OK I need your help.

[Stemmy]

I have done a deal with my website guy.

He needs to learn about his camera - I want my website updating.

So he is spending two days at my place - one to do anything to my website and the other I teach him photography.

Please look at my site and give me any suggestions as to how you think it could be improved. I don't want him sat doing nothing !!!

I know the front page images are very low resolution they are just testing the Image changing script.

Help please !!! Be as critical as you can - Ive got the chance to change everything so fill your boots - any fancy things you think would make my site memorable.

For a start I'm having the Navigation Bar and My logo and address "float" down the page as you scroll down so you can navigate from anywhere.

www.wedding-photography.org (http://www.wedding-photography.org)

[lostmysnorkel]

Firstly, I have recently had a long discussion with a web-designer friend of mine, who thinks that we should imagine the website as a high street shop.

So:

YOUR HOME PAGE
Should be the first thing your customer sees from the high street (information superhighway - without the roadworks!).

Martin, yours looks a little cluttered - but let me expand a bit.

Is this site for your customers?
If so, this may well be their first impression of YOU.

Personally, I would lose the Forum links from the top of the page - they are too big, too obvious and probably won't appeal to the majority of your customers. Hide them away somewhere (perhaps a button for 'photographers' - now that you have a separate domain for the forum you can easily redirect without putting it in front of customers who probably aren't that bothered that you run the best photo-forum on the web!)

The Black/Silver theme is nice and stylish, but only appears to extend to the buttons on the left and the background.

Why have the pink-looking logo top right? It doesn't really fit with the rest of the page.

The title should be the same silver as the buttons.

The buttons are nice, keep them, but make them very slightly smaller - the column is slightly too long to fit on one browser 'page' (on my 'pooter anyway) and scrolling around to find what their looking for can put people off.

Further to the scrolling comment, can you put the two images side by side and work the text around them to save space?

The credit card logos are largely uneccesary here and again don't really fit the 'theme' - they can be put somehwere else, like the 'packages' or 'prices' pages.

[lostmysnorkel]

...but you did ask for it!

As a summary:
For your homepage but equally for other sections:

Try and keep your home page viewable without having to scroll - but remember that your average customer will be viewing on a smaller, less critical screen. This is your shop front and should entice customers in.

Keep the home page within the same theme. Black & silver looks very stylish so avoid other colours.

K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid - avoid too much info on the home page, you only need an overview here, then direct customers to the section they want.

I would look at combining some of the buttons to reduce their number, for example 'Cars', 'Other Services' & 'Links' could all come under one button that leads to a separate section (or department to keep the shop theme going).

I've just noticed that the images refresh every visit - nice!
But, i would prefer two side by side or just one on it's own.

Your address should be beneath the title - not on the side.

Location - surely your address would give that away, do you really need that page with the map?

[lostmysnorkel]

I have just spent the best part of an hour looking at your site, during which I have finished the bottle of wine I opened only two hours ago!

So, here's Martin's invitation to rip my site to shreds:

www.m2visions.com

I am gradually re-building it and have a few ideas myself, but please remember that I do the HTML myself - so there's no hope of anything fancy just yet!

PLEASE NOTE:

This invitation is for STEMMY ONLY!
I will only invite others if I am allowed to trash them as well!
Except maybe Bindii.....who is always allowed.....and LTJ of course...and Kirsty.....and then there's Dottie....and Waif.....and..... oh sod it!....let's just 'ave a partey!

[Chris Hawkins]

Agree with LMS. KISS and No scrolling on first page. I would not use floating menus. Anything floaty is gimmicky. I am a customer to many (too many!) websites and I quickly lose interest and patience, and go elsewhere, if the site is gimmicky. The gimmicks are a distraction from what you are really trying to do - attract, retain and impress potential customers at a guess. Decide on a colour scheme and stick with it throughout. Hope it goes well. Cheers Chris.

[Stemmy]

Thanks guys its all being noted. Keep it comming !!!

With regards to the logo - This has been with me since I started the business 8 years ago - its everywhere - so I cant loose it now.

[BarryM]

I was about to say roughly the same about the clutter, but having just navigated to your front page, you have changed it qiuite a bit, not as cluttered as it appeared to be. Il get a good look through it when i get back and leave some comments.

[Stemmy]

The buttons are nice, keep them, but make them very slightly smaller - the column is slightly too long to fit on one browser 'page' (on my 'pooter anyway) and scrolling around to find what their looking for can put people off.


Yes as I use a 192 monitor set to 1280 X 1024 the menu takes up about half the screen. I will change that !! Thanks

[StuG]

Agree largely with what's already been said.

Keep it simple.
I like the Black/Silver too, I don't think there's a problem with the logo it looks fine to me but I would leave your address details to the 'Contact Me' page.
Personally I would get rid of the circular effect when navigating between pages it just looks gimmicky to me.
Cut out the scrolling if you can, you've got a lot of information there but try to categorise it a little better. As snorky says you could consolidate your menus and have sub menus off them something like ....

Weddings -
Services/Packages/Recent Weddings/Guestbook
About Me -
Qualifications info
Gallery -
Other Services -
Cars/Wedding/Stationery/Picture/Restoration/Framing/Portraits etc
Contact Me -
Photography Forum -
Links -

Also agree with snorky that the credit card icons are only really relavant on a page where you show package details.

Have a look at our website as an example www.selwoodgroup.co.uk this was designed by a colleague not me by the way, but I think it's quite good. Lots of info and no need for scroll bars.

[Waif]

I asked my other half to have a look - he's a web designer/programmer...... he says

" Only use a maximum of 4 main colours that do not contrast too much (except for the text).

The guestbook is the wrong width compared to the rest of the site.

The floating menu would be accomplished better with CSS rather than Javascript.

If the menu is made up using CSS with background images in each <DIV> tag, the the text for the buttons can be placed over the top of generic images. This will allow the site to load a lot quicker. The rollover can also be implemented in a couple of lines of CSS rather than javascript.

Centred text can be distracting when used for the main body text.

The graphic with the credit card symbols should ideally have the same colour background as the web page.

A golden rule with web design is no more than two screens on a page, this prevents too much scrolling to get to information.

The thumbnails on the gallery page are very small.

IF PHP or ASP is utilised, you can get the gallery to build itself, allowing easier updating with new pictures.

The menu seems a little disorganised. It may be worthwhile organising it into logical groups.

The content of the pages could be presented a little better by getting text to wrap arounf the left or right side of the images, rather than text above and below. This would allow the pages to take up less screen space and look neater.

The gallery page take a long time to load, even on an ADSL connection.

Regards

Mark

www.atrenne.co.uk "

Hope that makes sense. :) He does explain it all to me - java, css etc etc, I just nod sagely in all the gaps! :grin: I'm dreading the day he gives me a pop-quiz!

[Stemmy]

My list is growing - Thanks everybody - its all being noted !!!!

[robbie-doux]

Most of the things I through were already suggested, but I think I have 2 more.
1) The Gallery page has a few typo's e.g. "gage" for "page", and "once any," instead of "once; any".

2) The button link to the Cars page just doesn't fit in - Different to other button on the site, almost looks like an afterthought.


I rather like the circular transition between pages.

[Stemmy]

Thanks Robbie - its all being noted

[Recess]

Can I be really nit-picky here, and say that the shift in poistion of the banner through the transition is quite off-putting.

It's not all the pages it happens to, but definintely when you move away from the home-page, there's a shift from right to left.

Like I said, that's really picky, but in case a potential customer visits the site, and sees that as a lack of attention to detail, I thought I'd bring it up.

Hope that's ok.

[Stemmy]

Can I be really nit-picky here, and say that the shift in position of the banner through the transition is quite off-putting.

It's not all the pages it happens to, but definitely when you move away from the home-page, there's a shift from right to left.

Like I said, that's really picky, but in case a potential customer visits the site, and sees that as a lack of attention to detail, I thought I'd bring it up.

Hope that's OK.

You don't know how log Ive been trying to get that sorted mate.

Its a real pain as I'm not sure whats shifting the page !!!

It will be sorted I promise - and well noticed. I was trying to convince myself that nobody would see it !!

Thanks !!!!!

[Dotty.c]

my main gripe would be your shop window (front page) is too cluttered, keep the info for inside your site, entice them in with 1 cracking picture, and lose the counter.

[tibet]

I agree with everyone else here: too much clutter. My first impression was: "what exactly is he selling here?" Cars? Frames? Photography? And what's that photography forum doing in the navigation bar? I mean, if this is ur professional website, I'd say stick to ur main services (wedding and portrait photography for example) in the navigation bar and put ur links for cars, framing and forum elsewhere. It's too messy. I know I wouldn't hire someone through such a website cos it looks "untidy" and "all over the place". In short "unprofessional". It doesn't look like u are specialising in anything but more like u're doing a bit of everything. Know what I mean? Only my 2 pennies. :)

[howlingbasset]

Day job is in advertising so know that having an ad white out of black cuts readership by 50%

Also another quick tip is to design anything as if it were one of those giant outdoor advertisements. They have a 2-3 second window of opportunity to get message and call to action across. So distill message right down to bare minimum. Also don't lead with logos, the benefit to customer is pararmount.

Hope helpful