Site critique?

Julia

Hi everyone!!

I've been working on my site for a couple months, and last month officially kicked my business it into high gear (got the DBA, tax id, business account, etc). :barb Even got to celebrate my first SmugMug check this weekend!

I've hit the point with my site where I'm not sure what else I can add or tweak, though for me, I know it's an evolution.

I'd love it if anyone wanted to spend a little time looking it over - if there are any glaring errors or things that could be better.

http://www.saltygrapes.com

Thanks!!

Julia

denisegoldberg

Julia -
Your site looks great!

I do have comments on a couple of things though...

>>> This first thing is something that isn't under your control. It's related to the flash slideshow and your dropdown menus. When I first enter the site and mouse over the dropdowns from Galleries, when I hover over the items in that list that overlap with the slide show, the message "click to activate and use this control" pops up. That pop-up covers up menu entries. Once the user clicks on the slideshow (control) the pop-up disappears. Don't know if there is anything that can be done about this, but it's probably worth asking.

>>> The font for your "All rights reserved. © Salty Grapes 2002-2008. Duplication of content without permission is prohibited." is too small. It is barely readable, and that's not something that should be hidden.

>>> On the design services... image enhancement gallery: I find the text above each photo describing the service very difficult to read. It almost fades into the background. Maybe bold would work better. And I think a blank line following the text would also help.

>>> The favorites gallery has a small image of Grover in the lower left corner. I like the image, but unfortunately with stretchy the photos partially cover him. If you want to leave the background image, maybe move the edges of stretchy a little bit more?

--- Denise

Julia

denisegoldberg wrote:

>>> when I hover over the items in that list that overlap with the slide show, the message "click to activate and use this control" pops up. That pop-up covers up menu entries. Once the user clicks on the slideshow (control) the pop-up disappears. Don't know if there is anything that can be done about this, but it's probably worth asking.

Eeek! I'm so glad I posted for critique. I had no idea about that. I've never seen that happen and no one's mentioned it to me. Thank you!

>>> The font for your "All rights reserved. © Salty Grapes 2002-2008. Duplication of content without permission is prohibited." is too small. It is barely readable, and that's not something that should be hidden.

Sized up!

>>> On the design services... image enhancement gallery: I find the text above each photo describing the service very difficult to read. It almost fades into the background. Maybe bold would work better. And I think a blank line following the text would also help.

I have futzed with that page for what feels like an eternity. I can't get it to be "just right." I've tried black, white, gray, bold, normal, extra spaces, no spaces... I can't decide. I threw in some line breaks again to see if that helps. That one page is the bain of my design existance.

>>> The favorites gallery has a small image of Grover in the lower left corner. I like the image, but unfortunately with stretchy the photos partially cover him. If you want to leave the background image, maybe move the edges of stretchy a little bit more?

I know. :cry I was bummed when I saw him get covered when I went stretchy. I'll have a play with scooting it further in (now that my footer works better!) I had resigned myself to the approach that he was kind of like a little hidden Easter Egg, peeking out from behind the thumbs. Ha.

Thank you, thank you!!!!

Julia

~Jan~

Hi, nice work! I didn't have a ton of time, but I noticed a couple of things.

1. There is some redundancy is the site...for example, "pets' is a separate gallery, and also listed as a portfolio gallery.

2. Be sure to right click protect and preferably watermark all images (unless you don't mind people right-clicking and saving them).

3. Your drop-down navbar went under your thumbnails for some reason.

This little guy:http://www.saltygrapes.com/gallery/3848748#211464741

reminds me of my son so much! If you go to my blog you'll see right away which one my son is: http://theevanevents.blogs.com/jan_scott_photography

Julia

~Jan~ wrote:

1. There is some redundancy is the site...for example, "pets' is a separate gallery, and also listed as a portfolio gallery.

Hmmm... I'll give some thought to this, renaming things. The way I had intended that to look/work was that the Portfolio - Pets is just a sampling really, and then the other "Pets" was more of a catch all for everything. I still don't know how much I want to showcase regularly... good to think on!

2. Be sure to right click protect and preferably watermark all images (unless you don't mind people right-clicking and saving them).

ACK! Is there something that isn't right-click protected? Everything should be. I thought I was adamant about that.

As for watermarking, I left the "favorites" gallery un-marked as that's what runs the slideshow. Everything else should pretty much be watermarked. So, again, thanks for the heads-up. I'll go digging around to make sure.

3. Your drop-down navbar went under your thumbnails for some reason.

So glad I posted this. Yeesh. Wonder how I fix THAT?

This little guy:http://www.saltygrapes.com/gallery/3848748#211464741

reminds me of my son so much! If you go to my blog you'll see right away which one my son is: http://theevanevents.blogs.com/jan_scott_photography

Oh! They really are very alike! Too cute!!!!

Thank you so much for the feedback. (And the extra work. )

~Jan~

Your pets gallery is not protected. I didn't open EVERY gallery, but I did open several and that was the only one I found. LOVE the dog pics, BTW. It's always nice to see another photog. who enjoy photographing pets enough to feature them!

Julia

You're RIGHT! That was the weirdest thing!!! I can't imagine why I did that... I must have told a friend I'd unprotect it so they could swipe the pics briefly and forgot to go back.

That one's fixed for now. I'll crawl the rest to make sure.

If I could make a living as a pet photographer, I would. I love nothing more.

Thanks for the help, Jan!

Julia

OK, drop downs hiding behind thumbnails are fixed, thanks to Allen's help.

And everything is right-click protected and watermarked that should be.

Any other feedback is much appreciated!!

Julia

~Jan~

Julia wrote:

If I could make a living as a pet photographer, I would. I love nothing more.

Thanks for the help, Jan!

ME TOO!! In a larger town, maybe that would work, but in my area of 4,000 people there just aren't THAT many people willing to get professional pics of their pets!