Posted by Dan Borzynski on December 9, 2007 at 11:45 AM
I have more or less finished a website update. Lots of new files, plus a lot of navigation changes/images/appearance. I am looking for appearance and useability feedback on it, especially if it is negative (really!!!). It is too easy to sit here in a darkened room and go "that looks good" and not realize that not everyone is going to react the same way.
For those of you on dialup, it may be a bit slow. I know about that, but I think the tradeoff is worth it. It shouldn't be any slower that looking at images in the galleries here, though.
There is still some work to do on page names, keywords in the HTML, and other things in the background which are more or less invisible to the casual browser, but are needed to keep the search engines happy. I'm working on those, but I figure I can incorporate any comments/corrections while I am at it.
Thanks.
Posted by Rob Coomer on December 9, 2007 at 1:05 PM
Hi Dan,
Here's a few quick comments, from the updates page, the home button doesn't work.
Lock down your site to a specific width. The text is too hard to read when it goes all the way across the page on a wide monitor. Consider 650 - 800 pixels wide.
Get rid of the spaces in your html file names, the %20 instead of a space just doesn't look pretty, but it does work (personal opinion)
I would prefer the adiditon of navigation arrows on your image page, or to duplicate the navigation below the images.
Your home button doesn't work on other pages, such as the roberfly with prey, it links to your harddrive, not the web.
Consider graphic headers on each page. It seems odd to be looking at only text for a visual medium, again it feels too simplistic for a sophisticated web viewer / buyer. It just feels too stark. If not headers or mastheads, then at least add images to the page / text. Ideally do both.
The site looks clean, but seems to basic / simple. locking your site into a fixed size and adding images would go a long way, making it more professional looking.
Posted by Dan Borzynski on December 9, 2007 at 1:31 PM
Yeah, there is something weird going on with the home which I apparently haven't figured out. I orginally had it linked to the homepage but I was always getting that "file not found error". The fix I put up this morning apparently wasn't a fix. Thanks.
Graphics headers - good idea. I've been tossing around doing something about that, but decided not to, more out of not having a good idea in mind for appearance. You have made good suggestions for the site in the past so I'll take your advice seriously.
Starkness - you know, that is a good word for the site. That word is why I was looking for feedback.
Locking text width - I'll have too look into that. I'm not sure how to do that. I hadn't thought to test it on a monitor width wider than the 1024 pixels I am set to, but I can understand how than would be a problem. Maked a lot of sense!
Thanks for the comments.
Posted by Rob Coomer on December 9, 2007 at 1:52 PM
The easiest way to lock your site to a particular size and have it auto center, is to put it into 3 column table. The left and right cells are set to 100%, the center panels is set to 800 pixels or so. The side panels expand with your monitor, the center stays a fixed size in the center. You can do it with a single cell table too, by cenetring on the page, and then giving it a fixed width and building your site in it. Some prefer to lock the site on the left side, then you just tell the single cell table to be flush left.
for linking to pages, get rid of the absolute url paths and use just the file names, so your home link would just be index.html and not http://www.danborzynskiimages.com/index.html. You then build your site in a folder and subfolders on your system and upload the files to the root of your website. That way the links work the same on your computer hard drive as they do on the web. Everything is local to that folder / root directory.
sub folder flies would look like /images/header1.jpg instead of http://www.danborzynskiimages.com/images/header1.jpg. The first one makes testing and problem solving much easier.
The problem with your home page links is inconsistency in file naming. it is looking for index.htm instead of index.html (the l is missing)
Posted by Dan Borzynski on December 9, 2007 at 2:46 PM
Thanks!
Posted by Chuck Beatty on December 9, 2007 at 7:27 PM
Hi Dan,
I took a quick spin through your site, though not in the detail that Rob did. While the images are top-notch, I find the text a bit overwhelming. The use of bold text throughout seems unnecessary when you're using white on a black background. On the Print Sales, About Me and Equipment pages there appears to be an extra line between the paragraphs (compare to Image Licensing page). I like Rob's suggestion for adding more graphics to the site. You have lots of great images -- no reason not to show them off.
In the Ohio galleries, the images you have labeled Bridal Falls should be changed to Bridal Veil Falls (OH07, OH12 and OH20). I'm pretty sure that OH17 is Brandywine Falls, rather than Buttermilk Falls.
Thanks for sharing your hard work!
Posted by Dan Borzynski on December 11, 2007 at 12:01 AM
DOH! Thanks on the corrections (yep, you are right on those) and suggestions.
Discussion
6 replieshttp://www.danborzynskiimages.com
For those of you on dialup, it may be a bit slow. I know about that, but I think the tradeoff is worth it. It shouldn't be any slower that looking at images in the galleries here, though.
There is still some work to do on page names, keywords in the HTML, and other things in the background which are more or less invisible to the casual browser, but are needed to keep the search engines happy. I'm working on those, but I figure I can incorporate any comments/corrections while I am at it.
Thanks.
Here's a few quick comments, from the updates page, the home button doesn't work.
Lock down your site to a specific width. The text is too hard to read when it goes all the way across the page on a wide monitor. Consider 650 - 800 pixels wide.
Get rid of the spaces in your html file names, the %20 instead of a space just doesn't look pretty, but it does work (personal opinion)
I would prefer the adiditon of navigation arrows on your image page, or to duplicate the navigation below the images.
Your home button doesn't work on other pages, such as the roberfly with prey, it links to your harddrive, not the web.
Consider graphic headers on each page. It seems odd to be looking at only text for a visual medium, again it feels too simplistic for a sophisticated web viewer / buyer. It just feels too stark. If not headers or mastheads, then at least add images to the page / text. Ideally do both.
The site looks clean, but seems to basic / simple. locking your site into a fixed size and adding images would go a long way, making it more professional looking.
Graphics headers - good idea. I've been tossing around doing something about that, but decided not to, more out of not having a good idea in mind for appearance. You have made good suggestions for the site in the past so I'll take your advice seriously.
Starkness - you know, that is a good word for the site. That word is why I was looking for feedback.
Locking text width - I'll have too look into that. I'm not sure how to do that. I hadn't thought to test it on a monitor width wider than the 1024 pixels I am set to, but I can understand how than would be a problem. Maked a lot of sense!
Thanks for the comments.
for linking to pages, get rid of the absolute url paths and use just the file names, so your home link would just be index.html and not http://www.danborzynskiimages.com/index.html. You then build your site in a folder and subfolders on your system and upload the files to the root of your website. That way the links work the same on your computer hard drive as they do on the web. Everything is local to that folder / root directory.
sub folder flies would look like /images/header1.jpg instead of http://www.danborzynskiimages.com/images/header1.jpg. The first one makes testing and problem solving much easier.
The problem with your home page links is inconsistency in file naming. it is looking for index.htm instead of index.html (the l is missing)
I took a quick spin through your site, though not in the detail that Rob did. While the images are top-notch, I find the text a bit overwhelming. The use of bold text throughout seems unnecessary when you're using white on a black background. On the Print Sales, About Me and Equipment pages there appears to be an extra line between the paragraphs (compare to Image Licensing page). I like Rob's suggestion for adding more graphics to the site. You have lots of great images -- no reason not to show them off.
In the Ohio galleries, the images you have labeled Bridal Falls should be changed to Bridal Veil Falls (OH07, OH12 and OH20). I'm pretty sure that OH17 is Brandywine Falls, rather than Buttermilk Falls.
Thanks for sharing your hard work!