Webste Redesign - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

03/21/2008 11:06:39 AM · #1

I decided that my old site was way too cluttered to be effective and had too much going on, so I redeisgn my site to make simpler.

Any comments or critiques would be greatly appreciated.

New Site

Thanks,
Benjamin

cpanaioti

Canon EOS-40D

03/21/2008 11:13:33 AM · #2

First thing I noticed: Special Ofers (I think you're missing something ;o)

To me it still looks cluttered. It could be just the font but I feel there's too much text. Maybe only put the latest latest news on the home page with a link to more news.

Louis

Nikon D800

Nikon AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.8D

03/21/2008 11:25:57 AM · #3

That fixed width typeface is not very easy to read, and the justified alignment gives it a very rigid, laborious feel. I understand "fotos" in the organization name, but you use it throughout the body text, and it feels awkward, the actual spelling being "photo". That fade transition as you click around is one of those "gee whiz" things you never see on bona fide professionally designed sites; it's annoying and delays the visitor's view of the page, and really serves no purpose. I'd get rid of it. Having your gallery at a separate site in a popup I can understand if you don't want to do the scripting yourself, but also having the "contact us" page there, popping up separately as well, is also awkward to me. I personally like the colour scheme (brown/tan), but some might find the darker background difficult to read the black text from.

mpeters

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

03/21/2008 11:36:42 AM · #4

Faux designer checking in... Ditto what Louis said about the typeface/alignment. Another idea you to help readability and feel is to incorporate some 'white space' within the website to help separate and emphasize elements of your site. Less text, smaller text, different alignment are ways to do this.

I find the lines around each box to be on the heavy side. I'd play around with boxes w/o lines or using lines other than black to separate your text fields.

I like the color scheme alot--bright pictures really pop off the page. The black on dark brown is a bit hard to read but I'm not sure a white text is the answer.

The gallery pages work and look pretty straightforward--might try to coordinate the color schemes with your main page.

Anyway--just one man's opinion. Looking forward to some Greenland pics soon! Mark

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

03/21/2008 11:47:10 AM · #5

Thank you for the feedback, I have made many of the changes that you all have already suggested.

I wish I could coordinate the gallery pages with that of the main pages, but my HTML experience ended with only Intro to HTML and I didn't pick up the ability to work with CSS.

alanfreed

Nikon Z9

03/21/2008 11:56:54 AM · #6

You're killing your download time by allowing HTML to resize your images, instead of sizing them to the appropriate dimensions beforehand. The tiny little thumbnails are over 170K, for example. Resize them ahead of time -- they should only be somewhere around 10K at that size -- and the page will jump onto the screen instead of being painfully drawn for folks with slower connections.

Specifically, I'm referring to your home page images, all of which are much larger in size and file weight than they're being utilized on the page.

The picture of in the "Special offers" area -- JUST this one shot -- is 2.5MB. If someone tries to view that sucker on dial-up, you've lost a customer for sure.

Message edited by author 2008-03-21 11:59:52.

gloda

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

03/21/2008 11:57:51 AM · #7

Another vote for a change of font. Simply using Arial would much improve the readability.

03/21/2008 12:09:37 PM · #8

First and Foremost, what is the purpose of this site? If you're using it as a front for sales I'd say it needs a lot of work but if it's just a site for friends/family you have a bit more leeway.

I see at least three different fonts on the page, which gives the site a disjointed feel. The body font is also hard to read. While it can be nice to have a 'unique' site, I wouldn't use the font to that effect. Your design, which I like, already helps set you apart. The text is clearly important and people are going to have a hard time reading it.

There are too many colors that don't work well together - especially the unstyled links since the bright blue and purple have no real relation to the sites overall color scheme.

The thumbnails on the home and about us pages look like they were generated or resized on the fly and have quite a bit of visible compression (bear image is the worst) which doesn't help the overall look and feel of the site. Creating the thumbnails as separate smaller files in photoshop would make them look a lot better.

The 'Contact Us' link in your main nav doesn't seem to work in FF 2.0.0.12 (Though it's fine in IE7).

The gallery and contact us page that you have are completely dis-jointed from the rest of the site. The branding isn't consistent at all so I'm left wondering what's happened when I click those links. While they open in a new page, there are still no links back to the main site. I think it would be touch the way you seem to be using it to create a consistent look and feel between your main page and the gallery, but consistent colors would at least go a long way to that end.

From a search engine optimization point of view, things like "click here" links (Click here to purchase prints or to view our gallery and take advantage of this special offer.) aren't a very good idea. It would be better to have the link as something like "purchase prints or to view our gallery".

Nikon AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.8D

03/21/2008 12:35:58 PM · #9

Originally posted by alanfreed:

Thank you this is a very good point that I didn't take into consideration.

Originally posted by gloda:

Another vote for a change of font. Simply using Arial would much improve the readability.

Changed, thank you.

Message edited by author 2008-03-21 12:36:46.

Louis

Nikon D800

03/21/2008 12:52:16 PM · #10

Originally posted by gloda:

Another vote for a change of font. Simply using Arial would much improve the readability.

As would non-bold. :-)

03/21/2008 01:39:01 PM · #11

Amazing improvement!

F.Y.I the links are still blue when hovered. There is a pretty good CSS Link styling tutorial at //www.echoecho.com/csslinks.htm if you want one.

mpeters

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

03/21/2008 01:46:12 PM · #12

I like the adjustment, much more readable!

I'd also like to see the Special offers box aligned with the box above it. It feels out of whack bleeding into the LH column. my .02.

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

03/21/2008 01:58:47 PM · #13

cpanaioti

Canon EOS-40D

03/21/2008 02:09:39 PM · #14

It appears you list all the print sizes with each image regardless of aspect ratio.

03/21/2008 02:22:05 PM · #15

I can't thank you guys enough for all of the suggestion. Turns out that EM is very useful for changing colors so I was able to set the colors similar to what I have on my site. I also added the links like mention and changed the dimensions of the special offers box.

Yes, I have all of the sizes listed. I can't get a priceshett listed for just photos, they are gallery dependent. So I have the line stating that cropping may occur. The pricesheet is one of the things I like the most. My other service didn't have that and I felt that people didn't know where to go to purcahse the photo.

03/21/2008 02:39:41 PM · #16

In the gallery/contact you might switch the navagation you just put in on top onto the bar that says "Adventure Fotos Main Gallery | " or else leave it on top but make it stand out a little more (darker color or bold or something).

Also the contact link on top in your home/about is still not working, It looks like it's being covered up by the 'FOTOS' div. I'm not sure what you're developing in, but try lessening the height (currently 90) of the div that the FOTOS main title text is in OR change the z-index of that div to something less that 20.

03/21/2008 02:54:30 PM · #17

Thank you again, I think both issues are fixed now.

Originally posted by bfox2:

03/21/2008 02:55:35 PM · #18

Originally posted by BHuseman:

Thank you again, I think both issues are fixed now.

Yep, works great!