Is my website ready for business?

Markjay · October 1, 2006

Good morning!

I have two websites...
http://choicephotos.net I host on smugmug

http://brightsidestudio.com a website I'm 90% finished with....
and could really use contructive criticism on, please.

My main questions

1. are the page colors working together ok?
2. are the pages loading fast enough?
3. if the answer to either of those questions is no, how I can I improve on the sites?

I already know my product pricing page is just awful... that's the one page I'm working on this weekend.

Choicephotos.net is used for displaying images to show to friends and family members...... non business

Brightsidestudio.com is supposed to be ready for business!

Thank you SO much in advance. This is a great forum and I always appreciate the feedback from you guys... and gals :-)

Markjay

philipw · October 1, 2006

Hi Markjay,

Overall, I like the look of your choicephotos.net gallerieys, but on my browsers, Safari and Firefox, the text that's supposed to run under the large image in the gallereis, such as other sizes, keywords, etc., are running behind it and up towards the top. Perhaps someone else can help you with the coding on that to push it down under the image, as I have no idea how the code for that.

Brightsidestudio.com looks fine.

Philip

Derno · October 1, 2006

hello,

yeah in the choice photo's galleries, the text doesnt load under the picture, just behind it. i have no clue why that is.

and for me, the other site is un-appealing to the eye, but thats because im a website designer, just change the buttons when they page first opens, they are fine but in my opinion they are too red. i suggest more of a blue, maybe the blue thats in the top of the page? just the red doesnt fit with the page. i suggest using 3 colors in a theme, you have dark blue, light blue, and white (text), and a little black, that just adds to it. once you go into the galleries though, it looks fine. i really like the galleries, nice work!

Markjay · October 1, 2006

Thank you.....
Thank you for your constructive criticism and advice re: brightsidestudios.com website. My smugmug site at choicephotos.net is looking nice but, I had help on that one!

I've decided on the deep blue, navy blue on the menu bard, white and gray for the rest of the elements.

I don't want to distract from the photography itself, which has lots of color.
The home page button colors are going to change..... that's something I was already planning and I'm not sure on a Blue or ? yet.

Have a great day today!

Markjay

Derno wrote:

hello,

yeah in the choice photo's galleries, the text doesnt load under the picture, just behind it. i have no clue why that is.

and for me, the other site is un-appealing to the eye, but thats because im a website designer, just change the buttons when they page first opens, they are fine but in my opinion they are too red. i suggest more of a blue, maybe the blue thats in the top of the page? just the red doesnt fit with the page. i suggest using 3 colors in a theme, you have dark blue, light blue, and white (text), and a little black, that just adds to it. once you go into the galleries though, it looks fine. i really like the galleries, nice work!

dancorder · October 2, 2006

First I should say that I like the photos on the site.

My 2c (all comments from looking using Firefox):

- You say you'll change the front page buttons, that's good. For the new ones don't use JPG. Use something non-lossy like GIF or PNG for images with text in them.
- The dropdown menus align with the right hand side of the heading, this looks a bit odd, left might be better, especially for the last one.
- Perhaps change the colours on the drop downs to fit with the rest of the site better.
- Ditto for the Next/Previous gallery buttons.
- The header image links back to the homepage which is good, however the blank blue space after the image doesn't which might be confusing.
- "Previous Gallery" would be better than "Back Gallery" on the buttons
- In the "Sunsets" and the "Abstract and still life" galleries the top left thumbnail is aligned with the top of the main image. In the other galleries it isn't. ("Birds 2" and "Black and White 2" have strange alignment too")
- The border around the gallery notes has two breaks, one between the bottom left corner and the bottom line and one between the top right corner and the right hand border. Also there is no gap between the border and heading text which looks a little cramped.

Edit: That may have sounded a bit harsh, I was at work and only had time to write down things quickly, in general I think the site is fine.

Markjay · October 2, 2006

Thank you so miuch... any more? :-)
RE: my http://brightsidestudio.com website

In NO way, were your comments / constrive criticism " a bit harsh". On the contrary, they were helpful !!

Most of your list were on my "to do list" of error fixing but, I the right side drop down menus had somehow escaped my eyes.... that's why I asked for feedback / suggestions, which you were gracious enough to offer, thank you!

I'm not sure how to fix the text box border for the bottom gallery notes...
that is another element that escaped my eyes :-)

My only question now is........ WHAT color to make the home page buttons, IF I don't want to use blue? The current home page buttons were an experiment and, while they DO standout, they also stick out like a sore thumb... they don't fit the color theme. Maybe black with white text ???

Thanks a bunch!
Markjay

dancorder wrote:

First I should say that I like the photos on the site.

My 2c (all comments from looking using Firefox):

- You say you'll change the front page buttons, that's good. For the new ones don't use JPG. Use something non-lossy like GIF or PNG for images with text in them.
- The dropdown menus align with the right hand side of the heading, this looks a bit odd, left might be better, especially for the last one.
- Perhaps change the colours on the drop downs to fit with the rest of the site better.
- Ditto for the Next/Previous gallery buttons.
- The header image links back to the homepage which is good, however the blank blue space after the image doesn't which might be confusing.
- "Previous Gallery" would be better than "Back Gallery" on the buttons
- In the "Sunsets" and the "Abstract and still life" galleries the top left thumbnail is aligned with the top of the main image. In the other galleries it isn't. ("Birds 2" and "Black and White 2" have strange alignment too")
- The border around the gallery notes has two breaks, one between the bottom left corner and the bottom line and one between the top right corner and the right hand border. Also there is no gap between the border and heading text which looks a little cramped.

Edit: That may have sounded a bit harsh, I was at work and only had time to write down things quickly, in general I think the site is fine.

Markjay · October 3, 2006

Thanks...... update!
I corrected the out of alignment thumbs in the B & W 2 and Birds 2 galleries,
changed the home page buttons, changed the next and back nav buttons to match, and a few more things to do. I still need to add one more gallery on the left side of the home page, remove the photos by Mark Javer on the header graphic and, I think I'll add a light screen pattern or texture to the home page background.

http://brightsidestudio.com

I also have more work to do on my choicephotos.net site

Thanks a bunch!
Markjay

dancorder wrote:

First I should say that I like the photos on the site.

My 2c (all comments from looking using Firefox):

- You say you'll change the front page buttons, that's good. For the new ones don't use JPG. Use something non-lossy like GIF or PNG for images with text in them.
- The dropdown menus align with the right hand side of the heading, this looks a bit odd, left might be better, especially for the last one.
- Perhaps change the colours on the drop downs to fit with the rest of the site better.
- Ditto for the Next/Previous gallery buttons.
- The header image links back to the homepage which is good, however the blank blue space after the image doesn't which might be confusing.
- "Previous Gallery" would be better than "Back Gallery" on the buttons
- In the "Sunsets" and the "Abstract and still life" galleries the top left thumbnail is aligned with the top of the main image. In the other galleries it isn't. ("Birds 2" and "Black and White 2" have strange alignment too")
- The border around the gallery notes has two breaks, one between the bottom left corner and the bottom line and one between the top right corner and the right hand border. Also there is no gap between the border and heading text which looks a little cramped.

Edit: That may have sounded a bit harsh, I was at work and only had time to write down things quickly, in general I think the site is fine.

DifferentSeed · October 4, 2006

Hi,

A couple of other things to consider, which I don't think people have mentioned yet...

- Centering the header over the content might look better in larger resolutions

- The images in the header resaved as transparent .gifs (I'd avoid PNGs because of all the fussy variations of Internet Explorer still in use).

- Perhaps add the "Your cart" link to the black header bar, on the right. People are pretty used to that. Moving that also gets rid of the next thing I noticed...

- The dropdown menus cover the Cart/Paypal.

- Maybe move Paypal to the bottom of all pages, like "We proudly accept Paypal" or "We prefer Paypal".

- On the mainpage, I would (personally) move "Framed Prints" to the top in the black for two reasons: it'd provide balance to the two sides beside an image; and it's really it's own stand-alone category outside of the photography topics (sorta).

- The "Click here to Purchase" might perform better (from a sales and conversion standpoint) as "Add to cart", simply because it's alot easier to add to a cart (in one's mind) than to purchase. They may add a lot more than they intend to eventually purchase but it might not add that moment's hesitation before they click it if they're not immediately told "purchase".

- It'd be nice if the menus had mouseover effects (on the front and navigating galleries). Nothing crazy, just a slight color change (can be done with images or css).

- When a gallery first loads the title of the image says "Image2_1" for example. It's only when I click an image that it changes to the proper title. To get around this you could add this to the bottom of your page (before </body>):

[Script Language="JavaScript"]

[/script]
Obviously that'd need to be enclosed within proper HTML tags (replace the [ and ] with < and > respectively (which I imagine if I did here it wold be filtered out).

You could add an onLoad to the body tag but a lot of apps strip those out (my Norton Antivirus seems to circumvent a lot of Javascript on pages)

- The other thing I noticed was that the "Galleries" dropdown menu has "Gallery & Sitemap" on top and then a non-alphabetized list. I don't see the reason behind the extra link on top. Perhaps just a list of the galleries, in alphabetical order.

If the difference between B&W and B&W2 is 2 is all vertical, perhaps "Black & White Verticals" so people know exactly what they'd be going into.

- You should have "About the Photographer" more prominent somewhere. Be proud, they're awesome photos! Where's the face behind the camera?

- On the footer it has "contact us" but everywhere else it says "contact me". I prefer the "me" since this is the photography of Mark Javer and nobody else.

Those are the things I noticed when looking for a bit.. I hope my comments haven't offended you... I tend to get carried away with this, but this is what I do (online marketing and web design) and I love helping with it.

I hope it's all constructive for ya.

And again, your photos are beautiful.

Markjay · October 4, 2006

Thank you, so much!
Those were GREAT suggestions!!! I really appreciate your taking the time to do that..... very much.

A few of your suggestions were on my list but, most of them had gotten past me to this point so, this is really helpful !!!

Have a great day today, while I work on these "things" later in the day.
YOu are always welcome to come back and see how far I've come along :-)

Best,
Markjay

DifferentSeed wrote:

Hi,

A couple of other things to consider, which I don't think people have mentioned yet...

- Centering the header over the content might look better in larger resolutions

- The images in the header resaved as transparent .gifs (I'd avoid PNGs because of all the fussy variations of Internet Explorer still in use).

- Perhaps add the "Your cart" link to the black header bar, on the right. People are pretty used to that. Moving that also gets rid of the next thing I noticed...

- The dropdown menus cover the Cart/Paypal.

- Maybe move Paypal to the bottom of all pages, like "We proudly accept Paypal" or "We prefer Paypal".

- On the mainpage, I would (personally) move "Framed Prints" to the top in the black for two reasons: it'd provide balance to the two sides beside an image; and it's really it's own stand-alone category outside of the photography topics (sorta).

- The "Click here to Purchase" might perform better (from a sales and conversion standpoint) as "Add to cart", simply because it's alot easier to add to a cart (in one's mind) than to purchase. They may add a lot more than they intend to eventually purchase but it might not add that moment's hesitation before they click it if they're not immediately told "purchase".

- It'd be nice if the menus had mouseover effects (on the front and navigating galleries). Nothing crazy, just a slight color change (can be done with images or css).

- When a gallery first loads the title of the image says "Image2_1" for example. It's only when I click an image that it changes to the proper title. To get around this you could add this to the bottom of your page (before </body>):
[Script Language="JavaScript"]

[/script]
Obviously that'd need to be enclosed within proper HTML tags (replace the [ and ] with < and > respectively (which I imagine if I did here it wold be filtered out).
You could add an onLoad to the body tag but a lot of apps strip those out (my Norton Antivirus seems to circumvent a lot of Javascript on pages)

- The other thing I noticed was that the "Galleries" dropdown menu has "Gallery & Sitemap" on top and then a non-alphabetized list. I don't see the reason behind the extra link on top. Perhaps just a list of the galleries, in alphabetical order. If the difference between B&W and B&W2 is 2 is all vertical, perhaps "Black & White Verticals" so people know exactly what they'd be going into.

- You should have "About the Photographer" more prominent somewhere. Be proud, they're awesome photos! Where's the face behind the camera?

- On the footer it has "contact us" but everywhere else it says "contact me". I prefer the "me" since this is the photography of Mark Javer and nobody else.

Those are the things I noticed when looking for a bit.. I hope my comments haven't offended you... I tend to get carried away with this, but this is what I do (online marketing and web design) and I love helping with it. I hope it's all constructive for ya.

And again, your photos are beautiful.

Is my website ready for business?

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