Website Feedback

Hello everyone, With the help of a nephew who does web design I've recently set up a website and would love to get your feedback. There are a few minor little changes that we still intend to make, but it's basically good to go. All comments and critiques are welcome. Please let me know what you think!

Thanks!
Lori

Hey there Lori,

I'm on my way out the door but at a quick glance....elegant, easy, direct, straightforward and beautifully done are words that come to mind. I will delve more deeply later today. Nice to see the face behind all the wonderful photography!!

Very clean and elegant and the photography is really top notch. I looked at your print of the cover image just the other day and it was as impressive as ever. I hope this web site will get more of your prints out there - they are stunning.

Guy

Looks good to me Lori. I'm not a fan of the white background, but that is a personal thing. Great art work.

One thing which I noticed: the links "home about galleries purchase instruction contact" works fine except on the galleries page. On that particular set of pages, I get a "Run Time error has occurred" message when I roll over it. This message does not appear anywhere else when I roll over that area in the website, so I think any changes are restricted to just the galleries pages. I think this may be a slightly out of date browser issue as well, but it is the only thing I saw testing various links.

Good design, although like Josh, I can't say I am a fan of the white background.

Images are fantastic

Absolutely wonderful Lori! Easy to navigate, and fantastic images. Good job!

Thanks for the feedback so far, everyone! Dan, did the problem with the links occur just on the gallery thumbnail pages or also on the individual image pages? Anybody else have the problem with the links described by Dan B?

Thanks again,
Lori

Hi Lori, I really like your site, nice, clean and fast. I'd personally would make the font a bit darker grey, for instance like the grey used on this site. That reads a little better with such an light background.

I like the website, but the gallery and photo load times are extremely slow. which I consider to be a big problem. The other pages load reasonably quick though.

Coming from the home page link you gave above, starting with the galleries page (http://www.kincaidphoto.com/gallery/main.php) and anything I tested below that in the galleries.

My browser is probably a bit out of date which may contribute to the problem, but since it worked elsewhere on Home, about, purchase, etc, I just thought I'd mention that. I can still get to the galleries, but I have to use the back button to navigate out of the galleries to other locations on the website. Hopefully that makes some sense.

I too am not a fan of the white BG, but, as always, one of the biggest fans of your work. The art is magical, and the site looks simple and tasteful, and is easily navigated. Excellent design overall.

Lori,

I am not a huge fan of the white backdrop either, but your images more than make up for it. You have one of the best collection of winter images from the eastern US, IMO!

Richard

Hi again Lori,

Everything loads pretty quick for me and no apparent problems with links. I do like the white background. It makes things look neat, clean and clearly defined in my opinion and doesn't adversely affect the images like some shades of grey. I know a lot of people use the grey BG but it just feels so dense to me. I think you seem to have everything necessary covered in the site with no unwarranted gimmicks and clutter. A good showcase for your work which I would expect to be very effective in selling your images.

Lori,

Beautiful web site, beautiful photos. I personally like the elegant look of your photos presented on the white background, with just a hint of drop shadow to set it off.
I'm looking for someone to design a web site for me. Can you give me an email address for your nephew?

Lance Wynn

Hi Lori, I agree completely with Mary. I think the white makes every thing look clean, neat and sharp. It keeps the emphasis on your work which is outstanding.

Looks good to me, Lori. The photography is top notch; I really love the cover image you selected for your winter gallery. The gallery page loaded at a normal speed for me. I'm on dial-up and I add extra compression for faster loading. Considering that most people are now on hi-speed of some sort I can't understand the slow loading some are experiencing.

Wonderful site

Thanks for the feedback so far, everyone. I really appreciate it.

Jacco, I'll look into a slightly darker gray. Thanks for the comment.

Richard W. and Darren, I'm not sure why you're experiencing slow loading compared to everyone else. Are you on dial-up? I am, and I have to admit I opted for less compression over faster loading speed for us disadvantaged folk but I kept the pixel dimensions fairly small to compensate. There are very few, if any, images greater than 200K

Dan, thanks so much for taking the time to respond twice. Your description makes perfect sense, but I can't reproduce the problem. I hope it's related to your older browser. Do you mind telling me what browser you're using?

Mary, thanks to you too, for taking the time to respond twice. I really value your opinion.

Lance, I'll send you an email.

As for the white background, I appreciate that many of you don't like it, and it does give me pause, but in the end I like the clean, simple and elegant look it provides in the context of my overall website design. I experimented with a lot of background colors when I was designing the layout and white seemed to me to give the best compromise across all of my images.

Please keep the comments coming. I love to see your opinions!


Lori

definetely not dial-up. though it is quicker right now as I'm checking again. perhaps I looked earlier during a high traffic period. I must admit that your "Tennessee-North Carolina state line" photo is the best landscape photo I've ever seen from the appalachians. great.

Very very nice. All the best.

I am using Internet Explorer, 6.0, with Service Pack 2. It is at work, so there might be some setting they made here causing the problem. I have seen the issue before on other websites I have visited, but it never consciously occurred to me to check the same site at home - they are mostly business websites at work.

If I think of it, I'll test it on my home machine tonight (Tuesday evening).

Lori,

I love it. I like the clean look of the white background also. A worthy vehicle for the display of your amazing photography! Your portfolio is outstanding!!

-Mike

Beautiful design and beautiful photography. I'm on broadband and the site loaded slowly for me too. Maybe it's just all your fans viewing your images. I don't think it's the image size because the images on my site are large and my site is generally faster.

- Dan.

You guys are great! Thanks for all the feedback.

Dan Borzynski, thanks again. If you get a chance to check I'd be interested to hear if the problem occurs on your home machine.

Dan Baumbach, more slow loading problems make me wonder...

The galleries are done with the Gallery2 software. Does anybody know if loading problems could be related to the software and/or database or is this more likely a server issue? It seems to be a sporadic problem. I'm a neophyte when it comes to diagnosing internet issues.

Lori

You have a classy website, Lori!

Lori, your website looks absolutely great. Same with your photos. I tried and don't get the error message that Dan Borzynski gets with the navigation bar. The images also load slow on my computer. More precisely if I click on an image there is a pause of about 3-4 seconds (I timed it ) and then the image loads almost instantly. Opening a gallery or going to another page in the gallery takes about 4-5 seconds. I'm on high speed BTW.

Tom, thanks for the detailed look. Sounds like I need to look further into the slow loading issue. I guess it could be either a problem with the database or the server. Anybody else have suggestions or insights into what might be causing this? I'm still going on the assumption that it's a sporadic problem.

Lori

Lori, I too looked at your site and it looks great. Of course your photos are stunning and would look great on any site. I do like the white background and I would also echo Richard Bernabe above when he says you have one of the best winter collections of the mountains that I have ever seen. I didn't encounter any download speed or navigation issues. It must be nice to have such a talented nephew to go along with your fantastic photography. Great job!

Fantastic dispaly of your work.
I vote for the white background and also echo my admiration of your winter images as being the tops!
Your bio pic suits you well:-)

Lori, really nice site and I like the white BG (not to mention the excellent images!). I noticed that you were using Gallery2 for your galleries and also experienced the same slow load times...I have been experimenting with this software and have the same problem. I think it is to do with the user's browsers and firewalls rather than server-side but not found exactly what it is (no time recently) - I would be interested to hear if you have found out!
I also have the problem with the menus on the gallery pages and have a similar problem with my new site - once again I think this is due to browser/firewall because a friend dod not have the problem!

Mark,

You've given me the best lead yet on what to check on the slow loading issue. A lot of this stuff is Greek to me, but I'm trying to wade through the troubleshooting guide on the gallery2 website. It lists two possible causes for slow loading time:

Apache mod_deflate / gzip not deactivated for binary files?
Is the Server CPU, file I/O or bandwidth limited?

I have no idea about the first one, nor do I know how to check, but I'm trying to figure it out. (My nephew is unavailable right now). I don't think it's the second because the problem is sporadic and from my web stats (assuming people have told me about the problem here shortly after it occurred) doesn't always appear to be occurring in high use periods.


Can you tell me what browser/firewalls you're using? I will try to check with some of the other folks who had loading problems and see if it is the same.

Thanks,
Lori

Lori, fantastic site and like everyone else, I love your images! I am viewing this on my laptop at work (see how hard I'm working) which has a smaller display size.

Given that, the only thing that is a distraction for me is having to scroll down so much to see the entire "enlarged" image. You have a lot of information in the upper banner area that pushes the images down the page. I think the enlarged image size is perfect so if you could reduce the amount of info at the top of the gallery pages it would make viewing your beautiful images even more wonderful.

I only wish my site were this nice! Great job by both you and your nephew!