March 17, 201115 yr Hi, Do you think this site design is too simple? Website Should I do the obvious thing and change the gallery to a carousel? Also do you think Google might not like me as the main content is hidden when you first open the page? Please let know what you think... Many thanks Ben.
March 17, 201115 yr The design is not to simple. But at the same time -it´s not looking right for some reason. I guess it´s the frame on top with the scroll, that toggles a lightbox. What´s the thing with that? I guess a carousel might work better, yes.
March 17, 201115 yr I also think the top sliding bar needs work, all samples need to be the same size etc Also on our screen the front page is not central on Y axis. Edited March 17, 201115 yr by RPM-tuningsolutions
March 17, 201115 yr If you had a custom scroller it would look alot better fitting http://flowplayer.org/tools/demos/rangeinput/scrollbar.html something like this im not sure i just did a quick google search love the design btw Edited March 17, 201115 yr by kingy da killa
March 17, 201115 yr It's like a gallery website upside down Among others things menu needs emphasis and should be easy to find...one of the basic principles of web design
March 17, 201115 yr Why isn't the the text place on separate pages? You're saturating your content by giving google too many options to rank you for too many keywords. Each page should concentrate on a selection of keywords. If you have 5 or 6 different pages, it means you can have 5 or 6 different pages in google, each ranking for different keywords. You can build up good PR to these pages, have some goof inter-page links and have the pr flowing through the site. Optimize your images by using the 'alt' and 'title' tag Edited March 17, 201115 yr by Jason Dexter
March 17, 201115 yr Why hide the text? If she wants to communicate with her audience they need to be able to read about her (without being forced to click a link as it's a one page site). Main nav links need to go near the top of the page, else visitors will need to scroll down to see them, and might miss them.
March 17, 201115 yr Author Cool, thanks everyone I probably will change the scrolly gallery thing to a carousel, it does look a bit old hat doesn't it. I put all the text on one page for the Google spiders to have something to read as there really isn't much to go on. I think it should be semantically pretty good but I am a bit worried that google might not like it, I guess time will tell. don4365345 that's your opinion, in my opinion it's the greatest! Check out the original... (Google Jill Evans) It sure beats that.* Jason Dexter, I haven't finished the alt and title tags yet, I got a bit bored, but yeah I agree. BlueDreamer, buy a bigger monitor!* *please read with your tongue in your cheek, fanks! Nice work guys, I love this forum! Edited March 17, 201115 yr by Ben Evans
March 17, 201115 yr BlueDreamer, buy a bigger monitor!* I already have a big monitor - he he On a serious note most modern monitors and laptops/notebooks have wide but shallow screens nowadays. When you add a couple of browser toolbars (not uncommon) the amount of visible vertical space can be "not a lot". I'm currently running at 1360x768 with a couple of toolbars visible in my browser and the nav links on your site are out of view without scrolling. Ok I know where to look but most internet users aren't that savvy so it could work against you. With your content text, write for human being not search engines. Google and others will find the text without any problem (unless you do something stupid:)). You could also bump up the text size as well if there's not much of it, that will help fill things out a bit as well as making it more readable for people using larger resolutions. Browser default (16px) is fine nowadays and you could also try using a different font to make things sparkle a bit more?
March 17, 201115 yr Nice work Ben. I agree with the carousel and I would also put a navigation at the top, and/or the footer. As for SEO - If you put a h1 at the beginning of the page, it will be the description of the site on Google. If it's not a 'high volume' site, I don't think you need seperate pages. Sure it's always better to have individual pages, but you can implement some nice transitions with divs. Looking forward to the finished result!
March 18, 201115 yr If you had a custom scroller it would look alot better fitting http://flowplayer.or.../scrollbar.html something like this im not sure i just did a quick google search love the design btw Agree with the scroller idea! Would make it a lot nicer.
March 18, 201115 yr Nice design, bit I think you need to change the size and if you will add scroller your website will be easy to view. I like your favicon.
March 18, 201115 yr Personally I would sack the scrollbar idea off. I'd lose the thumbnails at the top and put the handwritten style logo up there, centered. Give yourself a bit of breathing space at the top of the site. Then just have a nice easing in and out slider where you currently have the large image and your navigation. Your navigation would look sweet underneath that in small, gray text. I reckon that'd look sweet. Hope this helps. Edited March 18, 201115 yr by jay pick
March 18, 201115 yr I would dumb the scrolling right, it's something I try to avoid in any design. Users dislike to scroll from left to right. Only up and down w00t
March 18, 201115 yr Author I would dumb the scrolling right, it's something I try to avoid in any design. Users dislike to scroll from left to right. Only up and down w00t You may be on to something there! Come to think of it I don't even like scrolling horizontally. Nice one! Edited March 18, 201115 yr by Ben Evans
March 19, 201115 yr Oh sorry Ben, I meant DUMP... man that was a terrible typo, but you know what I meant. I would put the top part on auto-play and with some arrows and maybe some text below each image, something descriptive in one or two words, perhaps the name of the painting? The rest, is spot on. Edited March 19, 201115 yr by OniLink
March 19, 201115 yr Author Okay... Check out my new ultra funky thumbnail scroller Here. Is it at all user friendly? Still rocking the only one div!
March 20, 201115 yr Can you decrease the speed a bit when I scroll to the right? If I scroll too fast it goes ballistic..lol
March 21, 201115 yr Nice design Ben, sure Google won't take black hat work make your content visible don't hide..
March 21, 201115 yr The gallery slider at the top is way too confusing. I'd change it and use a proper carousel with next/prev arrows.
March 21, 201115 yr Author It's okay... Google do like it... It's listing already... Now I just need to make the thumbnail slider slightly more user friend and we should be away! I might make the seat clickable too, but why, I don't know?
March 29, 201115 yr Although I like your websites design, quite artistic. I would say that you need a separate page for your portfolio. I would add some more content to your home page, maybe a short quote or text about yourself or your passions
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