this fixed soon. I did notify them, got a quick answer that their IT is working on the known issue with iPad. They said that iPad actually works best in vertical format. I typically use horizontal, so I will try vertical. Looks like once you get in, the site is actually very nice if they can fix the issues.

[Joe Close]

My post was pretty negative.... So I should add, I am still a loyal customer. I continue to like their products and customer service.

[Paul McGaha]

I agree the LN site could be better. I imagine they'll fix it. Everything about them is high quality and I'm thinking they would want a website that's easy to navigate and make orders.

PHM

[Malcolm Schweizer]

This thread is actually a rewrite of what I started originally to post, because what I originally started was after much frustration after clicking around their site over and over just trying to BUY something! I started to imagine Tom Lie-Nielsen standing there laughing at me in an evil voice. Of course nothing could be further from the truth, and I actually feel sorry for the guy because he has to be losing business over this. I am glad to see the is specific to iOS and not all formats.

[dan sherman]

I want them to figure out that while some will be happy with A2, there are still many of us, particularly in certain tool patterns (for me its their 0-1 bevel edge chisels), will prefer 0-1. LN (if you happen upon this), its good to have options please!

unfortunately capitalism doesn't work that way. If 90% (picked out of the air) of the orders are for A2, they will probably drop O-1 for cost reasons.


about the site:
I did some quick checking, and the issue people are having on touch/mobile devises is definitely because the tried to make the site responsive, and if I had to guess they either did it in a hurry, outsourced it, or had some inexperienced developers. I don't see many major issue, just a lot of little stuff that can add up, most of which would probably bore people to death if I pointed them out.

[Robert Rada]

Glad I'm not alone. :0

I e-mailed Lie Nielsen last...weekish... explaining the site worked fine on a desktop but was
absent of a navigation bar on iOS. A nice employee immediately pointed out the menu icon hiding in the corner .

I like the new font.

[Robert Rada]

they changed it again. there's a navigation bar with words on it at the top.
holy public beta testing or holy a company that listens to it's customers, batman.
half empty / half full. :)




Glad I'm not alone. :0

I e-mailed Lie Nielsen last...weekish... explaining the site worked fine on a desktop but was
absent of a navigation bar on iOS. A nice employee immediately pointed out the menu icon hiding in the corner .

I like the new font.

[John Coloccia]

These sorts of menus were designed by software people. The problem with software people (trust me on this...I are one) is that we generally do all of our designs around 3 numbers....0, 1 and infinity. In other words:

- it can't happen
- it happens exactly once
- it can happen any number of times

So these menus are nice in that you can keep adding and adding and adding, and you don't actually have to design anything intelligently. You just keep adding menus and submenus until you've found a place to stick everything. It makes the software guy happy because it's expandable to infinity! The user trying to use it, on the other hand, gets very annoyed because they have to dig for what they want, and if their aim is off just a little bit, all of the menus disappear and they have to start over.

Anyhow, I hope they figure it out because I find the site is a bit annoying as well. A lot of sites are like this now, actually. Lee Valley has orders of magnitude more items, a primitive organization, but yet it's easier and more pleasant to navigate IMHO. On the other hand, if I want a LN tool, I doubt I'd let the website be an impediment.

[dan sherman]

These sorts of menus were designed by software people. The problem with software people (trust me on this...I are one) is that we generally do all of our designs around 3 numbers....0, 1 and infinity. In other words:

- it can't happen
- it happens exactly once
- it can happen any number of times

So these menus are nice in that you can keep adding and adding and adding, and you don't actually have to design anything intelligently. You just keep adding menus and submenus until you've found a place to stick everything. It makes the software guy happy because it's expandable to infinity! The user trying to use it, on the other hand, gets very annoyed because they have to dig for what they want, and if their aim is off just a little bit, all of the menus disappear and they have to start over.

This design is crappy though, even from a developer stand point. It's using hover to trigger the drop down, so it's next to useless on touch devises. And like you said you have to perfect with the mouse, because the devloper(s) wasn't smart enough to use something like jQuerys hover intent plugin.

It blows my mind that a company this dependent on its website to generate revenue would let something this bad go live.

[Robert Rada]

I spoke too soon. They went back to the new design again (drop down corner menu thing).
There's a positive to this, I keep visiting their website, every day, just to check out the current
condition their website condition is in. That's a lot of user interaction/impressions/yadda marketing speak. :)

[Robert Rada]

i find it hard to believe that most modern web designers know html, let alone ones and zeroes and logic gates! :D



These sorts of menus were designed by software people. The problem with software people (trust me on this...I are one) is that we generally do all of our designs around 3 numbers....0, 1 and infinity. In other words:

- it can't happen
- it happens exactly once
- it can happen any number of times

So these menus are nice in that you can keep adding and adding and adding, and you don't actually have to design anything intelligently. You just keep adding menus and submenus until you've found a place to stick everything. It makes the software guy happy because it's expandable to infinity! The user trying to use it, on the other hand, gets very annoyed because they have to dig for what they want, and if their aim is off just a little bit, all of the menus disappear and they have to start over.

Anyhow, I hope they figure it out because I find the site is a bit annoying as well. A lot of sites are like this now, actually. Lee Valley has orders of magnitude more items, a primitive organization, but yet it's easier and more pleasant to navigate IMHO. On the other hand, if I want a LN tool, I doubt I'd let the website be an impediment.

[dan sherman]

i find it hard to believe that most modern web designers know html, let alone ones and zeroes and logic gates! :D


That's the problem right there, no one that's actually a good developer would ever call themselves a "designer".

[Simon MacGowen]

Anyhow, I hope they figure it out because I find the site is a bit annoying as well. A lot of sites are like this now, actually. Lee Valley has orders of magnitude more items, a primitive organization, but yet it's easier and more pleasant to navigate IMHO. On the other hand, if I want a LN tool, I doubt I'd let the website be an impediment.

Websites can make or break many business opportunities. The search function is #1 for many users and business owners, too. Because if you can't find it, you can't buy it. I have given up many times on some sites when their search tools are good for nothing. Websites are more important as a sales front than ever for companies like LN which doesn't have any physical stores (most woodworkers don't go tradeshows). Even Walmart has brought lots of items onto its website to sell (often free shipping), not to mention digital retail giant Amazon.com.

Simon

[Robert Rada]

It's back to the navigation bar and and without the pop out thingy.

[Robert Rada]

I find it hard to believe that most modern web developers know html, let alone ones and zeroes and logic gates.

:D


That's the problem right there, no one that's actually a good developer would ever call themselves a "designer".

[dan sherman]

I find it hard to believe that most modern web developers know html, let alone ones and zeroes and logic gates.

:D

This one does, along with a bunch of other stuff. :D

[David Weaver]

Lee Valley has orders of magnitude more items, a primitive organization, but yet it's easier and more pleasant to navigate IMHO. On the other hand, if I want a LN tool, I doubt I'd let the website be an impediment.

I much prefer the LV site. Everything lately has been going to tiles or menus, but if you're actually looking at a site for content, it's easier when the information is on the page directly and you can go from there.

When I looked at the LN page last week, they must've used some sort of automated ordering for the bench planes. For some reason, the page that had all of them listed had a whole bunch of planes, no iron no 4 and after a bunch of pages of frogs and stuff, the iron no 4 was stuffed at the very end on page 3 or 4 (whatever it was). A page without all of the intensive menus and/or tiles would've just had a link that said "planes --> smooth planes - > No 4 bench planes -> Iron no 4

This seems to be a disease going on with all websites. Especially news and sports, which used to be pages with a table of links, but now they're a bunch of tiles and since they don't seem to be organized in any logical fashion, you click on some and get sent to some video that doesn't work for one reason or another, or you click on another and you hit a totally worthless opinion piece when you're trying to get actual news, and they're all lined up in a row.

I know that someone has decided that this format gets more clicks and thus more revenue, but it actually leads me not to go to such sites at all. I go to a lower-tier competitor's website that still has the old fashioned organized links where you start at broad topics and narrow down through click throughs.

[John Coloccia]

The end result is that it might not keep me from buying something, but sometimes I do go out and browse through LV, just to see what they have. I doubt I'd ever do that on the LN site because it's a bit annoying. There are other websites I browse too. I think Mcmaster Carr has a decent site, considering all the items they have. Small Parts isn't bad, though I think it was better before Amazon bought them, if I remember right. I pretty much can't stand Woodcraft's site and I never spend any time there, even though I used to work at Woodcraft and I like them otherwise just fine. Glad I have a nearby Woodcraft! :)

[David Weaver]

I like mcmaster carr's, too. You go from broad category to narrow, and the list you see at each step is easily managed - no small feat given you can get anything from titanium rods to tampon dispensers there.

[John RStegall]

I know that the last post to this thread was 11 days ago. I just went to the site with my iPad. Or rather I should say that I tired. It kept saying "an error occurred" so they attempted to reload 2 more times to no avail. Good luck Tom.

[Kevin Nathanson]

I like mcmaster carr's, too. You go from broad category to narrow, and the list you see at each step is easily managed - no small feat given you can get anything from titanium rods to tampon dispensers there.

No dog in the fight for/with LN, but I second the opinion in McMaster Carr. That site is one of the most phenomenal e-commerce sites on the entire web. Great search logic, fuzzy logic matches, filtering, and with direct links to CAD drawings and data sheets for an incredible number of items. Batch ordering is easy; no 'add to cart' for each item and then navigate back to the page for the next one! I can revisit previous orders in order to reorder the same item in 3 clicks. Whoever runs their site deserves huge praise.

K

[Robert Rada]

I know that the last post to this thread was 11 days ago.


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