Dear All

 

Today I've uploaded a new version of my company website at http://www.tidydesign.com

 

I'm aware that there are still many things to smooth out, but I just had to launch it because it had been dragging. Now I've uploaded I've got no choice but to work on it all day. As such, I'd love to read feedback from anyone who has time to look at it.

 

My theory with this website was:

 

I wanted to go back to basics with this version of tidydesign.com - I wanted a very clean looking site with plenty of content. My thinking is that once I have a site that is rammed full of useful information to business owners regarding their website, I can then go onto add more images, videos, audio and ajax functionality. For now though, I just wanted a simple site. I'd like to know whether it is overly simple or not, however.

 

I'm particularly looking for feedback regarding:

 

1 - The layout, colour, size and fonts of the text. Is it readable for you - is it pleasant to read? If not, what can I improve?

 

2 - (For those who have time). The front page content - how does it read to you, does it make sense, does it belong there? What can I improve?

 

3 - Usability - do you think it is easy to use?

 

4 - Aesthetics - what do you think of the websites look?

 

5 - Functionality - is there anything missing?

 

Please pick it apart - it would be nice to hear some good things about it but as we all know it's better to be critical because customers won't give you a second glance if you don't have a fantastic website. I need some fresh eyes please! (I'd even forgot to put my email address on the contact page until I wrote this post... :/ )

 

Many thanks for your time

 

Simon

I got scared when I first opened the site the trees on there sides...

 

I am taking a more in depth look now though

I do like the site but I there is something about it that doesn't look right.

 

At first i liked the images down the side think that's whats telling my eye theirs something wrong. I think you could improve the appearance of the navigation bar. Maybe a background colour and make the text white? Also I don't like that the text underlined. Apart from them few small details i think its good

I do like the site but I there is something about it that doesn't look right.

 

At first i liked the images down the side think that's whats telling my eye theirs something wrong. I think you could improve the appearance of the navigation bar. Maybe a background colour and make the text white? Also I don't like that the text underlined. Apart from them few small details i think its good

 

 

Hi Martin

 

Thanks for the help

 

I've had one other person say the sides don't work at all. Someone else said it was good. I've just updated the background colour so it blends more with the side images - I think a bit of photoshop grading would make it appear 100% smooth in fading out, but maybe I shouldn't have the sides at all? I'll see what other people think of this particular point, but thanks very much for bringing it to my attention.

 

The navigation is definately something to be improved but unsure how at the moment - I'll give the background colour a try. Navigation bar needs to have breadcrumbs as well, i've just realised.

 

Is it the underlining of all links that you don't like, or just the navigation?

 

Simon

Hi Martin

 

Thanks for the help

 

I've had one other person say the sides don't work at all. Someone else said it was good. I've just updated the background colour so it blends more with the side images - I think a bit of photoshop grading would make it appear 100% smooth in fading out, but maybe I shouldn't have the sides at all? I'll see what other people think of this particular point, but thanks very much for bringing it to my attention.

 

The navigation is definately something to be improved but unsure how at the moment - I'll give the background colour a try. Navigation bar needs to have breadcrumbs as well, i've just realised.

 

Is it the underlining of all links that you don't like, or just the navigation?

 

Simon

 

Just the Nav

Hello simon (nice name)

 

I think the font and the light colours are great. I do think that image at the side is good when its loads but when its loaded and you start to read the content it puts me off but that may just be me. I also think the nervergation is a bit plain. The logo/banner is very nice and looks professional.Usability – Very easy to navigate round the site. (The pages take a long time to load but I am not sure if that’s just me)

 

 

Hope that helps.

Simon

On first impressions, it's a nice 'tidy' design. However, after the navigation and the first header, everything seems to look the same, even though it's not. This probably won't make sense but I'm going to say it anyway. You have the 'London Website Design and Search Engine Optimisation', which is fine, but then you have another header, 'Tidy Design likes to solve your web...' and then paragraphs after that but everything after the London header is the same and looks like one big block of text which isn't appealing. I know you have changed sizes and colours, but try inserting some funky images to spice it up abit. It doesn't harm being concise sometimes.

 

And quite frankly after looking at that first "block" of text, I quite frankly can't be bothered reading the rest and I'm sure that's what your visitors are thinking.

It took so long to load i wrote this message then closed the browser... I am at work though so will look when I get home.

The layout is great, HTML XHTML very clean and popular.

CSS is great for your layout mate.

 

Note: your website is running very slow so probably a server issue

 

The Functionality and useability is great 2, The navigation is clean and very easy to use, Youve made the website very clear to the point it needs to be.

 

Hope this helps, good job mate.

 

- Peter J Maginn

I just looked at your site again, I think you should experiment with just putting your brand colours in place of the images on the sides. I think it would look a lot better. Personnel opinion coz i know some people like them images

I'm not sure on the images down the size. It may just be me but it makes me feel dizzy.

 

The buttons on this page are pretty big in file size (about 32k each) and take an age to display. I would suggest ditching them and replace with text. You can style them pretty similar using css.

 

I think the labels on the contact form should be the other side.

Ok.. what was the thinking behind the trees?

Many thanks everyone to putting their thoughts online - there are some similar lines of thought here, so I want to allocate some focused time later to go through each reply and make some changes. Hopefully I can then get the second round of feedback

 

I've only been a member of this excellent forum for a few weeks now and am wondering what took me so long... !

I took a look at your site the other day, got freaked out by the trees and left. Perhaps if it was only one side it would have worked but the way it was my brain couldn't resolve what it was seeing.

 

I love the background on there now, but there are several things you can do to improve your design IMO.

 

1. Your text is too wide. I have heard the magic number is 17 words, and your first line of normal text is 21. I'd only have it as wide as up to 2009 and use the rest of the space for something else.

 

2. Not using the colourscheme. I see a green, a blue and an orange. Only the green and orange are used on the page, and far too much of the green. You need to vary how things look to make them easily discernible.

 

3. Lack of font size differentiation. You aren't using graphics so use fonts and sizes to make things different. I'd suggest having some MUCH bigger headers.

 

4. Boring navigation. Navigation is something to show off with normally on a porfolio site. As simple as you want it, this is too simple. Having it bigger, centred and losing the underline might be a start?

 

5. I like the idea behind your copy but you haven't pulled it off.

 

6. Your portfolio - there's no information about any of the sites, I'd swap that for the 2nd screenshot. Or perhaps have the screen shot change between the two? This would add a *cool feature*

 

I like where you're going with this site, but doing simple well is really quite difficult and you need to tweak what you've got.

It loaded much quicker this time, and I saw the tree's for the first time. What has trees got to do with tidy / london, I don't see the relevance there to be honest. If you like trees I think horizontal across the bottom would be better. Or something messy down the side like a tip and the other side clean like wall-e ....

 

Who knows!

I won't mention the trees, the green fonts and the big block of text actually made me feel car-sick - OK so I just did!

With what you say you want your website to be I'd personally go for a more "newspaper" style with smaller content blocks with eye-catching headlines/ images (yes I said images). The copy should be sharper and chopped-up into bite-size pieces where people can click through to read more.

To be honest I got a headache so couldn't read through much but I did spot confusion with apostrophes and some other errors which you should check through.

I took a look at your site the other day, got freaked out by the trees and left. Perhaps if it was only one side it would have worked but the way it was my brain couldn't resolve what it was seeing.

 

I love the background on there now, but there are several things you can do to improve your design IMO.

I've just realised that probably made no sense!

 

It was because I was using my EEE PC, so all I could see was the grass, rather than the trees the second time I looked and I thought it was a new background - which looked nice lol.