This is achance to "strut your stuff." I thought of this when looking for ideas of things other SM users are doing with their SM sites. Post a link to your site so we can all see it and maybe we can all provide some constructive criticism as well as tell us what you like about our site. We can't be a Debbie Downer all the time! I'm definately open to things I should change on my site. My link is below. Thanks.

Great idea Rouxster.
Went to visit your site. I thought all the important informations were easy to access (price / contacts) and my only regret is that there was not more photos to browse and some of the photos you had were just variation of the same (mostly in the New Orleans section).

I was looking to some criticism on my site I just finished recently. I think it's easy to browse and pretty user-friendly but as my own site I may not be objective ;)
So I would appreciate if you could share your thoughts on louloupix.smugmug.com
thanks

Originally Posted by LoulouPix Great idea Rouxster. Went to visit your site. I thought all the important informations were easy to access (price / contacts) and my only regret is that there was not more photos to browse and some of the photos you had were just variation of the same (mostly in the New Orleans section). I was looking to some criticism on my site I just finished recently. I think it's easy to browse and pretty user-friendly but as my own site I may not be objective ;) So I would appreciate if you could share your thoughts on louloupix.smugmug.com thanks

The pictures are spectacular and tack sharp, but I think that it is a little too busy. The colors are great on your pictures and really good composition. My fist impression was that I didn't know what the site was about and wasn't really sure where to click. Also, when you click on a picture, the larger image opens below the thumbnails, which I didn't see until I happened to look at my scroll bar. Get your galleries to open on another page after a visitor clicks on a gallery picture, rather than on the same page. Also, label your galleries so we know what we are going to be seeing.

For pictures this good, you should have a clean easy to follow site.

Originally Posted by rouxster The pictures are spectacular and tack sharp, but I think that it is a little too busy. The colors are great on your pictures and really good composition. My fist impression was that I didn't know what the site was about and wasn't really sure where to click. Also, when you click on a picture, the larger image opens below the thumbnails, which I didn't see until I happened to look at my scroll bar. Get your galleries to open on another page after a visitor clicks on a gallery picture, rather than on the same page. Also, label your galleries so we know what we are going to be seeing. For pictures this good, you should have a clean easy to follow site.

thanks for the comments Ryan. I get your point but I'm against opening new windows plus it wouldn't fix my issue as what you call thumbnails was the root of my navigation and is part of the header ;) I hoped people would click on the pictures they liked and hopped from one gallery to another...I will think on a way to shift the focus to the picture clicked.

Will post an update there if I find a suitable solution ;)

Originally Posted by LoulouPix I was looking to some criticism on my site I just finished recently. I think it's easy to browse and pretty user-friendly but as my own site I may not be objective ;) So I would appreciate if you could share your thoughts on louloupix.smugmug.com thanks

Hi, Sebastien.

I had a look at your site first. Personally, I think it's not a very user friendly design. The theme and overall aesthetics are nice, the images are nice, but the layout is confusing and I probably would have clicked away pretty quickly as a random visitor.

Having destination items appear 'below the fold', with a static set of thumbs as the only thing immediately visible, is really confusing. I clicked several thumbnails and then all the links on the side before I figured out what was happening. Honestly I thought all links were redirecting right back to the homepage at first. To top it off, after figuring it out and clicking an image in a gallery, to view in lightbox mode, I got sent back to the top of the page and had to scroll back down to the gallery again. This gets really annoying after 2 times or less.

Having the navigation links on the right side is different, and could be argued as being something fresh, although I think they need to be better positioned and have enough space between them to avoid mis-clicking a link. Including a state change or hover effect for the link would help here also.

Finally, I see 3 rows of 5 thumbs, and then one thumb beneath those, which looks out of place or just poorly planned. It leaves a lot of dead space to the right which seems unnecessary.

On the subject of content, I did look through several of your images, and I agree that with pics this good you should reconsider how you present them to folks. Make it easy for folks to appreciate the images without becoming wrapped up in figuring out how to navigate the site.


With all that said, I gladly open myself up to the same invitation to critique my site. However, I am busy trying different customizations and reorganizing at the moment, so things might break or even be inaccessible from time to time. I'll follow the thread because I'm still looking for ideas myself, and I'll post back if/when I get things in a better prepared state for substantial review but, at the rate I'm going, this may take me a while.

Originally Posted by James H Hi, Sebastien. I had a look at your site first. Personally, I think it's not a very user friendly design. The theme and overall aesthetics are nice, the images are nice, but the layout is confusing and I probably would have clicked away pretty quickly as a random visitor. Having destination items appear 'below the fold', with a static set of thumbs as the only thing immediately visible, is really confusing. I clicked several thumbnails and then all the links on the side before I figured out what was happening. Honestly I thought all links were redirecting right back to the homepage at first. To top it off, after figuring it out and clicking an image in a gallery, to view in lightbox mode, I got sent back to the top of the page and had to scroll back down to the gallery again. This gets really annoying after 2 times or less. Having the navigation links on the right side is different, and could be argued as being something fresh, although I think they need to be better positioned and have enough space between them to avoid mis-clicking a link. Including a state change or hover effect for the link would help here also. Finally, I see 3 rows of 5 thumbs, and then one thumb beneath those, which looks out of place or just poorly planned. It leaves a lot of dead space to the right which seems unnecessary. On the subject of content, I did look through several of your images, and I agree that with pics this good you should reconsider how you present them to folks. Make it easy for folks to appreciate the images without becoming wrapped up in figuring out how to navigate the site. With all that said, I gladly open myself up to the same invitation to critique my site. However, I am busy trying different customizations and reorganizing at the moment, so things might break or even be inaccessible from time to time. I'll follow the thread because I'm still looking for ideas myself, and I'll post back if/when I get things in a better prepared state for substantial review but, at the rate I'm going, this may take me a while.

Thanks for the critics James. I do realize I got used to browsing my site and thought people would get used to it too. Guess it means I'm back to the bench if I don't find a solution to the opening out of sight ;)

Really appreciate your help.
Let us know as soon as your site is ready for review and it will be my pleasure to review it!

www.davidweissphotos.com

Originally Posted by dtw78 www.davidweissphotos.com

David, great photos. I kind of like the "wrapped" effect that you have on your slide show images. It's unique. Your site is clean and easy to navigate. The only issue that I have, and it's minor, is tha the gallery description is being cut off on some of your galleries. Maybe a smaller font or less words? Other than that, I like the portfolio page to show off some of your best work. Very nice site in my opinion.

Hi All,
I would definitely appreciate any and all comments and suggestions regarding my site. I've incorporated some of the GREAT work jfriend has done along with Allen. These guys are such a tremendous resource!
Thanks in advance.

Hog

Originally Posted by Blindhog Hi All, I would definitely appreciate any and all comments and suggestions regarding my site. I've incorporated some of the GREAT work jfriend has done along with Allen. These guys are such a tremendous resource! Thanks in advance. Hog

Hog,
Beautiful, I love the SRV Statue. I have always wanted to see it in person, makes me jealous. The only suggestion I would ever make would be to maybe move the Family protected gallery from the portfolio and put it in the Clients section. To me (and only my opinion here) the portfolio should be able to be viewed. That's what you are advertising/selling to customers. So if the Family gallery is in there, it should be view-able, if not view-able, then not in the "Portfolio".

Originally Posted by urbancowboy0914 Hog, Beautiful, I love the SRV Statue. I have always wanted to see it in person, makes me jealous. The only suggestion I would ever make would be to maybe move the Family protected gallery from the portfolio and put it in the Clients section. To me (and only my opinion here) the portfolio should be able to be viewed. That's what you are advertising/selling to customers. So if the Family gallery is in there, it should be view-able, if not view-able, then not in the "Portfolio".

Thanks cowboy, very good point. I appreciate the feedback!

Great work. The only comment/suggestion I would make is to consider consolidting your links on your home page just to make it a little cleaner. In other words; create a link for GALLERIES and then let folks pick flowers, travel, new york, etc from there.

I'm just getting started and don't have my site where I want it to be but it's been a fun journey.

Chris Bantham
Overland Park, KS
chrisbantham.com

Originally Posted by LoulouPix Great idea Rouxster. Went to visit your site. I thought all the important informations were easy to access (price / contacts) and my only regret is that there was not more photos to browse and some of the photos you had were just variation of the same (mostly in the New Orleans section). I was looking to some criticism on my site I just finished recently. I think it's easy to browse and pretty user-friendly but as my own site I may not be objective ;) So I would appreciate if you could share your thoughts on louloupix.smugmug.com thanks

Originally Posted by rouxster I'm definately open to things I should change on my site. My link is below. Thanks.

Hi, Ryan.

First impression is I like the simple first page. Nice layout and it's easy to figure out where to start. There is a easily missed typo in the first line of text. 'We love to shoot pictures of New Orleans.'

In that same box of text, I think it would perhaps be more accommodating if you simply linked to your 'Contact Us' form in the box, instead of stating that one could do so after entering the site. Why require 2 more clicks if someone specifically came to the homepage looking for a way to contact you?

Also, the only link currently in that text is to your copyright statement. (which happens to have an email link, defeating the purpose for a contact form in one sense) Now I know everyone has differing ideas about how effective a legal statement is on photo sites, but what struck me was the wording in yours. Specifically, the line: 'If you do not agree with the terms, you may not use this site.'; along with the paragraph immediately below it. It really doesn't make any sense and is not something that is enforceable, so why come across as being so paranoid and restrictive? Those who would intentionally take your images will ignore it, and those who are clueless about such things will just read it as confrontational. Probably not the first, or second impression you want to make to visitors and potential clients. I'm not saying that you shouldn't have a copyright statement, but simply by browsing your site, I have broken a few of the terms which your statement forbids and if I linked to it in this post I would be breaking another.

Now, once inside the site, I immediately looked for a way to go from your portrait gallery to the New Orleans gallery and couldn't do it without clicking back to the homepage. If the site consists of only two public galleries, I think it would be appropriate to have navigation to both available at all times. Also, when viewing a gallery, the larger photo appears to be clickable but nothing happens when I click.

The shipping info page is nice, I may copy that idea myself. But the 'Prints, Products, & Prices' page leaves me with a few questions. Are these the prices for your portrait work, or just the NO images? Why are there links for Lustre and Metallic paper descriptions, which take me to a SmugMug home page, a page which doesn't tell me anything about paper? Who is SmugMug anyway? (all rhetorical questions, of course) That page also looks a little wonky, like it was pieced together. Maybe find a way to tighten up the positioning so the table and the paper descriptions look deliberate. A little more information would be helpful as well.

Overall I think you have a pretty good layout, just a few simple housekeeping bits to take care of. Thanks for starting the thread, as I've been working on my own site and I'm picking up ideas just by taking the time to thoroughly evaluate and verbalize how I see some other sites.

Mine is in my Sig.
I have been redoing it over the past few weeks so there may be some bugs that I have not caught. If you find some I would greatly appreciate knowing about it. I do know that it does not work well in IE6 and I do not know if I even want to try and take on all the work trying to get it to work in such a old browser. IE7 also does not handle some of the opacity's of the navbar.
Any and all criticism would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks Corey.

James, very good critique of my site. I made a couple of the simple changes, but I noticed how late it was and quickly figured out why I was yawning. I plan on diving in more of it tomorrow and will return the favor for your site. Thanks so much again!

I am new to SM by just a week I have been trying to customize my site - don't want to spend too much time and go all out - but I do need help with how to change the font style to other than what they offer on the basic set up.

I like all the sites I have seen - Here is mine; http://www.onthewallphoto.net/
tell me what you think - what improvements would you make? I aim to keep it simple so there is little to no thought on navigation with a clean straightforward appearance. I wanted to have no "smugmug" logo's on and I figured that part out.

Thanks in advance

Lee

Great thread, Ryan!
I think your site looks great but could use some more photos. As someone else mentioned, a little more variation couldn't hurt. Usually when I head out with the camera, I'll come back with hundreds of pictures but will try to narrow the number I post to my website down to one or two. People tend to get bored looking at 10 variations of the same subject. Just an idea.

Still working but here it is for now

http://www.lukejphotography.com/

www.AwaisYaqub.com


What i like about my website: I love the outlay of my homepage. viewer can see all buttons, slideshow and my bio without dragging around the scroll bar on 1024x768 monitor.

What i don't like:
My website won't fill high resolution monitor screen.
I would like to make thumbnails in gallery slightly bigger and 5x5 or 6x6.

Thats all for now

My site could use some help. I don't know HTML or CSS - so I'm trying to learn as I go. I do love the FAQ and this site is very helpful.
My friends, are my friends, so they aren't completely honest with me - as I'm sure some of you will be.

thank you!
www.sweetscenephoto.com