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Author Topic: Please critique my new site  (Read 3224 times)

mdelrossi

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Please critique my new site
« on: March 29, 2009, 02:36:56 pm »

Please critique my new site.
www.delrossiphotography.com

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ddk

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« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2009, 02:54:39 pm »

Congratulations, finally, a site not obsessed with flash, great interface, easy to navigate with decent images to boot! Nice job, I like it very much. Was this a template or something that you designed?
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mdelrossi

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Please critique my new site
« Reply #2 on: March 29, 2009, 03:22:22 pm »

Thank you.
Actually it is flash based but done well.
It's a template (I suck at coding)  
I'd give you the name of the company, but I don't know if it's ok with the mods.
PM me.
mdr
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John R

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« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2009, 08:34:48 pm »

I really like your site. Very well done. Simple and easy to navigate. And your photography looks to be first class.

JMR
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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« Reply #4 on: March 29, 2009, 09:29:57 pm »

Very nice! I am one of those who generally hates Flash, but your site uses it very effectively without getting in the way.

Elegant, clean, easy to navigate. I like that you give the viewer a choice of thumbnails or not.

My only tiny quibble is one that Jeremy Kikashi will make when he sees your site: It would be nice if you could use the arrow keys to move through the images.

Nice work!

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Jeremy Roussak

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« Reply #5 on: March 30, 2009, 06:21:20 am »

Quote from: EricM
Very nice! I am one of those who generally hates Flash, but your site uses it very effectively without getting in the way.

Elegant, clean, easy to navigate. I like that you give the viewer a choice of thumbnails or not.

My only tiny quibble is one that Jeremy Kikashi will make when he sees your site: It would be nice if you could use the arrow keys to move through the images.

Nice work!
I agree with everything Eric says (particularly the bit about not being able to use the keyboard: he's obviously a mindreader!).

On the other hand, I really like the way you handle the cursor, changing its shape from right chevron to small rectangles to left chevron as it moves around the screen. I've not seen that done before. It makes navigation very easy and very clean: no buttons to click, no pseudo-buttons appearing in the image. Nice idea - well done.

One small point: I entered "full screen" mode and the cursor stayed as an ordinary arrow until I'd clicked once. I then hit "escape" to leave full screen mode and the cursor disappeared altogether until I quit the browser and restarted it. MacBook Pro, 10.4.6, Safari.

Jeremy
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mdelrossi

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« Reply #6 on: March 30, 2009, 08:54:24 am »

Thanks for all of your input. It's still in the weeding out process.
I'll check out the problem you're having with the window resize, I can't seem to replicate it safari 4 10.5.6.
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Chris_T

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« Reply #7 on: March 31, 2009, 09:03:41 am »

Overall comment: A simple design, with a somewhat consistency in the background and text colors. Text legibility is so so. The Menu bar is present on every page, a good thing. Gallery navigation good but not great. The live area is left justified, and would look better if centered. While every page loads, I got an "Error on page" message each time (IE6).

For a Home Page with a single image, it takes a much longer load time than expected. The words "Michael Del Rossi Photography" at the top has little (no?) top and bottom margins. The top butts against the window's top border and the lower part of "Photography" overlaps into the image.

The About page's black text color lacks contrast against the dark background, making it difficult to read. On my 21" monitor's full screen window, the short paragraph stretches all the way to the right. Centering the paragraph and forcing (short) line wraps will make reading easier.

The Testimonials' light text color has much better contrast against the background. {Why two different text colors?) Again, centering the text and forcing line wraps will make reading easier. Left justifying every line of the quotes to line up with the first line will also help. Indenting the authors is a nice touch. Not so sure about fading the text at the bottom. I almost missed the scroll bar at the left. It can only be dragged and not clicked. Why invent something new and confusing while a regular right scroll bar with drag/clicks is familiar to all? The large empty space at the top is wasteful and serves no purpse IMHO.

The Contact page's text color changes back to black! The Submit button's text and background colors have even less contrast. I dislike contact pages that require my name and phone number. Instead, I much prefer contact pages that  only need my comments, and would capture my e-mail automatically. The Comment entry box is way too small for verbose entries without scrolling, so are the Name and Email entry boxes. "Name" and "Email" disappear after backspacing in the boxes.

My gallery coments are primarily based on the People gallery. If hovering over People shows the sub galleries, a viewer can decide which sub gallery to click on. Currently, a viewer is forced to view the first sub gallery after clicking on People. The sub galleries' titles at the menu bar will look better if left justified to align with People, or are indented. Other galleries even have sub- and sub-sub galleries. Same comments apply there as well.

After loading an image, the back/forward navigation is easy and showing the number of image in a gallery is a nice touch. However, there is no way to skip over the previous or next images. The large > and < seem redundant. The font size of the text at the bottom is way too small for my aging eyes. The images have no caption or title, and the "info" link is inactive. On some pages, the footnote butts against the image with little/no margin.

Can't decide if the image emailing function is a good or bad idea. Again dislike the requirement for names, including MY FRIEND's! Once the email window is open, there is no obvious way to close it without sending. A cancel button would help.

The thumnail pages work fine, except for a large gallery like Training sessions. With 43 images, there is no indicator for loading in progress. After loading, scrolling by hovering is not obvious.

A Lightroom web gallery template can accomplish a similar design and fix some of the mentioned problems.
« Last Edit: March 31, 2009, 09:05:18 am by Chris_T »
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sgietler

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« Reply #8 on: April 02, 2009, 09:03:50 pm »

I enjoyed the site, good SEO. Maybe you should add one or two more testimonials, or people will wonder why there are only two.

Scott

mdelrossi

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« Reply #9 on: April 03, 2009, 07:26:36 am »

Quote from: sgietler
I enjoyed the site, good SEO. Maybe you should add one or two more testimonials, or people will wonder why there are only two.

Scott
Thanks for the review. There are 4 testimonials you need to scroll but the spacing on the site need to be addressed so the testimonials start higher up on the page.

BTW how did you come to the conclusion of "good SEO"?
I'm trying to tweak it.

thanks
mdr
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RSL

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« Reply #10 on: April 03, 2009, 08:43:31 am »

First class commercial work. There are many photographers who could learn something from your site: how to keep it simple so you end up focussing on the photographs instead of the jazzy effects.
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PeterAit

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« Reply #11 on: April 03, 2009, 06:45:31 pm »

Quote from: RSL
First class commercial work. There are many photographers who could learn something from your site: how to keep it simple so you end up focussing on the photographs instead of the jazzy effects.

Black text on a dark gray background? Otherwise, one of the best sites I have seen, and lovely photos too.

Peter
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