My new website - looking for genuine, honest crit

Dangleman

Dangleman

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Dan
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Hope this doesn't get too lost amongst all the other 'my new site' posts, but...

Please take a look at my new site:

http://www.dandphotography.co.uk

It's not totally finished yet, and is a work in progress but would love to hear folk's opinions.

And be gentle with me you brutes :), had a bad day....
 
I know its a work in progress, but shouldnt at least some of the links be clickable?

I cant really comment from just seeing a single image on the front page :)
 
The whole thing is Flash? Why? Also, music? Why? Delliliah? WHY!?!!
 
Betty said:
I know its a work in progress, but shouldnt at least some of the links be clickable?

I cant really comment from just seeing a single image on the front page :)
Click to expand...


Eek - this is partly why I'm posting in here - user testing :)

You mean the 'home', 'about', 'galleries' links top right? Are they not working for you? Also the image should be rotating through 5 different ones...
 
petemc said:
Well if you don't want any more work go for it :p
Click to expand...

:D I must say I keep swinging between thinking, oooh a bit of cool music might be good, but then remembering that I loathe any website I go to that has music on it.
Also, what I think is good, other's won't, so it's generally a no no aint it. Still, who doesn't like the Dion?
 
it looks pleasant but music is bad and i really don't like flash sites personally
 
I like the look of it, it exudes a real professional air. Works fine for me in Firefox

If you are thinking of putting more content on, them maybe consider a case study (maybe using the Manchester brochure), just to give people an idea of what they can expect from you.

You should of course, test it with all browsers, which may be where people are getting issues. There are websites around which can render the frontpage for you in older versions of IE (which is where I always get issues)

Oh, and lose the music. Nothing will make me close a website quicker than music!

One other minor gripe, I am not sure about the 'backbone of England' comment, I would just leave as Yorkshire/Lancashore border.
 
Dangleman said:
Still, who doesn't like the Dion?
Click to expand...

Straight men? The issue of different browsers is essentially mute since its all Flash. But it just doesn't need to be. Flash is best used when HTML can to the same job well enough. Slideshows, video etc.
 
Janusian said:
I like the look of it, it exudes a real professional air. Works fine for me in Firefox

If you are thinking of putting more content on, them maybe consider a case study (maybe using the Manchester brochure), just to give people an idea of what they can expect from you.

You should of course, test it with all browsers, which may be where people are getting issues. There are websites around which can render the frontpage for you in older versions of IE (which is where I always get issues)

Oh, and lose the music. Nothing will make me close a website quicker than music!

One other minor gripe, I am not sure about the 'backbone of England' comment, I would just leave as Yorkshire/Lancashore border.
Click to expand...

Thanks Janusian - good advice that. Really like the case study idea too, will seriously ponder on that one.

Looks like music is a total no then...
 
Music off by default for me. Lucky I had my speakers switched off, but if I hear music on a website, I click back, thats just me :)

And no, none of the links were working for me.
 
my speakers were off but i could see a music player flashing away in the bottom corner so presumed it was on and if i'm honest as soon as i see one of those i click off a site anyhow.

so if theres no music keep it that way :p
 
I like it, the "next page" link at the bottom in the gallery could be more prominent, i missed it first time round.

The Home, Gallery, Contact...etc tab on the top right is in the corner of the screen, that's fine on a small monitor but when its on a huge widescreen, that end up between a lot of travel between the center image to the links in the corners. Not necessarily a criticism, but something to note.



p.s. who is the red head in the blue top? :p
 
Flash, used judisciously in conjunction with HTML, can be very effective in providing a rich media experience. Full Flash websites are visitor prevention tools. Nothing makes a visitor hit the Back Button faster than a preloader showing %age loaded. You can also forget any organic (free) traffic from the search engines as they cannot read any text in flash. So you'll need to send visitors to your site by word of mouth or by Pay-Per-Click advertising which is expensive as most of the visitors from PPC will hit the Back Button as soon as they see the preloader. There's a truism in the web development business. There are only two people who like Flash websites. The person who owns it and the person who built it.

I'm sorry if this is all negative, but I develop commercial websites for a living and Flash sites are commerce killers. If you haven't done your budget yet, better to abandon it now in favour of HTML. You'll have to do it eventually if you are in any way serious about making money from your website.
 
I clicked the scroll bar when on the contact page and the form disapeared.
I like the size, could it be done without flash though?
 
Heidthebaw said:
Flash, used judisciously in conjunction with HTML, can be very effective in providing a rich media experience. Full Flash websites are visitor prevention tools. Nothing makes a visitor hit the Back Button faster than a preloader showing %age loaded. You can also forget any organic (free) traffic from the search engines as they cannot read any text in flash. So you'll need to send visitors to your site by word of mouth or by Pay-Per-Click advertising which is expensive as most of the visitors from PPC will hit the Back Button as soon as they see the preloader. There's a truism in the web development business. There are only two people who like Flash websites. The person who owns it and the person who built it.
Click to expand...

That thinking is so last decade.

http://www.blusites.com/samuel/index2.php

- flash indexing for improved search-engine friendliness
- ability to access each section directly with a separate url address
- ability to enter separate meta title for each main menu button and each text section
Click to expand...

I am not saying that site is perfect, but it does those things that you claim it doesn't do. Also, I think the modern web users are so used to flash and broadband user base is multiplying by the day, the % loading screen is no longer a problem.
 
Thanks for the feedback so far people. I know flash has its limitations, but I needed to create a site quickly and easily, and I used Lightroom Galleries for this. It's pretty clunky to use, but I like the results it churns out a lot, and you get to use Lightroom to manage it all, which I'm a huge fan of (oh, and LRG is free!)

I don't want this to turn into a flash vs html debate though. As Raymondo points out, I thought things had moved on in that respect also?

Still, If I had the time, and the technical know how (I used to have but I'm well rusty) I would develop an html based site, but with flash based galleries probably. That's what I plan to do, but it will take time which I don't have at the moment.
 
I think the site has quite a professional look to it. Definitely got some excellent shots there. It just feels a little unfinished to me (probably as its a WIP) I think the transitions between pages and the positioning could be smoothed out a little.

I started out with a flash based site, then decided I didn't want to learn flash just to change small and simple things. I now use Wordpress with a customised template for the site layout and flash galleries to distribute image content.
 
Heidthebaw said:
Flash, used judisciously in conjunction with HTML, can be very effective in providing a rich media experience. Full Flash websites are visitor prevention tools. Nothing makes a visitor hit the Back Button faster than a preloader showing %age loaded. You can also forget any organic (free) traffic from the search engines as they cannot read any text in flash. So you'll need to send visitors to your site by word of mouth or by Pay-Per-Click advertising which is expensive as most of the visitors from PPC will hit the Back Button as soon as they see the preloader. There's a truism in the web development business. There are only two people who like Flash websites. The person who owns it and the person who built it.

I'm sorry if this is all negative, but I develop commercial websites for a living and Flash sites are commerce killers. If you haven't done your budget yet, better to abandon it now in favour of HTML. You'll have to do it eventually if you are in any way serious about making money from your website.
Click to expand...

Exactly - I would have said the same but was on my iPhone typing (I had already seen the site as you can't on the iPhone) and it would have taken sausage fingers here to type it!! :)
 
:agree:

avoid flash, for reasons stated above, they aren't search engine friendly,
% counter put visitors off, and if they haven't got a flash plugin loaded, they'll go elsewhere.

other than that looks very slick.
 
As a stop gap - do you think it would be wise to develop an html based home page which you then 'enter' and access the site in its current flash form?

I know this doesn't get round the page load issue (people are so impatient these days aren't they :) ) and the fact they may not have flash installed though etc.

I've seen a few photographers sites that use this method I think. Would it help with search engine rankings to do this? Come on geeks - need your help! :)
 
Yeah, that could be a work round, just make sure the page is also useful, not just a pointless entrance, put up a menu, some words about yourself etc.

Maybe explain the galley is in flash and will take a few brief seconds to load... Its all a bit of a compromise and inevitably you'll wish you had a HTML based site if you want it to be a commercial base.

Flash is all very well and good if your already an extremely coveted photographer, if not, it just looks pretty, no other advantage, but loads of disadvantages.
 
firefox users are mutliplying daily and it doesn't have flash initially, same with mobile users (not sure about flash in all mobile browsers but my old phone failed on flash) so by using it you limit yourself.
I also hate music, and it increases loading times on slower connections.
Nothing clicks on the dand page, and the blusites one is a pain to load (i have bb but live in the country so is slow)
 
firefox users are multiplying daily and it doesn't have flash initially, same with mobile users (not sure about flash in all mobile browsers but my old phone failed on flash) so by using it you limit yourself.
I also hate music, and it increases loading times on slower connections.
Nothing clicks on the dand page in flock (ff3 base)
The blusites one is a pain to load (i have bb but live in the country so is slow)
 
david1701 said:
firefox users are multiplying daily and it doesn't have flash initially, same with mobile users (not sure about flash in all mobile browsers but my old phone failed on flash) so by using it you limit yourself.
I also hate music, and it increases loading times on slower connections.
Nothing clicks on the dand page in flock (ff3 base)
The blusites one is a pain to load (i have bb but live in the country so is slow)
Click to expand...

Hi David

I'm obviously concerned about the links not clicking on my site (Betty had this as well) - could I ask you exactly what you're accessing the site with - what platform, what exact OS and what version, what browser including the version, and owt else you think is useful...


tbh at this stage I'm not too fussed if it doesn't work on mobile platforms (it works on my PS3 though, which surprised me...)
 
I have found all this very interesting as I have recently put up my new site :)

www.jbdavies.co.uk

This was created for me and I have a gallery that I'd rather change and if lightroom can do this it would be great if you shared how you integrate it?

Cheers
Jim

PS I like the site Dan :)
 
windows 7 ultimate, the build before the present one..... must upgrade
Flock 2.0.3 which is firefox 3 based i believe

loading the site in a beta build of ie8 and it takes forever and is very unresponsive. The links do in fact not work

The pictures don't scroll but I do have a different picture in each browser?

my connection is a bit pants as I am at home not university for a few days which is why the other site was a problem

Am i right in assuming the dand page was yours? because thats the one I have tested

David
 
david1701 said:
windows 7 ultimate, the build before the present one..... must upgrade
Flock 2.0.3 which is firefox 3 based i believe

loading the site in a beta build of ie8 and it takes forever and is very unresponsive. The links do in fact not work

The pictures don't scroll but I do have a different picture in each browser?

my connection is a bit pants as I am at home not university for a few days which is why the other site was a problem

Am i right in assuming the dand page was yours? because thats the one I have tested

David
Click to expand...

David - yep, this is me: http://www.dandphotography.co.uk

Not even heard of flock! Why can't there just be one browser eh, life would be a lot simpler wouldn't it.
Also, I thought (as Pete pointed out earlier) that using flash actually had some benefits in that it gets around cross browser problems more effectively?

Also, you're using beta stuff, which I'm not too fussed about as there's every chance it will be fine when final. Or maybe not. BAh.
 
sure have you had good feedback from someone using ff3 as thats what flocks based on and it could be a flock thing or a problem with firefox
 
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