Website - comments a. criticism please

[INNflight]

Hello all,

I just launched my new website, with still more images to be added to the portfolios. There will also be a new header for the contact section soon, but otherwise it's finished.

www.floriantrojer.com (http://www.floriantrojer.com)

Any kind of comments, criticism, suggestions or whatever else is highly appreciated!

Thanks,
F.

[Andy001z]

I like it, the only criticism is I am not sure if it is a mecca site for Aviation or your photos in General. However either way it's simple and nicely done.

Andyh

[flyb0y]

Like it alot. Good job and some very nice shots.

[INNflight]

Thanks to both of you for your thoughts.

not sure if it is a mecca site for Aviation or your photos in General.

This may be right, and I was thinking about it quite a lot how to solve this problem. Fact is, most of my business is exclusively with aviation-related companies, but definitely wanted to have at least one non-aviation portfolio online.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks.

[MichelleK]

All I would say is put a pic of yourself...people tend to like the warm touch.

Michelle K

[INNflight]

Thanks Michelle,

I already planned on doing this asap, but first I have to get one I like. ;)

[langelis]

Looks great. The site, and the images. I don't have that many aviation photos, other than the Boeing Museum of Flight. I hear it's real hard to stop the aircraft action while allowing for some blur of the wings, rotor, props. If your ever in seattle, check out the Boeing Museum of Flight.

[symes]

"Providing the finest aviation as well as fine-art imagery to the world’s most discerning commercial, editoral and exclusive clientele."

Do you mean editorial?

[INNflight]

"Providing the finest aviation as well as fine-art imagery to the world’s most discerning commercial, editoral and exclusive clientele."

Do you mean editorial?

Oops, thanks!

[Wazza]

I like your site, and impressive photos against the Austrian Alps. :)

[sf_1857]

Nice looking site.

I would recommend removing the "enter" page.
I don't know why people insist on adding an extra step for the user that accomplishes nothing.

As a web developer, from a usability standpoint, there should be motivation for an entry page - ie, your site supports multiple languages. Otherwise, it's more work for the user.

[Big WIll]

No author in the meta tags.
You have 11 images without ALT text, this is vital for people with disabilities that use screen readers.
You have 9 images that do not have height and width attributes.
You should state on all pages what language the text is written in.
Part from that everything is ok.

[transcend]

Let me see if I can chime in with a little helpful criticism. I do this for a living, so take everything with a grain of salt, as I am picky. :)

First off, fantastic photos. I absolutely love them as I have a thing for aviation in general. I would love to be able to get some of the up close opportunities you have had.

Down to business.

Meta tags - simply put, you have used too many. Most modern search engines will start to ignore them after about 10, as well as possibly even blacklist you for attempting to "cheat" the system. Google is notorious for this.

The nav - You have images for nav with ALT text, search engines will not pick up on these much of the time, and can leave parts of your site unspidered. Add alt text to these, pretty simple and can make a big difference. Also, the site layout is professional, but the nav images are not. I would try and figure out another way to style these without the glow, etc. Just a personal preference here, but it's from lots of experience.

Flow - the design changes from page to page in some sections. References or home vs contact for example. There appears to be 3 different layout styles going on. Choose one layout and stick with it. I would choose with the look you have for contact (again, personal opinion). It just seems simpler and cleaner.

Also, make sure to set your content box to a min height. It gets very small on certain portfolio pages that only have 1 row of images.

Besides that It's a good site. I especially like the portfolio page.

[PhotosGuy]

Looks OK to me, except I would recommend removing the "enter" page, too. transcend doesn't comment on them, but I really hate the extra step. ;)

[Profzinc]

Very nice work. I like the fact that one cannot right click & save your images.

For even better security, uprade your site to flash.

[transcend]

Looks OK to me, except I would recommend removing the "enter" page, too. transcend doesn't comment on them, but I really hate the extra step. ;)

Actually, it slipped my mind. I agree, I abhore intro pages.

[transcend]

Very nice work. I like the fact that one cannot right click & save your images.

For even better security, uprade your site to flash.

Do NOT do as suggested. ugh. Why would anyone even suggest flash? I bet you I can steal your imgaes from a flash site just as fast as you can from a non flash site.

[SHANGHAi]

I like it a lot! Very nice, clean design.

[INNflight]

Hey everybody.

Just noticed my thread went up to the top again, so first of all, thanks to you. I quickly read through all your comments, but am in a bit of a hurry, so I will comment them all tomorrow!

Thanks a lot, lots of the suggestions are very helpful to me.

cheers,
F.

[lakiluno]

my only point is this (and I know that its slightly discriminatory)

Why would you need to have alt tags on images for screen reader users (perhaps if your selling something, but if your simply showing your work (which INNflight isn't...but anyway)).

Surely if you use a screenreader you are unable to look at images, and so it defeats the point of visiting an online image gallery.

Leo

[INNflight]

No author in the meta tags.
You have 11 images without ALT text, this is vital for people with disabilities that use screen readers.
You have 9 images that do not have height and width attributes.
You should state on all pages what language the text is written in.
Part from that everything is ok.

Thanks once again.

Re. "no author", I assume I should remove it, as it's there?

I'm not really a web designer, so could you guys please explain to me what these Alt texts are, what they do, and why or how I should get rid of them? Thanks.

Why would you need to have alt tags on images for screen reader users (perhaps if your selling something, but if your simply showing your work (which INNflight isn't...but anyway)).

Again, I don't really know what you talk about... sorry to say that.

Btw Fraser, thanks a lot for all your recommendations and comments. Had a look at your website, quite impressive. Seems to be well done throughout!

[transcend]

Thanks once again.

Re. "no author", I assume I should remove it, as it's there?

I'm not really a web designer, so could you guys please explain to me what these Alt texts are, what they do, and why or how I should get rid of them? Thanks.



Again, I don't really know what you talk about... sorry to say that.

Btw Fraser, thanks a lot for all your recommendations and comments. Had a look at your website, quite impressive. Seems to be well done throughout!

No worries man. Good web design makes me happy, bad web design makes me cry. You are definately on the right track with you site, and some simple changes woudl make it much more standards compliant, which is usually a good thing.

The alt tags just replace the images with text for users in browsers that either don't display images, or have them off. In your case, with images for navigation, it is crucial.

In the img tag it would look like this: <img src="/imagefile.jpg" alt="picture of a plane" />

Funny story, I actually called my cable television company this week and yelled at one of the pr guys. Worst website ever, I couldn't get basic rate information without plugging in an address and postal code into their flash application...which wouldn't work in either firefox or safari.

Thanks for the kind words. I actually updated the site just last night, so not sure which one you were looking at, either way, thanks.