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Author Topic: completion of my website  (Read 5274 times)

mvandenbos

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completion of my website
« on: August 29, 2007, 10:54:33 am »

Finally finished what I think is a reasonable well designed and layed out website and would welcome your opinions and review.

www.mehdivandenbos.com

Kind regards

Mehdi van den Bos
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Mehdi van den Bos
www.mehdivandenbos.com

Ken Alexander

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« Reply #1 on: August 29, 2007, 07:40:51 pm »

The heading at the top of your Open Edition Gallery page says Limited Edition Gallery.  

Otherwise, some really lovely stuff.  Very easy to navigate and the images load very quickly.

Ken
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OnyimBob

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« Reply #2 on: August 30, 2007, 03:42:58 am »

Nice site & pics - but it doesn't work in Firefox unless one specifies to open it in an IE tab.
Bob.
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john beardsworth

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completion of my website
« Reply #3 on: August 30, 2007, 04:09:27 am »

I opened it OK in Firefox 2 on Windows XP.

Generally an attractive and easy site. I didn't like the large amount of white space around the small corner of the screen that your site occupies. Maybe set background colours to your dark blue? You've got this better on your gallery pages. Information on Print Purchases is a bit adrift. Also not keen on how you open new browser windows for those galleries. Your About page could say a little more and be less fluffy.

John
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Chris_T

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« Reply #4 on: August 30, 2007, 08:33:24 am »

Simple and to the point site. No bells and whistles. Loads pretty fast. Wonderful images deserving a great web site to showcase them. Perhaps my comments in this thread and the following thread can help:

http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....showtopic=13890

Some font sizes are too small, such as those in the menu bar and Artist page. Your e-mail address and links in dark blue are illegible against a black background.

A few pages's working area are left justified, but the gallery pages are centered. Inconsistent, and I doubt it is intentional.

You need to proof read the purchase info page. I found at least one grammatical mistake.

The "Information on print purchases" link on the Portfolio page is better suited in the gallery pages, or as a menu button. I doubt anyone would link to purchase without first viewing your work. It also shows your eagerness for sale. As currently implemented, someone interested in a purchase would have to view your work in the galleries, then return to the Portfolio page to locate the purchase link, assuming that the viewer remembers that there is a link there.

The gallery suffered many common problems I mentioned in the referred thread above:

- I like the page layout: group of thumbnails and an enlargement on the same page. Image sizes are great so that no scrolling is necessary for 17" and larger monitors.

- Once in a gallery, the menu bar disappeared, requiring back tracking to Contact you, etc.

-  I can't tell how many images are in your Portfolio.

- Images are not numbered, making it difficult to referred to them. Nor can I tell how the enlargement I'm viewing fits in the complete gallery, i.e., I like to see the "n of m" info.

- There are no back/forward navigation help to sequence through the images within a group of thumbnails. But the back/forward arrows to navigate between  groups of thumbnails is a good touch, and not often found in other gallery pages.
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iancl

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« Reply #5 on: August 30, 2007, 12:49:40 pm »

Worked in Firefox for me.

Some thoughts:

1. The largest size viewable is often a little bit small. I wouldn't ever make a print purchase off of a such a small preview. A few images display in the 12x12 cm. range on my screen -- that would be the absolute smallest size for me to find useful (but, it is the largest of yours).

2. Can you get better control over what portion of the image is used for the square thumbnail? For many images the full image shares little resemblance to the square crop shown as a thumbnail. Even better would be slightly larger thumbnails that showed the whole image (if you want to keep them square just mount each image regardless of aspect ration on a square white backdrop).

3. I really like several other aspects of the interface. Namely, that you get a dog-ear on the images you have viewed and that you can see which images have finished loading/are still loading by watching the thumbnails.

4. The text that says "close window when finished viewing" gets lost in your logo/nameplate in firefox (2.x). I would rather have the galleries open in the same window and have a back button. But, this isn't too bad.

All and all a very nice web site. On the top end of usability compared to most.
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Chris_T

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« Reply #6 on: August 31, 2007, 07:29:46 am »

Now you are even more critical than me.

Quote
Worked in Firefox for me.

Some thoughts:

1. The largest size viewable is often a little bit small. I wouldn't ever make a print purchase off of a such a small preview. A few images display in the 12x12 cm. range on my screen -- that would be the absolute smallest size for me to find useful (but, it is the largest of yours).

I think that the enlargement size was small so that the whole page can fit in a max widow size on 17" or bigger monitor without scrolling, and without a pop-up or another window. Ideally, I would like to see a web image's size to vary and fit a viewer's window size, but without having to scroll. I think that can be done, but I don't know how.

I often wonder how anyone can purchase a print only based on a web image, regardless of its size (unless the photog is well known). Those who purchased from my web images had at least seen my prints somewhere else before.

Quote
2. Can you get better control over what portion of the image is used for the square thumbnail? For many images the full image shares little resemblance to the square crop shown as a thumbnail. Even better would be slightly larger thumbnails that showed the whole image (if you want to keep them square just mount each image regardless of aspect ration on a square white backdrop).

Agreed. I also dislike cropped thumbnails. But cropped and same size thumbnails are easier to position.

Quote
3. I really like several other aspects of the interface. Namely, that you get a dog-ear on the images you have viewed and that you can see which images have finished loading/are still loading by watching the thumbnails.

Nice idea. Haven't seen any such galleries yet.

Quote
4. The text that says "close window when finished viewing" gets lost in your logo/nameplate in firefox (2.x). I would rather have the galleries open in the same window and have a back button. But, this isn't too bad.

Agreed. The text is unnecessary and only causes confusion.

Quote
All and all a very nice web site. On the top end of usability compared to most.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=136397\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Agreed. I think the site owner had thought through what the site is for, wanted it to be simple, and built it accordingly. Many would just dive in and end up with a mess.

There are plenty of photo web galleries, but really good ones are scarce. Not unlike the ratio between photogs and really good photogs. If you have favorites, let us know and see if we can pick on them as well.
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sinc

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completion of my website
« Reply #7 on: September 19, 2007, 09:49:37 pm »

Attractive website. Works reasonably well. Nice photos.

When a website visitor gets through looking at a portfolio, there's no apparent link to get back into the website. Not good.
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Joseph T. Sinclair, Author

fike

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completion of my website
« Reply #8 on: September 20, 2007, 02:19:48 pm »

I agree with the complaint regarding the new window spawning.  I tend to avoid these types of sites.  

I am currently working on exactly the same thing you are--creating a website to showcase my work.  You have a very attractive interface.

I have a personal aversion to this statement :

"As a photographer his images speak for themselves"

Two things about this statement. First, I don't care for the third person reference ("...his images...).  Second, I think an art website is about marketing the photos and the person, so being unwilling to put yourself forward as a character on the website is a bit standoffish.  As I write this, I am thinking about my website, and I think I do it too, but I would let yourself talk more and use "I."  This is YOUR art.  Also, making the one photo of you a silhouette is not appealing.  I want to know what you look like.

Front page photo is really very captivating.  Keep it.

In your portfolio, I think most of your images are very strong.  I love Morning Mist!  Unfortunately, there are some weak images that detract from all of them.  Most of your portraits are not as strong as your landscapes.  I would reduce the number of them.

If you have time, please stroll on over to my website and give me a whack too.

http://www.trailpixie.net/
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