My new business website

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digitalmaniac said:
It was written in word RH and we had this before I think. Im no english lit major-but I dont think i am illiterate by any stretch of the imagination.
I appreciate your concerns but i have seen some sites with written word being so much worse.

As i said tinkering can be done with time to make it 100%
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That's fine. I think that it's not a question of whether there are better or worse sites out there. My view is that the question is "How will an educated audience (Head Teachers) view this text?" My advice is spend money on getting a professional marketeer to make it better. You spent money on a professional web site developer, shame to sink the ship for six pennyworth of tar.

I've offered some advice that I think would help. It's your business and you know what you want to do to make it a success. You (and probably every one else) will be glad to read that I've written all I'm going to write on the topic.
 
if they're one of the largest in the uk they shouldn't be making school boy errors.

i'd agree it's a bit scrappy, the design is reasonably good but you're wasting a whole load of space at the top next to your logo and the custom scroll bars and frames and all other manner of stuff could do with being looked at.

it's not boring when people tell you it's got bad points, it must just be a kick in the teeth to know you've paid for it and you have asked people what they think :/

or was it "please tell me my new site is ace" ?

apart from the bits that annoy me regarding web standards etc i'd say the only thing that puts me off is the background colour, i'd switch to something else if most of the website is also going to go with the dark terracotta stylee :)
 
petemc said:
First post. You asked. I used to be a professional web designer and I've been building websites since 1995. So don't get yer knickers in a twist when someone posts what they actually think :p
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Yes ok mate but i was asking a general do you like it -not asking all web designers tofind fault in the semantics of how one is built:thinking:

Im sure you can see my point-as i can yours. There are loads of designers out there and choosing one is hard at the best of times-so i chose one which is found on every web search-which showed sites I liked in their portfolio and didnt want to charge me £3000 just to make a basic website.

Rh-your thoughts are taken in but i mean other websites ran by market leaders in this business-school photography. Iif you wanted to discuss how something is written it would be suggested to actually make it snappy-punchy-cut out the waffle. this too would be seen as bad prose in the eyes of a tutor.

Maybe I will employ the services of some pro writer one day-but if you had any idea how much this has cost me already before ive earnt a red cent-you'll appreciate i will save that until later.

A business evolves and grows-it doesn't wake up one morning as a fully grown oak tree.:naughty:
 
alexkidd said:
if they're one of the largest in the uk they shouldn't be making school boy errors.

i'd agree it's a bit scrappy, the design is reasonably good but you're wasting a whole load of space at the top next to your logo and the custom scroll bars and frames and all other manner of stuff could do with being looked at.

it's not boring when people tell you it's got bad points, it must just be a kick in the teeth to know you've paid for it and you have asked people what they think :/

or was it "please tell me my new site is ace" ?

apart from the bits that annoy me regarding web standards etc i'd say the only thing that puts me off is the background colour, i'd switch to something else if most of the website is also going to go with the dark terracotta stylee :)
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No-its a colour to go with the surrounds of a stage. What's more ive said it before I didnt want a web designers viewpoint on it-but the general public. Who wouldnt have a single idea about wether it was cs3 friendly or any of the other boring-Yes to us non designers-stuff.

Its not a kick in the teeth really as I dont think its shabby or any other things said.

viewpoints are taken in-but that doesnt mean everyone feels that way about it.
Far from it from some posts on here and other forums.

You cant please all of the people all of the time.
 
Hi DigitalManiac

The site design is nice and does fit with the theme of your business.

But I do have to agree with some of the other opinions expressed that the use of iFrames, Tables and bad cross compatibility are very poor and old hat for a Web design company that "are one of the largest in the uk" and the fact that it doesn't validate is just unacceptable from a "professional" web design company.

As Pete has pointed out, Websites which are coded using XHTML and CSS are much better crawled by web search engines and Proper Validated sites rank higher then sites that are poorly coded (not designed) - Surely for a Business website, your going to what your site ranked as high as possible?

I have also attached a screenshot of the Your Pictures iFrame part - I think that just lets down the nice and clean design you have with the site - http://www.jorobplace.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/image1.gif

Please don't see what people have offered as a slur on you - you asked for Feed back on your Site, expect to have some Good and Bad comments (all good as long as the bad also offers some construction).

Good luck with your venture

Rob (y)
 
This thing you say about validating-doesnt the site have to be live on the web to be validated from what i read.

The your pictures page-the only other thing i could have done is have a full page link and it then takes them away from my site to the labs site which i didnt want.
 
petemc said:
It is live on the web.
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Is it? I thought it was just a design server.

Maybe its my fault to some degree-I asked them to build it in flash-does this mean it then wouldnt be done in css. The way i see it a search engine would struggle to pick it up because it has no text on first page anyway-but then with my other websites it seems topick other pages up anyway and lists them instead.

I will mention it to them if it should validate as it is!
 
digitalmaniac said:
Is it? I thought it was just a design server.

Maybe its my fault to some degree-I asked them to build it in flash-does this mean it then wouldnt be done in css. The way i see it a search engine would struggle to pick it up because it has no text on first page anyway-but then with my other websites it seems topick other pages up anyway and lists them instead.

I will mention it to them if it should validate as it is!
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We can all see it. Its live on the web. It hasn't been made your home page yet though, as in from accessible from your url but its on the web. Flash is now searchable by Google but tbh I doubt your designers even know that. According to them they write a 35 page document on how you should do your own SEO. Thats hilarious because its their job to build your site from the ground up with SEO in mind.

Our report comprises a 35 page document detailing exactly what work you need to carry out to boost your presence on all the major search engines and can be invaluable if you are serious about getting noticed in this highly competitive marketplace.
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Or you can pay them £499 to get your site submitted to search engines. Ooooh what a complex task.
 
petemc said:
We can all see it. Its live on the web. It hasn't been made your home page yet though, as in from accessible from your url but its on the web. Flash is now searchable by Google but tbh I doubt your designers even know that. According to them they write a 35 page document on how you should do your own SEO. Thats hilarious because its their job to build your site from the ground up with SEO in mind.



Or you can pay them £499 to get your site submitted to search engines. Ooooh what a complex task.
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Sorry pete-I think youll find thats a detailed report-they are supposed to do the basic seo.

Also why doesnt it validate-worked for me.

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=w...(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0

Also-yes for the complete moron they may pay to have search engine listed-but ive been doing this long enough to get a site noticed-each of my own i have built even with basic site software have come up on google page 1.

This one will be there too I hasten to think as there are not many sites with this keyword-which makes it easier.
 
digitalmaniac said:
Sorry pete-I think youll find thats a detailed report-they are supposed to do the basic seo.
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I think their detailed report is going to be a huge truck of horse doodie :) By basic SEO, metatags aren't really that important these days. Its just something people know about and thus think is SEO. Its so easy to put in what you want people to search for and essentially trick search engines. They're a lot cleverer these days and read your content to know what your site is about. Which brings us back to XHTML & CSS.

Also why doesnt it validate-worked for me.

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=w...(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0
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Did you look at that url? Its a blank page. Of course it'll validate. Put in an actual page of your site and it breaks.

Also-yes for the complete moron they may pay to have search engine listed-but ive been doing this long enough to get a site noticed-each of my own i have built even with basic site software have come up on google page 1.
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Just to point out, a hyphen doesn't do the job of a comma. Sorry but that's just been bugging me :p

This one will be there too I hasten to think as there are not many sites with this keyword-which makes it easier.
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Which keyword? There are over 7 million sites for "school photography" and that is what you're competing against.
 
i think people are just trying to say that if they'd have bought that site they'd expect it to be up to date with standards and accessible in the same way you'd expect someone you've paid to take photos to have them in focus.
 
alexkidd said:
i think people are just trying to say that if they'd have bought that site they'd expect it to be up to date with standards and accessible in the same way you'd expect someone you've paid to take photos to have them in focus.
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But then we dont all know the difference until its pointed out-to me it looks professional and works good for me. Apart from the obvious things like contact which i already knew about and stuff.
 
which is great but it should work well for everybody as if i buy a business website i'm wanting everyone to access it rather than just myself.
 
alexkidd said:
which is great but it should work well for everybody as if i buy a business website i'm wanting everyone to access it rather than just myself.
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And I will endeavour to rectify any problems with other browsers
 
It seems the OP has taken a dim view of having his site critiqued. The most important and most neglected aspect of creating a website is testing it. Just the same as any software. It doesn't matter how professional it looks because after the first visit, the looks are abstract. Your visitors become blind to the actual graphical design. Most of them anyway.

By posting here you've been given free use of a team of testers; to berate their feedback isn't wise at all and will cost you either money, business or both. Swallow your pride and accept that no one is trying to take the **** out of you.

You want this site tested by as wide a demographic as possible because people of all types will work in schools and are your chosen market. Some will be experienced web users, some won't. Some will be of a highly irritable nature and won't like some of the things that people have pointed out to you on here. Some will be short sighted. If you don't take all of these things into account then you're neglecting your business. You appear to not care about 3% of safari users but if someone offered you a 3% increase in turnover would you reject it? Add to that 3% the number of visitors you just turned away because they use screan readers. Then add the number you justed turned away because they don't like the music, the extra clicks, the fact that the internal *******ized scroll bar doesn't work with a mouse wheel and anything else I never saw within the first 10 posts, and my 2 minutes on your site and you just turned away a decent amount of potential visitors/customers.

If I seem arsey then, don't take it that way. I'm just presenting you with an alternative view that a bit of a bollocking down the phone to your designers, who should have advised you on all this, might actually turn out to greatly reduce the chances of you turning away potential custom.

They just built you a shop with a doorway that a lot of people can't fit through.
 
Gnaser said:
It seems the OP has taken a dim view of having his site critiqued. The most important and most neglected aspect of creating a website is testing it. Just the same as any software. It doesn't matter how professional it looks because after the first visit, the looks are abstract. Your visitors become blind to the actual graphical design. Most of them anyway.

By posting here you've been given free use of a team of testers; to berate their feedback isn't wise at all and will cost you either money, business or both. Swallow your pride and accept that no one is trying to take the **** out of you.

You want this site tested by as wide a demographic as possible because people of all types will work in schools and are your chosen market. Some will be experienced web users, some won't. Some will be of a highly irritable nature and won't like some of the things that people have pointed out to you on here. Some will be short sighted. If you don't take all of these things into account then you're neglecting your business. You appear to not care about 3% of safari users but if someone offered you a 3% increase in turnover would you reject it? Add to that 3% the number of visitors you just turned away because they use screan readers. Then add the number you justed turned away because they don't like the music, the extra clicks, the fact that the internal *******ized scroll bar doesn't work with a mouse wheel and anything else I never saw within the first 10 posts, and my 2 minutes on your site and you just turned away a decent amount of potential visitors/customers.

If I seem arsey then, don't take it that way. I'm just presenting you with an alternative view that a bit of a bollocking down the phone to your designers, who should have advised you on all this, might actually turn out to greatly reduce the chances of you turning away potential custom.

They just built you a shop with a doorway that a lot of people can't fit through.
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Not at all-but to get a true representation of what people do or dont like would take at least say 10000 people to view it and give their say on it.

I cant base an expensive website design choice too much on a handful of peoples advice-only use it to try and decide what to do.

Safari should be fixed hopefully. I didnt mean i don't care about it-just there isnt 45million people in this country looking at it is what I meant.

Wording is very important if you ask me when offering crit.

Starting it out with sack your web designer is imho not being constructive and is just being bolshy-which if im not mistaken is supposed to be against forum rules. As it doesnt help unless I want to loose the money ive spent on it and makes one feel that he wasted his time trying to get it done pro in the first place.

Im not being bolshy-just stating facts as i see it.
 
digitalmaniac said:
Starting it out with sack your web designer is imho not being constructive and is just being bolshy-which if im not mistaken is supposed to be against forum rules.
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I'm not being bolshy either when I say that there was a god damn smiley face at the end of my sentence.
 
digitalmaniac said:
Not at all-but to get a true representation of what people do or dont like would take at least say 10000 people to view it and give their say on it.

I cant base an expensive website design choice too much on a handful of peoples advice-only use it to try and decide what to do.

Safari should be fixed hopefully. I didnt mean i don't care about it-just there isnt 45million people in this country looking at it is what I meant.

Wording is very important if you ask me when offering crit.

Starting it out with sack your web designer is imho not being constructive and is just being bolshy-which if im not mistaken is supposed to be against forum rules. As it doesnt help unless I want to loose the money ive spent on it and makes one feel that he wasted his time trying to get it done pro in the first place.

Im not being bolshy-just stating facts as i see it.
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Yeah that's fair enough mate and reading back I can see my tone was a bit negative and could have made anyone see their arse a bit. You certainly can't please all the people all the time when you create a website unless you have the resources to really put a lot of hands and eyes on it, and yeah sack the web designer isn't very constructive, even if it was said as a joke.

It does have a bit of truth behind it though; they do deserve a bit of an ear-bashing because as professionals they should have advised you of all the pros and cons of your choices. That is their responsibility. I personally, would expect some kind of compensory action on their part, as a goodwill gesture if nothing else. Their model should be built around happy customers as every web designer has a lot of competition.

I don't know about anyone else's background on here but I've built more sites than there are pages on this thread, admittedly never for a photographer before but that vast majority have been commercial and for high profile clients in competitive markets.

I wasn't just trying to **** on your chips and there are genuine points that need to be taken from this thread and fed back to your deisgner because they aren't representing you in every way they'll be claiming to on your final invoice.
 
I don't intend to neglect my business. Usually stats can show if people are bouncing or not. if they do then i will address some issues.

that is my preffered way of judging if a site meets the customers needs-doesn't that make sense.
 
Gnaser said:
Yeah that's fair enough mate and reading back I can see my tone was a bit negative and could have made anyone see their arse a bit. You certainly can't please all the people all the time when you create a website unless you have the resources to really put a lot of hands and eyes on it, and yeah sack the web designer isn't very constructive, even if it was said as a joke.

It does have a bit of truth behind it though; they do deserve a bit of an ear-bashing because as professionals they should have advised you of all the pros and cons of your choices. That is their responsibility. I personally, would expect some kind of compensory action on their part, as a goodwill gesture if nothing else. Their model should be built around happy customers as every web designer has a lot of competition.

I don't know about anyone else's background on here but I've built more sites than there are pages on this thread, admittedly never for a photographer before but that vast majority have been commercial and for high profile clients in competitive markets.

I wasn't just trying to **** on your chips and there are genuine points that need to be taken from this thread and fed back to your deisgner because they aren't representing you in every way they'll be claiming to on your final invoice.
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I will slowly grind their balls-thanks to some of the advice on here. But I have found from experience-just being an assy customer often backfires on you. I don't want to burn my bridges.
 
have you paid in full for the unfinished site and did you give them a brief/and or sign any documentation regarding what work will be done and when and to what standard?

if not they're probably not as big a company as you think.
 
digitalmaniac said:
I don't intend to neglect my business. Usually stats can show if people are bouncing or not. if they do then i will address some issues.

that is my preffered way of judging if a site meets the customers needs-doesn't that make sense.
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Yeah stats can show bounce rates but they're much more helpful when there are clearly defined goals are targets within the sites, such as how many go through and make an actual purchase.

What they don't tell you though is how many were so far down the line of ordering that they finished anyway but didn't enjoy the experience so wouldn't use it again.

I see your point about not burning the bridges but the rollicking only really needs to come after you ask them politely why they never made things clear and if they aren't forthcoming with options for you. You don't need to jump all over them if they're going to make amends for their mistakes voluntarily.
 
There's something confusing me. The site is photopia so why, in the "your pictures" bit, does it have another website address? Are you using an existing shopping cart or something?
 
dod said:
There's something confusing me. The site is photopia so why, in the "your pictures" bit, does it have another website address? Are you using an existing shopping cart or something?
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No-its the lab who handle the orders-its easier to get it through their online system rather than administration twice.
 
alexkidd said:
have you paid in full for the unfinished site and did you give them a brief/and or sign any documentation regarding what work will be done and when and to what standard?

if not they're probably not as big a company as you think.
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Payed for half up front-half on completion and there was a brief form.
 
Website is now css and w3c compliant on all pages and there is a shut off for the music and seo is done. Also the scroll bar now works on a tog wheel and doesnt jump. The reference to flash-only the first page is done in flash and all other pages are done in xhtml and a sitemap has been rendered with google so they should index ok.:bonk:

A few non confrontational words with designer seemed to work.
 
"... an 8 digit pass number which will make it impossible..."

I feel your confidence is misplaced.

"How many pictures are you ordering from?"

English would be nice, but worse "Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a0006'

Overflow: 'cint'

/includes/pageContent.asp, line 38 "

When a random 8 digit number is entered in the non centred form.

I know that bit is the store for the people doing your prints, but it appears on your site and will be associated with you.

and finally a comment on something you said earlier in the thread - "to me it looks professional and works good for me"

The point is that it the website doesn't really have to please you does it? It has to please your potential customers.
If your customers are head teachers of primary schools, then I suspect they will cringe at all the primary school errors. Your choice, as always.

I won't bother with anything else, because we have had this conversation before.

B.
 
BenMottram said:
"... an 8 digit pass number which will make it impossible..."

I feel your confidence is misplaced.

"How many pictures are you ordering from?"

English would be nice, but worse "Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a0006'

Overflow: 'cint'

/includes/pageContent.asp, line 38 "

When a random 8 digit number is entered in the non centred form.

I know that bit is the store for the people doing your prints, but it appears on your site and will be associated with you.

and finally a comment on something you said earlier in the thread - "to me it looks professional and works good for me"

The point is that it the website doesn't really have to please you does it? It has to please your potential customers.
If your customers are head teachers of primary schools, then I suspect they will cringe at all the primary school errors. Your choice, as always.

I won't bother with anything else, because we have had this conversation before.

B.
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Primary school errors-what. Im sick and tired of idiots like you passing judgment like im a complete idiot or something. What are you going on about entering a random 8 digit number in the non centred form. you have to be given a number not just enter whatever you want and it says order from how many prints and then goes into another screen.

What is more why have you gone back to previous posts to use against me-when i have posted fresh-what a pratt.

seems this forum is filling up with people who just want to have a digg at others in a non constructive way-which isn't being policed by the mods imho and i think i will be leaving the forums-as i suspect many others will. there ahs been many threads on this recently about people not being happy with people snubbing and all sorts else.

Well I don't need to be made to feel like crap everytime i come to what used to be my faivourite forum.

Cheers guys.

Sorry just one more thing confidence misplaced with the 8 digit number. the lottery has only 6 and it is near on impossible to get that number right-let alone with another 2 digits. but why the hell am i explaining myself to you anyway.
 
The bell noise when you hover over the icons on the home page needs to go.

Music needs to go, even if you can turn it off, it's best that its not there. If your customers is a school then the chances are they are looking at it in the school office, you don't want music.

The your pictures section is far too big for the little box, having to scroll sideways is a pain and put customers off.

In your pictures, the first landing page is Ordering, surely Home should be the landing page.

In products and services, those photos/scan of your leaflets are far too small and low res, all pixelated and hard to see. Rather than a scan, you need to design something similar but for web use.

I feel that 99% of the problems comes from that original design of the tiny box, get rid of that and have a normal screen size and the site will be better for it and your customer will enjoy it more.

oh, your text are FAR too small, its smaller than the text used on the forums.
 
no need to go name calling is there. the man raised issues with the ordering form, dont call him an idiot.
 
digitalmaniac said:
Primary school errors-what. Im sick and tired of idiots like you passing judgment like im a complete idiot or something. What are you going on about entering a random 8 digit number in the non centred form. you have to be given a number not just enter whatever you want and it says order from how many prints and then goes into another screen.

What is more why have you gone back to previous posts to use against me-when i have posted fresh-what a pratt.

seems this forum is filling up with people who just want to have a digg at others in a non constructive way-which isn't being policed by the mods imho and i think i will be leaving the forums-as i suspect many others will. there ahs been many threads on this recently about people not being happy with people snubbing and all sorts else.

Well I don't need to be made to feel like crap everytime i come to what used to be my faivourite forum.

Cheers guys.

Sorry just one more thing confidence misplaced with the 8 digit number. the lottery has only 6 and it is near on impossible to get that number right-let alone with another 2 digits. but why the hell am i explaining myself to you anyway.
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Well, the forum is policed and whenever the rules are broken they will be enforced. Ironically, the only post in this thread which is probably breaking the rules is the one I've quoted, yours.

There's a lot of opinion in this thread, some of it you like, some of it you don't. Granted, it's not all worded in the most constructive manner, but it has been given in an effort to allow you to discuss certain aspects of the design with your designers in order to improve the sites overall performance. I'd consider that to be generally positive and useful.

If you don't like the comments you receive, ignore them, or even better, put the poster on your ignore list. That's what it's there for.
 
dod said:
Well, the forum is policed and whenever the rules are broken they will be enforced. Ironically, the only post in this thread which is probably breaking the rules is the one I've quoted, yours.

There's a lot of opinion in this thread, some of it you like, some of it you don't. Granted, it's not all worded in the most constructive manner, but it has been given in an effort to allow you to discuss certain aspects of the design with your designers in order to improve the sites overall performance. I'd consider that to be generally positive and useful.

If you don't like the comments you receive, ignore them, or even better, put the poster on your ignore list. That's what it's there for.
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Im sorry but I have never posted one answer to a thread that wasn't worded in a way that was fair and not meant to sound like i was berrating someone in a primary school playground( To which i mean when reading others threads)To which many others do not care whatsoever about others feelings. It is MY SITE and I will be the last one to finally decide what goes in it. i have listened to many things said on this forum and decided to change it to suit and thank those people for their input.

But i will not please everyone all the time that is for sure. No business plan works 100% from the off-tweaks and prods will be inevitable to make a company image exactly what you want it to be in the end.

Comments saying it has primary school errors imho is an insult to my person. I may not be shakespear but i know i can write well enough to not be told I have an iq of an 8 year old:wacky:

There may still be issues as some of you see it-possibly small ones i can still see too, but it is a theme i have worked hard to achieve and will stick to it until i feel it doesnt work. yes I have to please my customer but also have to be true to myself in the process.

Noone even answered to this thread for days until i showed a few changes and straight away the onslaught starts again.

This site is now typical of this with photos too. Someone posts some pretty shoddy work, through no fault than they are new to it and people go well done wonderful. others post brilliant work and get either no replies or berrated.
This seems true of my site. It is a professional site imho. There has been some design limitations perhaps. But funnily enough the pro togs on other forums;especially within the school photography area have welcomed it with open arms.

I stand by my choice to leave the forum as it is filled with petty people. Which Im sure most of you don't care about and i look for no sympathy.

Sorry Matty and marcel-this place is getting no better than DP Review.:bonk:
 
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