Hi there

 

My website www.summerfestivalguide.co.uk is in dire need of a refresh as I know it could be much better from a readers (and design) point of view.

 

The current design was done by a friend of mine and I think its starting to look slightly outdated, its also not responsive and possibly to heavyweight with the large background image.

 

I would much appreciate idea's on how the homepage and overall design could be improved by you guys here and am really looking for some constructive criticism.

 

I could go through a million ideas and not one of them might be suitable. Instead of asking people and trying to do things the easy way and not getting the results you need, check out other websites like your own and see what they are doing, then take ideas from them to design your site again.

I could go through a million ideas and not one of them might be suitable. Instead of asking people and trying to do things the easy way and not getting the results you need, check out other websites like your own and see what they are doing, then take ideas from them to design your site again.

 

Hi Fuzzy, I have looked at a 100's of sites (and blogs) but there is nothing really that I have really liked.

 

Would you care to share a couple of your ideas?

With that many categories and topics it looks like your main concerns regarding a new design should be
structure, information architecture and usability.

There's way to many items in your main menu.

Try to create an interface with relevant and context related sub navigation instead.

EDIT: It might be helpful to read about Progressive disclosure

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_disclosure

Edited March 12, 201412 yr by Nillervision

I agree with Nillervision, the overall experience feels congested.

 

From the view of someone who goes to festivals and raves this is how I would make your site how fun:

• Reduce the number of menu items
• Bring the photos down to a sidebar
• Make the webpage responsive
• Remove the search bar in the header, my friends and I never use it when go to festivals
• Reduce the length of the pages, so much information is below the fold
• Use tiles with Major Festival and a tile that says other festivals. My fellow young people and I hate sifting through text, use pictures
• Up the Event Calendar in the sidebar then have the options to go to the main page
• Remove the link above the main heading
• Bigger thumbnails for galleries, I want to see people having fun at first glance
• Contact Us in the footer
• Associate review to a festival page(see comment about tile based inteface)
• font-size is too small 11px on a desktop, imagine a mobile device, 14px and up please
• There is more but lets leave it at that for now

Edited March 12, 201412 yr by TheFlyingSquirrel

 

I agree with Nillervision, the overall experience feels congested.

 

From the view of someone who goes to festivals and raves this is how I would make your site how fun:

• Reduce the number of menu items
• Bring the photos down to a sidebar
• Make the webpage responsive
• Remove the search bar in the header, my friends and I never use it when go to festivals
• Reduce the length of the pages, so much information is below the fold
• Use tiles with Major Festival and a tile that says other festivals. My fellow young people and I hate sifting through text, use pictures
• Up the Event Calendar in the sidebar then have the options to go to the main page
• Remove the link above the main heading
• Bigger thumbnails for galleries, I want to see people having fun at first glance
• Contact Us in the footer
• Associate review to a festival page(see comment about tile based inteface)
• font-size is too small 11px on a desktop, imagine a mobile device, 14px and up please
• There is more but lets leave it at that for now

 

Wow thanks for all those suggestions Flying Squirrel, that was exactly what I was looking for, someone to tear it apart and tell me what is wrong with it. Gives me a very good base to work from!

 

Hi Fuzzy, I have looked at a 100's of sites (and blogs) but there is nothing really that I have really liked.

 

Would you care to share a couple of your ideas?

Instead of looking at it in terms of "what you like" look at it in terms of "what is best for your audience" what will make your audience visit that little more pleasurable, I am not just talking about function, but design, would it be simpler for example, instead of having lines of content, maybe put them in separate blocks, making them far simpler to read and much nicer to look at.

 

Don't look at the sites and think 'do I like it' or 'can I copy that' look at it more in terms of 'I like where they have placed that, seems easy to use' or 'that's a nice fresh colour scheme' then slowly you will being to form ideas.

 

I am just creating my business (have done this once before) and my new slogan is 'design is not how it looks, design is how it works' of course design principles and theries go a long way in creating something that will work for you but it's you who needs to do the initial research because only you know who your target audience are.

Edited March 12, 201412 yr by Fuzzy Logic

First of all reoptimize your site because it's loading too long..

First of all reoptimize your site because it's loading too long..

 

Yes I know this is an issue, because the website is built on top of DotNetNuke there are a few things that are out of my control which increase the page load times.

Instead of looking at it in terms of "what you like" look at it in terms of "what is best for your audience" what will make your audience visit that little more pleasurable, I am not just talking about function, but design, would it be simpler for example, instead of having lines of content, maybe put them in separate blocks, making them far simpler to read and much nicer to look at.

 

Don't look at the sites and think 'do I like it' or 'can I copy that' look at it more in terms of 'I like where they have placed that, seems easy to use' or 'that's a nice fresh colour scheme' then slowly you will being to form ideas.

 

I am just creating my business (have done this once before) and my new slogan is 'design is not how it looks, design is how it works' of course design principles and theries go a long way in creating something that will work for you but it's you who needs to do the initial research because only you know who your target audience are.

 

I like the way you are defining the way design is not just about the graphics. +1

Cheers, I tend to think of all interactive graphics in ux terms first, or at least I try to lol

Edited March 27, 201412 yr by Fuzzy Logic