Posted by Chris Lloyd on October 26, 2006 at 10:07 AM
Hi Everybody,
Thanks for the replies to my last post.
If you have the time would you please have a look at my website as I would be interested to hear views and comments on quality, navigation, etc.
I have recently updated what is my first website and would eventually like to add search facilities and drop down menus - what do you think?
Kind regards Chris.
www.c-m-l.com
Posted by Anthony House on October 26, 2006 at 11:18 AM
Looks ok and runs really fast, although when you select any one group ie: birds of prey it doesn't go to just birds of prey, the whole list still shows from plants, birds, waders and so on...
Tony
Posted by Graham Bailey on October 26, 2006 at 1:04 PM
Hi Chris,
I think the navigation bar on the right needs to change. For a start its all 1 link so as tony says whereever you click you get the whole list but its more the style that I'm not keen on. I think if you could integrate it into the filmstrip down the left hand side with some well designed buttons it would make the site look much more profesional.
Graham
Posted by Sean Bolton on October 26, 2006 at 3:56 PM
Hi Chris
You can tell it's winter, everyone is busy designed websites
I have had a look around your site and my general impressions are good, and the site is easy to navigate, but I do have a few comments as follows ;
1. The right hand side menu doesn't seem to work properly. I would remove it and make the main page wider.
2. The Home page is too busy, I would remove most of the text and just leave the top logo, the hyperlinks line, and then below have your home page images. Move all the stuff about emailing, rights managed, etc to the Stock List page.
3. I don't particularly like the film strip thing down the left hand side. It looks a bit out dated and tacky IMHO. Maybe replace it with a simpler band or strip.
4. I don't like underlined hyperlinks, it's a personal gripe of mine. In your HTML just stick th e following to get nice simple hover over hyperlinks.
a{text-decoration:none}
a:hover{color:#eeeeee;}
with style delimiters around it (which I can't post on the forum as it strips out the HTML)
5. Do you need 4 VISA/Mastecard symbols on the home page?? 4 too many I think.
6. I like the About Us page (or should that be 'About me' or 'About Chris'), and glad to see a Manfrotto 393 (the best big lens support on the market) shown there.
7. The images in your stock list page look a bit un-sharpened to my eye. Do you auto generate the stock images somehow? I would spend some time just making each of your stock images look as good as possible. e.g. the Common Blue Butterfly stock image (which is very nice) just looks a bit soft which is probably just due to insufficient USM.
I hope these comments are helpful, I think generally you are on the right lines with your website but a few tweaks would enhance it.
I'm afraid I know nothing about web design so I'll leave that to those that do.
However one thing I feel would improve the overall layout of the site would be to have everything spread over the entire screen,as it appears to have quite a bit of unneccesary space on the right with all the details,links,images,etc a bit bunched up on the left.
Posted by Chris Lloyd on October 27, 2006 at 3:26 AM
Thanks to everybody who has replied.
Regards Chris.
Posted by Mark sellings on October 27, 2006 at 4:30 AM
Hi Chris,
Had a look and Sean seems to have covered most of the main points, the only other ones I can add are perhaps:
1. Image size - I felt maybe the images were too small to get a proper feel for them - perhaps they could be bigger?
2. Right-hand nav - having been involved in graphic/web designpretty much since the beginning one golden rule that seems to have never changed is not to have right-hand navigation - i personally dont agree with this but this is user feedback thats always been pretty consistent.
3. drop-down menus - often seen as a bit fussy and flashy for the sake of it - notoriously browser-unfriendly and probably worth skipping if you can.
Other than that it looks like you've done all the hard work setting it up in the first place so with a few tweaks here and there you can get on with the photography and leave the wbesite alone! (I know the problem!)
I agree with the other comments. The only thnig I noticed is that under the 'Mammals' category, you have a Common Lizard - maybe time for a reptiles category too!
Discussion
7 repliesThanks for the replies to my last post.
If you have the time would you please have a look at my website as I would be interested to hear views and comments on quality, navigation, etc.
I have recently updated what is my first website and would eventually like to add search facilities and drop down menus - what do you think?
Kind regards Chris.
www.c-m-l.com
Tony
I think the navigation bar on the right needs to change. For a start its all 1 link so as tony says whereever you click you get the whole list but its more the style that I'm not keen on. I think if you could integrate it into the filmstrip down the left hand side with some well designed buttons it would make the site look much more profesional.
Graham
You can tell it's winter, everyone is busy designed websites
I have had a look around your site and my general impressions are good, and the site is easy to navigate, but I do have a few comments as follows ;
1. The right hand side menu doesn't seem to work properly. I would remove it and make the main page wider.
2. The Home page is too busy, I would remove most of the text and just leave the top logo, the hyperlinks line, and then below have your home page images. Move all the stuff about emailing, rights managed, etc to the Stock List page.
3. I don't particularly like the film strip thing down the left hand side. It looks a bit out dated and tacky IMHO. Maybe replace it with a simpler band or strip.
4. I don't like underlined hyperlinks, it's a personal gripe of mine. In your HTML just stick th e following to get nice simple hover over hyperlinks.
a{text-decoration:none}
a:hover{color:#eeeeee;}
with style delimiters around it (which I can't post on the forum as it strips out the HTML)
5. Do you need 4 VISA/Mastecard symbols on the home page?? 4 too many I think.
6. I like the About Us page (or should that be 'About me' or 'About Chris'), and glad to see a Manfrotto 393 (the best big lens support on the market) shown there.
7. The images in your stock list page look a bit un-sharpened to my eye. Do you auto generate the stock images somehow? I would spend some time just making each of your stock images look as good as possible. e.g. the Common Blue Butterfly stock image (which is very nice) just looks a bit soft which is probably just due to insufficient USM.
I hope these comments are helpful, I think generally you are on the right lines with your website but a few tweaks would enhance it.
cheers
Sean
However one thing I feel would improve the overall layout of the site would be to have everything spread over the entire screen,as it appears to have quite a bit of unneccesary space on the right with all the details,links,images,etc a bit bunched up on the left.
Regards Chris.
Had a look and Sean seems to have covered most of the main points, the only other ones I can add are perhaps:
1. Image size - I felt maybe the images were too small to get a proper feel for them - perhaps they could be bigger?
2. Right-hand nav - having been involved in graphic/web designpretty much since the beginning one golden rule that seems to have never changed is not to have right-hand navigation - i personally dont agree with this but this is user feedback thats always been pretty consistent.
3. drop-down menus - often seen as a bit fussy and flashy for the sake of it - notoriously browser-unfriendly and probably worth skipping if you can.
Other than that it looks like you've done all the hard work setting it up in the first place so with a few tweaks here and there you can get on with the photography and leave the wbesite alone! (I know the problem!)
Cheers
Mark
I agree with the other comments. The only thnig I noticed is that under the 'Mammals' category, you have a Common Lizard - maybe time for a reptiles category too!