Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: PeterAit on October 01, 2009, 08:51:23 am

Title: Please comment on my web site
Post by: PeterAit on October 01, 2009, 08:51:23 am
I have finally completed my photography web site. I'd be very interested to hear any comments on the site or the photos from the folks here.

http://www.peteraitken.com (http://www.peteraitken.com)

Peter
Title: Please comment on my web site
Post by: deeyas on October 01, 2009, 10:04:00 am
Small world! I live in RTP, not too far from Chapel Hill! I found the site to be simple and easy to navigate ... no guessing, no looking for hidden navigation buttons or arrows.
The one thing you could incorporate, is a representative photograph for your portfolios (instead of just text). And then maybe superimpose the name/description on the photo (if aesthetics allows...).
I am not a fan of photo links opening up in a new page/tab, except in case of a well implemented FLASH popup that covers the screen. But I wasn't bothered by your portfolios opening in new pages.
Title: Please comment on my web site
Post by: Ed Blagden on October 01, 2009, 10:09:39 am
Well it's a winner when compared to the last one we were invited to critique, since I can actually find the photographs!  So 10/10 in that regard.
Title: Please comment on my web site
Post by: LoisWakeman on October 01, 2009, 11:21:44 am
What Ed said. If you can manage better integration between the galleries and the rest of the site, that would be even better. But it tells us what we need to know and makes it easy to see the photos, for which full marks. Well, minus one for opening a new tab/window for the gallery: I prefer to choose for myself how a link opens, especially inside a web site.
Title: Please comment on my web site
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on October 01, 2009, 03:33:12 pm
I'll agree with Lois on this. It's attractive, not too fussy, and easy to navigate as it is. Nice photos, too.

But Jeremy Kikashi will want you to let the arrow keys take you to 'next' and 'previous.'

Eric

Title: Please comment on my web site
Post by: PeterAit on October 01, 2009, 04:16:05 pm
Quote from: LoisWakeman
What Ed said. If you can manage better integration between the galleries and the rest of the site, that would be even better. But it tells us what we need to know and makes it easy to see the photos, for which full marks. Well, minus one for opening a new tab/window for the gallery: I prefer to choose for myself how a link opens, especially inside a web site.

Lois,

Thanks for your comments. Can you be more specific about "better integration between the photos and the rest of the site?" Sounds like a good thing, but I'm not sure what this would entail

As for galleries opening in a new window, I did that because the galleries themselves are Lightroom-generated so I could not include a link to the page with the list of galleries - I did not want users to have to click Back a bunch of times.

Cheers,

Peter
Title: Please comment on my web site
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on October 02, 2009, 03:36:49 am
Quote from: EricM
But Jeremy Kikashi will want you to let the arrow keys take you to 'next' and 'previous.'
I will and I do! You have also committed what I (perhaps alone) view as a sin, in that the "next" and "previous" buttons move around when the image changes from portrait to landscape. I want to use the keyboard, and if I can't, I really don't want to spend time moving the mouse to find a small button each time I want to move to the next image. However, you've got away with it, since they don't move much!

Generally, though, I like the design. It's clean and uncluttered. I'd rather you didn't open new tabs, though: I'm quite capable of holding down the command key as I click on a link if that's what I want to accomplish. If you fix this, you'll need to add a button to go back to the gallery listing, of course.

The fact that clicking on an enlarged image returns you to the thumbnails is to my mind rather counter-intuitive. If I see the cursor change to a hand over an image, my immediate thought is that a click will make the image larger, not make it disappear.

Nice photographs. I particularly like the patterns gallery.

Jeremy
Title: Please comment on my web site
Post by: AndrewKulin on October 02, 2009, 07:27:00 am
Beautiful photos and generally elegant/simple site.  A suggested improvement is to add a "back" or "Home" button from within the galleries.  It took me a few seconds of fumbling around for a way to go back before I realized a new tab had opened up on my browser.  And I think that is what Lois was referring to as well.

Andrew
Title: Please comment on my web site
Post by: PeterAit on October 02, 2009, 08:31:22 am
Quote from: AndrewKulin
Beautiful photos and generally elegant/simple site.  A suggested improvement is to add a "back" or "Home" button from within the galleries.  It took me a few seconds of fumbling around for a way to go back before I realized a new tab had opened up on my browser.  And I think that is what Lois was referring to as well.

Andrew

The galleries are generated by Lightroom. Is there a way to put a link to go back to the main list? I have not been able to find it.

Thanks for all comments!

Peter
Title: Please comment on my web site
Post by: RSL on October 02, 2009, 10:59:12 am
Quote from: PeterAit
The galleries are generated by Lightroom. Is there a way to put a link to go back to the main list? I have not been able to find it.

Thanks for all comments!

Peter

Peter, I don't think so. I've checked out the web building capability of Lightroom and decided to use Photoshop (Through Bridge) to do my web. That approach doesn't give you a back-button capability either, but it does have some other advantages. My main beef with the Bridge approach is that it allows you to include the filenames of the pictures, but there's no way to eliminate the file extension (".psd" for instance). I have to bring up the HTML code and remove the extensions that way. I've written Adobe and asked them to fix this bug. The fix would be easy even for a novice programmer, but they don't seem to be interested in fixing the problem. I suspect the same would be true for Lightroom. What they really want to sell you for web construction is DreamWeaver.

I like your work, by the way.
Title: Please comment on my web site
Post by: deeyas on October 02, 2009, 02:11:38 pm
Quote from: PeterAit
As for galleries opening in a new window, I did that because the galleries themselves are Lightroom-generated so I could not include a link to the page with the list of galleries - I did not want users to have to click Back a bunch of times.


You can open up the LR-generated gallery in the same window and include a "back to list" link. Here is an example: http://www.sayeedmahmood.com/photos2/toys/index.html (http://www.sayeedmahmood.com/photos2/toys/index.html) .
At the bottom of the page, I have a "back to main site" link which was created within LR.
Title: Please comment on my web site
Post by: EduPerez on October 03, 2009, 05:34:36 pm
The site is fast to load and easy to navigate, thanks; it is unobtrusive, I could move around the site and watch the photos without interferences.

However, I think the design could be improved, I did not find the site ugly at all, but there are some minor changes that could enhance the overall feeling. Fonts and colours at the galleries look perfect to me, I would try to use then all around the site. This will also give more sense of connection between the pages; and a header, common to all pages will help too. Other detail worth mentioning are the links: there is no visual clue to distinguish what is a link from simple text.

Hope this helps.
Title: Please comment on my web site
Post by: LoisWakeman on October 05, 2009, 09:21:23 am
Hi Peter,
I meant just make it easy to get from the galleries to the other pages and back again easily. Looks like someone has set you on that track already.
Can you not edit the link to the galleries not to have a target that opens a new window? I don't think that has anything to do with Lightroom if you made the other pages yourself.
Title: Please comment on my web site
Post by: PeterAit on October 05, 2009, 09:37:20 am
Quote from: LoisWakeman
Hi Peter,
I meant just make it easy to get from the galleries to the other pages and back again easily. Looks like someone has set you on that track already.
Can you not edit the link to the galleries not to have a target that opens a new window? I don't think that has anything to do with Lightroom if you made the other pages yourself.

Hi Lois,

I've made some changes including your suggestion. Galleries now open in the same window, not a new one, and each gallery page contains a link back to the portfolio list.

Thanks again,

Peter
www.peteraitken.com
Title: Please comment on my web site
Post by: LoisWakeman on October 06, 2009, 09:50:28 am
That's a big usability improvement Peter!
Title: Please comment on my web site
Post by: Chris_T on October 06, 2009, 01:53:59 pm
Not sure if I'm looking at the revised and improved site. But here are what I see.

A simple, speedy, and to the point site. But many easy improvements would enhance it tremendously.

Navigation:

- Making the home page images links into galleries would speed up getting to them. After all, it is all about the galleries, and you want your visitors to get into one asap, i.e., with the least number of clicks. In fact, with the few galleries you have, get rid of the gallery entry page entirely, and rely on image links on the home page to enter them. One click, and the visitor is there.

- Once out of the home page, there is only one link back to the home page. Much better to keep the COMPLETE menu bar on each and every page, including each image enlargement page.

- Instead of asking viewers to "Select a Portfolio to View" on the gallery entry page, get rid of the verbage and add representative and linkable images for each gallery.

Style, etc.

- I've been thinking about using Lightroom web gallery templates for my own site. But I have yet to figure out how to customize the galleries so that they match with other pages. Your site is a good example of the problems I try to solve. The galleries' background color is different from the other pages'. The font type, color and size on a gallery page is different from the other pages', such as "Peter Aitken Photographs".

- Let the visitors know how many images are in each gallery. When viewing an enlargement, let them know which image they are looking at, i.e., n of m. It is also be much easier for a buyer to refer to image x in gallery abc instead of using the long descriptions.

- On the Print Purchases page, it is not obvious that "send me an inquiry" is a link. In fact, this is true in a few other places.

- "All site content © 2009 Peter Aitken" is broken into two lines on the technical details page, unlike on other pages.

You may find this very lengthy and old thread helpful:

http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....showtopic=13890 (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=13890)

Caution: This is an old thread, and many reviewed sites might have been revised by now.