major web site update; feedback please

06/01/2005 08:53:37 AM · #1

Hi all,

I've just made a major update to my personal web site and was wondering if you could please visit and browse around (Literal Expressions.com). I've chosen a new way to present my photos and navigation menus. I'd also like to know if my photos look okay (too dark, bright enough, etc?).

Thank you,
Linda

Message edited by author 2005-06-01 08:56:24.

Minutia

06/01/2005 09:00:41 AM · #2

Very nice. I like it a lot, and great photos also.

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

06/01/2005 09:01:58 AM · #3

Thank you....I take it from your comment that you had no issues with loading?

Message edited by author 2005-06-01 09:02:30.

leaf

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

06/01/2005 09:05:40 AM · #4

it loaded fine for me but was a little slow.

nice site, well organized and the links i clicked on seemed to work well.

Good idea with the agility training photos... keep up the good work.

PaulMdx

Canon EOS-1D

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM

06/01/2005 09:06:28 AM · #5

Linda,

For some reason when I click different pages in IE 6 it seems to reload your main logo at the top?

In Opera 8 I don't get that effect, but the logo seems to be in a slightly different location between pages, particularly your two Event pages.

You said it's a personal site, so I won't comment on a couple of business aspects I came across.

Minutia

06/01/2005 09:08:35 AM · #6

Originally posted by mcrael:

Thank you....I take it from your comment that you had no issues with loading?

Actually, the images did load a little slow. Where are you serving it from?

EDIT: I just went back, and everything is loading fine. Did you do anything different?

Message edited by author 2005-06-01 09:14:55.

cbeller

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom Nikkor 16-85 f/3.5-5.6G ED VR

06/01/2005 09:16:38 AM · #7

I viewed it with Firefox (with a T1 speed connection) and it took about 40 secs to load the main page...a potential client would have left the site after about 15 secs. You need to optimize the images for the web, if you are embedding them into your page...keep them under 30K.

The look of the site is fine though. Just work on the performance issue.

Message edited by author 2005-06-01 09:17:30.

06/01/2005 09:42:02 AM · #8

cbeller, minutia, and leaf: thanks for your comments about the speed; I thought it was slow too, but it was much worse yesterday, so I made some changes in the delivery of my navigation menus. I'll go back and reduce the file size of the images. I think some of the photos are closer to 150K each. The site is served by ipowerweb.com (in california, I think).

PaulMdx - good comment about the main logo being in different positions on different pages; that's just sloppiness on my part, and I will fix that. Regarding your comment:
You said it's a personal site, so I won't comment on a couple of business aspects I came across.

Please do offer your comments. This is also a business site, as I'm trying to generate sales from it. I've chosen to use a less agressive approach though, since photography is a part-time business for me (see my technical writing side of the site).

sabphoto

Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+

06/01/2005 09:57:35 AM · #9

I like the appearance of it and other than the images loading slow as mentioned it is a nice site. Maybe as an additional option to the side menus is to add just text links at the bottom (like on this page), that way if someone is having a terrible time waiting for the menu to load they can at least go there. I've done it on many pages when I get too impatient. Other option since you want that specific font is to maybe make each menu item it's own image instead of all one. This will be more work but maybe they would show faster. Just a thought.

Message edited by author 2005-06-01 09:59:00.

06/01/2005 10:03:04 AM · #10

Originally posted by sabphoto:

Maybe as an additional option to the side menus is to add just text links at the bottom (like on this page).... Other option since you want that specific font is to maybe make each menu item it's own image instead of all one. ....

These are both very good suggestions. I orignally had the side menu as text only, but I decided this time around to convert it to a clickable image map in an attempt to reduce maintenance effort for myself. Rather than one image though, I'll break it down smaller. You should have seen the performance when it was all slices - really slow! Thank you....

Prof_Fate

06/01/2005 11:11:43 AM · #11

Comments as i browse the site...

the title banner /header on the main page looks like an ad banner.

The photo navigation is interesting..i had not seen anything like it before. the thumbnail and the main photo should be bigger. also, some directions might be nice. Oops, now i see the directions. OK, maybe move them to a more prominent locale (under the pics...)

I am on broadband and it loads a tad slowly...check with dial up folks to see what how they find it.

06/01/2005 11:26:23 AM · #12

Originally posted by Prof_Fate:

Thank you Prof_Fate. That is an interesting comment about my page banner!

The photo navigation is created with a free version of SimpleViewer, which is a Flash slide show. If you click the SimpleViewer 1.7 link in the bottom right corner of the photo presentation, you'll go to the developer's web site. Unfortunately, when using the free version, one cannot change the layout much - I struggled with the size and the spacing between my instructions and the photo show. Because I am using a mixture of horizontal versus vertical photos in the show, I couldn't change it (using the free version).

I'd also like the photos and thumbnails to be bigger, but that would require the user to scroll down to see the full presentation. Scrolling is not a bad thing, but it can be inconvenient. I also felt that putting the instructions below might result in them being missed by the viewer.

Edited to correctly identify the location of the SimpleViewer link.

Message edited by author 2005-06-01 11:32:25.

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM

06/01/2005 11:27:24 AM · #13

Do the photos look okay in terms of brightness/contrast? I do have a tendency to darken my photos for more contrast than what comes out of the camera.

PaulMdx

Canon EOS-1D

06/01/2005 11:31:56 AM · #14

Originally posted by mcrael:

Please do offer your comments. This is also a business site, as I'm trying to generate sales from it.

Only two issues, and relatively minor at that, but I did pick up on.. You may have explained the first one.
- The initial introduction doesn't sound very professional
- Waiting 3 weeks for prints seems a bit excessive? (Also asking people to be patient sounded a tad terse.)

Other than that, good luck with the event photography! I do some myself, and find it to be pretty enjoyable.

Sunniee

Canon EOS-40D

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6

06/01/2005 11:36:22 AM · #15

Nice site... the first page loaded slow for me, others were fine...
Would suggest while browsing the photos that you dont have to click the arrow AND the thumbnail to see the next shot. Maybe just clicking the arrow to bring up the next shot or showing all the thumbs and letting the viewer decide what they want to look at. Wonderful work... congrats

06/01/2005 11:36:35 AM · #16

Originally posted by PaulMdx:

Originally posted by mcrael:
Please do offer your comments. This is also a business site, as I'm trying to generate sales from it.

Only two issues, and relatively minor at that, but I did pick up on.. You may have explained the first one.
- The initial introduction doesn't sound very professional
- Waiting 3 weeks for prints seems a bit excessive? (Also asking people to be patient sounded a tad terse.)

Other than that, good luck with the event photography! I do some myself, and find it to be pretty enjoyable.

Thanks PaulMdx. I'll rework the introduction and my note about patience. I do all the processing and shipping work myself, hence the wait. At the events, I do explain that this is my part-time job, and I usually get nods and smiles of understanding from my customers.

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6

06/01/2005 11:40:08 AM · #17

Originally posted by Sunniee:

Thank you Sunniee. Regarding showing all thumbs - that results in the main image size being reduced in size because the thumbs and main image are all in one Flash presentation. I struggled with the size in order to minimize the need to scroll to see the entire presentation of it.

Sunniee

Canon EOS-40D

06/01/2005 11:44:38 AM · #18

Originally posted by mcrael:

Its not really the thumb size that Im talking about, its having to click the arrow AND the thumb to see the next image that is a tad redundant.

ganders

Canon EOS-40D

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

06/01/2005 11:45:36 AM · #19

Originally posted by Sunniee:

Nice site... the first page loaded slow for me, others were fine...

The first page is painful; Opera was reporting something over 3MB being downloaded! It was a bit sluggish on broadband, I don't like to imagine what it would be like on dialup.

Looking at it, you seem to have some code on the page to load up a random 'featured photo' which is all very nice, but the code actually forces a preload of ALL those photos, despite the fact that only one is displayed and there's no way (I can see) of viewing the others from that page.

Take that code out (ideally select the featured photo at the server end, but just removing the preload stuff would be a good start!) and you'll probably save yourself the majority of that first page loading delay.

Edit: Ouch! I just noticed the thumbnails (for the galleries, not within the galleries themselves) loading slowly - 200kb for a thumbnail?! Get them resized down to something sensible and it will make your site feel a ton quicker (not to mention saving you bandwidth!)

Message edited by author 2005-06-01 11:48:06.

06/01/2005 12:00:34 PM · #20

Originally posted by Sunniee:

Originally posted by mcrael:

Thank you Sunniee. Regarding showing all thumbs - that results in the main image size being reduced in size because the thumbs and main image are all in one Flash presentation. I struggled with the size in order to minimize the need to scroll to see the entire presentation of it.

Its not really the thumb size that Im talking about, its having to click the arrow AND the thumb to see the next image that is a tad redundant.

Oh! I don't think you have to do that, but maybe my instruction might be confusing. Click the thumb, and then press the arrow keys on the keyboard. I found that one had to click the thumb before pressing the arrow keys on the keyboard, hence the way my instruction was written. I'll look at that again.....

Also, if I show more thumbs, that affects the size of the main image.

06/01/2005 12:05:07 PM · #21

Originally posted by ganders:

Looking at it, you seem to have some code on the page to load up a random 'featured photo' which is all very nice, but the code actually forces a preload of ALL those photos, despite the fact that only one is displayed and there's no way (I can see) of viewing the others from that page.

Take that code out (ideally select the featured photo at the server end, but just removing the preload stuff would be a good start!) and you'll probably save yourself the majority of that first page loading delay.

Thank you ganders. Do you by any chance have any sample code I can use (or a link to some I can download) to select the featured photo at the server end? I found that I had to limit my selection list in order to speed up the download, and currently this list is only 15 images.

dacrazyrn

Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II

06/01/2005 04:26:52 PM · #22

Since I didn't get alot of feedback on my site...like to give some here.
The area with the dog event pics and the viewer, is a bit annoying to use. Pressing the arrow and then having to click the thumb makes you lose interest quickly. Whoops! Just found the little arrow in the bottom corner. A bit better. I feel that sometimes using the page of thumbnails lets people cruise over the smaller and select to see larger ones, is more enjoyable. Just my opinion. You could look into the program Gallery to put your photos up. Works great and you can set the size of the photos. Is pretty quick also. Not to mention that you can create your folders and upload from your desktop using Gallery Remote too.
I did my site using PHPNuke and integrated Gallery into it, and works well together. Welcome to look at the gallery Here. I installed a Cart program to it also to order photos, etc. through Paypal.