Hi all I have been working on a website for my boss and just wondered if anyone could perhaps point out good and bad points or recommend any improvements or just give there general thoughts.

(please bare in mind this is only my second ever attempt at a website so don't expect amazing things)

He's original website is http://www.plumbers-kent.co.uk/

and the unfinished one I am currenty working on is http://www.guildbathrooms.com

I would appreciate any feedback in regards to peoples first impression such as does it look cluttered, is there a specific part that lets the site down, is the color scheme ok? etc..

Thanks in advanced any feedback anyone is kind enough to offer.

Best regards

David

certainly an overall improvement but...

 

too much text as images

 

inappropriate font on e.g. "new bathrooms suites" - going for classy but this is a scratchy hadn writing font

 

the text with areas (london etc) looks like navigation. oh and the blue list on the left looks like navigation/buttons

 

annoying how the pictures are moving all the time - distracting

Thanks for the input and giving me something to work on.

I have to say that for your second website you're doing well Here what I'd change:

 

The top menu could be a tiny bit bigger but that's just personal choice.

 

On the top menu, the current page is shown as green, the colour scheme of the website is orange and blue so not sure why this green? The quick links at the bottom are also green... Orange and blue are strong enough colour, no need for the green.

 

The message: "© Guild Plumbing 2012 Privacy Policy | Website Disclaimer " is supposed to be your footer and as such it should be the last thing in your page so I'd move it down to the bottom, after the "Serving Kent message".

 

Messages with more than one line look better when they're aligned left so I'd do this to the message: "Serving Kent: .... "

 

The one star message "*Subject to quotation being written ..... " and the two star message: "**PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS WEBSITE USES TRACKING" should be together, one after the other.

 

Hope it helps.

at nearly 1.2 Mb it's quite heavy

as said above it's quite a large page, I'd suggest optimising all images as much as possible which will reduce it by quite a bit, if it's still larger than about 2-300kb then look through your code for possible optimisations

I'm sorry, but I prefer the original website (not saying it's good). The new version is cluttered, confusing and the layout is simply wrong and old.

 

The most important thing about websites is usually the content, so typography is extremely important – I would recommend reading some books on this subject, because there is just too many mistakes with text it would be no good to mention them all.

 

I'm sure it took a lot of effort and I'm not trying to discourage you. For your second website it's really, really great! Just study some modern webdesign ideas, trends and look at some CSS galeries to get a better picture of how modern websites looks.

I totally agree with SeikoShadow.

I would agree that the first design is better but not great, both designs are out dated with design styles being pretty much the same.

 

I would recommend you concentrate on what needs to be on t he front/home page as there is way too much going on the page and a personal thing is the ticker message is quite out dated, i also feel the scrolling images are something which can become annoying. I would suggest looking into a jQuery carousel / image slider as that is more with the designs and you could high light your key messages.

 

I am not too keen on gradients and also the logo does not fit in with the text and the overall layout.

 

On a positive note the colour scheme is a good combo. but you need to concentrate on typography and creating greater emphasis on the services that are one offer.

The logo has issues, the text over the logo image may blur into the image for people with poor sight and become totally obscured, the text within the 'All our bathrooms include' box has a similar problem as the hashing behind the text blurs the edges.

 

The shadow effect on both sides is a little OTT as well.

 

Ditto on the scrolling images, plus the menu may benefit from a small/subtle transition animation effect to improve the UIX, and within the construction industry membership of official 'standards' is a high priority for customers so moving the 'GasSafe' logo to the top of the page for instant visibility would be goo too and include a direct link to the companies listing on the gassafe website will persuade many more potential customers to part with their hard earned cash.

 

The title for the map looks more like it is labeling the image above because the top image in that column is labeled bellow the image, try to make this consistent. Plus the links to the different maps look like they are a menu to other pages for the local branches, they need moving to associate them with the part of the page they update.