In message , joe
writes
On Thu, 08 May 2008 17:53:41 -0700, Ted wrote:

I have just put up my first website. If you are so inclined take a look
and tell me what you think. Be honest. I can take it. Really

http://www.thelatentlog.com

Appreciative of any input and constructive criticism.

Thanks,
Ted
Opinions and personal preferences, one and all.


The color scheme is not optimal, especially for anyone who's colorblind.

The text color does not have optimal contrast against the background.

The background image at the upper right is too opaque beneath the text.
The background image needs to be much fainter when under text.

The "Created with Sandvox" ad text is much too prominent. Especially when
placed near the turning thumbnail image . It is advertising required to
be on the page but it can be placed in a much more reserved location and
avoid confusion over whether it is a caption for the turning image.

If the company has any customer events and has a schedule for that event,
sales convention, class, tradeshow, art fair, etc., it's great to have a
picture of the customer representative on the schedule page.

These days, any reference to a location for commerce, sales convention,
class, tradeshow, art fair, etc., should have a map link, googlemaps,
mapquest, etc..

The "About" page is also a great place for a photo. In this type of site
a great place for a "work-in-progress" series of photos. Raw log to
finished piece. Or the artist pictured while working, teaching or
relaxing.

On the gallery pages, I don't understand the order of pieces. Are these
sorted as the date produced? Usually expected to have like items
together. Reasonably sorted now but that also highlights items "out-of-
order".

Thumbnails on gallery pages usually do better as cropped to one of three
sizes, landscape, portrait or square. The slight variances in thumbnail
size don't add anything to the layout.

Large detail images should also be cropped and re-sized to a standard
size for the chosen display page size. Landscape, portrait or square.

The light green background doesn't sell the items for me, personal
preference. It doesn't look expensive and/or highlight the object either
on the gallery pages or the detail pages.

Backgrounds on thumbnails can be made consistent if more attention is
paid during the photo shoot. Try to achieve consistent gradients with
matching horizons or all "white" backgrounds.

Some thumbnails need processing, for instance, Cherry Bowl #106 - 13x3
inches - $70, is too dark.

A few minor typos like the missing dollar sign on "Box Elder #48 8x3.5
inches - 70" both on gallery and detail pages.

Keep consistent names across site. Gallery 2 is also called "Natural
Edged Bowls" in different locations.

Gallery 2, "Natural Edged Bowls", has bowls that are not natural edged.

I "get" the leaves for the "prev-next" buttons but they're not to my
taste. If I used a non-intuitive icon like these I would include text for
prev, next and return. I'd probably just get better navigation icons.

Next buttons usually should loop to first photo from last photo.

Shop photos need adjusting or should be re-taken using HDR bracketing
methods. Easy to do in any photo app and any digital camera using a
tripod. Take three shots, one dark, one medium and one light exposure and
combine the three for better exposure than you can achieve with a single
shot. Many tutorials and special apps and plugins for HDR available on
the web.

Gallery pages should include and have marked a few items that have been
sold.

The "contact us" link at the bottom right of the page is the correct size
on the front page and show page but much too large on most other pages
like the gallery pages and detail pages.

The "contact us" link should not be being used for general commerce.
Create a order form page or create submit links on each detail page which
will create emails with the product in the subject line. Or go to a e-
commerce layout with shopping cart. You can then add paypal, google, then
finally credit cards when business supports it. Shopping carts still work
well for cash customers to build orders and using user authentification
for returning clients to submit re-curring orders.

The "shows" page could use a little more detail. Why is Ted at the show,
will he be available the entire posted time. Is this just selling
finished pieces or demonstrating?

The "shop" pages don't have any photos of stock. Many buyers appreciate
knowing the process. Photos of logs, wood stock, turning blanks and other
works in progress. If possible, all pieces should be photographed before
and after to build a wood species catalog and show raw to finish color
variations.

On the "shop" pages especially or any page where the header text is long
the header text is being displayed over the background leaves on the
upper left. This could be a browser display variance, I'm using firefox.
Still, it could be fixed for all browsers easily with this simple of a
layout.

The web design software you're using is creating pages for the gallery
details that cause the browser to center the page and cause each prev and
next page to jump around. This is a common "slideshow" problem that can
be fixed any number of ways, from frames to CSS/HTML layout to using crop
framed pictures all the same size. Clicking prev or next should cause the
product picture only to repaint. There should be no other movement on the
web page between page views optimally, including the "contact us" link at
the bottom.

Slideshows are nice for gallery pages. Timeouts should be including so
people don't leach bandwidth by leaving the page up in their browser for
hours.

The gallery pages are longer than all other pages (the shop page may also
grow to be longer). Better results might be obtained by creating front
pages of best photographed works and put less striking work on back
pages. Keep each page non-scrolling within your chosen display size. The
issue is first impressions. Pick a display page size and create pages for
that size 1024x768, 1280x1024, etc.. When running at low resolution
(1024x768) on the "gallery 1" page I see two rows but not the caption of
the second row. The best works should be within these first two rows and
if 1024x768 is chosen as display page size then the layout should be
adjusted to include the captions of the second row to be displayed at
that resolution. At 1600x1200 I see 4 rows with captions so this should
be the maximum page size if 1600x1200 is picked as the default display
page size. (The layout will actually be a few pixels shorter than the
actual resolution to account for the lost pixels used by the title bar,
status bar and edges of the browser window.)

At worst, the layout of every page on the site should look perfect at a
specific display size in a specific browser on a specific OS platform
with no horizontal or vertical scroll bars present when displayed full-
screen at the chosen default display resolution.

At best, the layout should be perfect for every page at every size in
every browser on every platform and be adjusted or served "custom size"
pages so no horizontal or vertical scroll bars appear when displayed full-
screen at any resolution.

At very best on long page areas like the gallery and shop pages it is
great to have a selection box for number of thumbnail images displayed
defaulting to a non-scrolling page length but allowing someone to choose
to display the full gallery on one page if desired or a separate index
page.

Saving bandwidth, removing vertical scroll bars and maximizing first
impression I'd probably go with smaller front gallery pages with more or
deeper galleries. First level gallery page(s) would have the best
photographed works.

Possibly think about jumping randomly into the detail "slideshow" from
the gallery menu link and then allowing a link to the gallery index page
from detail pages (as exists now on detail page to existing gallery page).

If bandwidth permits, larger detail shots would be nice and should exist
as a link on existing detail pages, 4x or more of existing detail size.
The existing detail image size is adequate and might be slightly adjusted
based on layout design changes.

If bandwidth permits, more detail shots would be nice. Inside and
outside. Source raw wood. Work in progress shots. Rotating static views
using panoramic shots, tripod and lazy susan display stand. Movie made
using lazy susan display stand.

Change the name of the galleries to subset names, natural edge, maple,
etc., rather than 1 and 2, 1 implies better product than gallery 2.

Normally you'd create at least two email accounts so the website
published account is only used from the website and all other email
correspondence is through the alternate email account. This will reduce
the amount of real business mail mixed with spam to the email address
scraped from the website. Or use html forms which submit to PHP or other
server side emails to hide email addresses. Then some people place un-
obfuscated email address as graphic image on site. Easy to read but much
harder to scrape by script. Can't be cut and pasted or right clicked but
you can use javascript to launch an email link when an email image is
clicked. For most small businesses I just create two or more accounts,
publish addresses and deal with the spam using a filter program.


Adding to Joe's comments

Totally agree on the Right-hand side background, its intrusive behind
the text. On the text itself , with many these days having larger
monitors at higher resolutions your text can look a little small, and if
its hard to read, they're gone Maybe consider a couple of points bigger.
(I am looking on a 1280 screen ) Also this background is not consistent
on all pages

"Created with Sandvox" should be at the bottom of the page at the very
least if not gone altogether. If you cant get rid of it Make the
hyperlink open in a new page. NEVER open directly to an external page,
they are your visitors and you want to keep them, if they go off site
the chances are they will forget to come back.

For the Galleries when you open the thumbnail to the full image, apply a
little salesmanship to the page show them the product, then tell them
the price ( Picture first , price second). If you Tell someone a price
and it seems high to them they 'turn off', they don't care how good the
product is, let alone what it is. But if you describe this magical piece
of turning, one of a kind, rarer than priceless, you can hook them into
what you have, they fall in love with it, and price becomes of little
importance - you've sold it


When I accessed the site form your link the redirect of URL seemed to
take quite a while, it may be worth looking at, if you can I would
suggest your own hosted domain and no redirect

Loose your email from the pages as soon as you can, create a GIF image
with the email in it. I know it makes it a little harder to contact you
but if they can't be bothered then they probably aren't a customer. By
using a GIF it will prevent your email from being harvested, so it will
be useful for many more years, before your swamped with SPAM or your
email address is blocked by others due to the SPAM that others spoofed
as being you.

And one last thing you could put something at the bottom of the page to
indicate the end of the page, often this is where the link to the
copyright notice you have goes This helps users who tend to use the
scroll wheel on a mouse and who don't look to see if there is a scroll
bar

If you like any more criticisms I am sure I can find some, but I will
probably need to search Hopefully what I have said though will help
you develop a great site, there is nothing worse than getting 3 years
down the line and having to start again because the method you chose
can't cope with your hobby. ( The main website I run has had 4 major
iterations, its latest took 6 month and 4000+ pages to be changed)

have fun
--
John