Website Critique appreciated

[TimothyJ]

Please be brutally honest. I am a new freelance photographer finishing up my degree. I have had my website since August 07. I would like your critiques, comments, concerns, questions and misunderstandings of how my website is laid out and on individual images if you like. Thank you in advance for those who have looked and your comments.

Here is my link:

http://www.timothyjphoto.com/

Thank you.

[tracknut]

Hi Timothy,

Overall I like the feel of the site. All the items below are minor issues, but since you're looking for brutally honest:

The home page needs work though (IMO). Here are my issues:

1) You provide both flash and html (maybe you should say "javascript" since that presumably is the issue) versions of the site. Neato. But then right below, you tell me I need flash to view your site. Why? I did a quick scan of both versions, and it seems I was able to see everything on your html version, I missed nothing if I skipped the flash version. So why are you telling everyone they need flash?

2) I have popup blockers turned on, and it's my decision not yours. I didn't turn them off, and as far as I could tell, I again missed nothing on your site. So why are you telling me to turn them off (and please read between the lines "why can't you develop a site that doesn't use pop-ups?)

3) A pet peve of mine. "this site is best viewed with xxxx resolution". Um, so what? Which of these options are you trying to tell me?
a) "you're a cheepskate if you can't afford a bigger display"
b) "I can't figure out how to make my site accessible to smaller displays"
c) "Please do not view my site if your monitor is smaller than this"
I'll submit that none of these are too useful in terms of messages for your customers.

Ok, that's it for the home page. Other items:

- Why all the different windows? Keep everything on the same page
- You've mixed quite a set of pronouns when talking about yourself. Sometimes its "he", sometimes "I" and sometimes "us." If there's more than one of you, then "us" makes sense. If there's just one of you, I'd try to pick whether the site is going with "he" or "I" and stick with it.

Lastly, your HTML doesn't validate (for starters you don't have a DOCTYPE) - you might want to get to that when you have a chance (http://validator.w3.org/)

Dave

[TimothyJ]

Thank you Dave. You gave me some great brutual insight.
I have recently been thinking about dropping the html site all together, becuase most people today have quick enough internet connections to view the flash site. I will delete all of the usless info that is set up for me about monotor size, and that you need to download flash 8.0
I checked out your website and loved the dog images. Great work.
Thanks once again.

[Electric Monk]

If your going to put music to flash, turn it off by default, nothing turns me off more than a site with music that plays right off the bat.

Also, don't use javascript to take away my bars. I HATE that, how am I suppose to send your site to someone who might be interested when I can't even copy the URL? Yes, I know how to get around it but I'd be willing to be that a lot of your customers don't.

If your not using deeplinking, stay away from flash. Even if you are, avoid it like the plague for critical things like your photos, because while google is finally able to crawl flash sites, no one else is even close, and you make it that much harder for someone to find you. Indexable content is one of the key Items to being found on the web, right up there with off-page optimization.

If you want to do nice photos and transitions, use script.aculo.us, moo.fx and lightbox and you can do stunning work that looks great and doesn't require an additional plugin.

As for your screen size, start running something like google analytics, watch to see what your average screen size is for your visitors and alter your design around that. My minimum for mine is 1024x768, so I design to that and don't say a word about it to my visitors.

Good luck with your revisions!

[Hikin Mike]

There are two things that I can't stand and will usually click away...Music and Flash.

[TimothyJ]

Why the flash hatters?
There are good reasons that you have brought up. I have a html site for it too, but just recently took it down because no one was viewing it. I use google anayltics and learned about it through there.

P.S. Hikin Mike, how can you not like music?
The book of Psalms is all poems and songs. And His creations shouts out loud with music coming straight through nature as you know. Just something to think about.

[sandro9mm]

flash elements cannot be SEO'd, so you won't rank anywhere on google and loose precious free traffic.

[Hikin Mike]

Why the flash hatters?
There are good reasons that you have brought up. I have a html site for it too, but just recently took it down because no one was viewing it. I use google anayltics and learned about it through there.

P.S. Hikin Mike, how can you not like music?
The book of Psalms is all poems and songs. And His creations shouts out loud with music coming straight through nature as you know. Just something to think about.

I like music...just not on a website. :D

[Triptoph]

Was frustrated with the inability to be able to move the photos more quickly along on the starting page... creating navigation options in the flash would be good, or if they're there, making them more obvious. Pressing the right-arrow/left-arrow key should work as you would expect ideally. If you want people to see as much of your work as possible, make sure the first thing they see is your work with the ability to quickly go through it (like you've done with the individual galleries). It is unclear if you want your viewer to just sit on the opening page and wait to see the images scroll by, or choose one of the galleries, nor which would be best to see first. Would suggest putting the galleries you want them to view in a more prominent place, the "about me" tab being placed somewhere less prominent.

People prefer to listen to their own music when they want to listen to it. Tastes obviously vary widely, not everyone is going to like the music you choose, no matter what it is. It really detracted from the site for me, making me want to close the pop-up window quickly. Perhaps give the option to see it with music but by default have it mute. It didn't help that I had my speakers on full blast when I went in either :)

Pop-ups are definitely a no-go these days.

The flash gallery was pretty though, its a nice start.

[Electric Monk]

flash elements cannot be SEO'd, so you won't rank anywhere on google and loose precious free traffic.

Not entirely true, google spiders can crawl flash now, however it still can't index your images, which is where you can bring in a lot of traffic from.

[S.Horton]

Very clean.

Beef up the portfolio a bit -- could just be how tired I am, but several images looked a touch soft -- best guess that happened when you compiled.

Just leave the nav bars up at the top; my only request.

Music is to taste, of course, but IMO I'd leave it off.

[TimothyJ]

Thanks everyone again for your insight.

[dou_b_14]

i like your site overall...nice...it has a nice comfortable feel to it.

[djscrib]

Forcing a browser popup to get to the "website" right at the beginning is bad. Real bad. Also what's more important, your site or your blog? Your splash page is pointless, make your home page the website home page, and add a link to your blog.

Asking users to manually disable popup blockers is a sign you have a bad design. Code the site in a way that doesn't require users to do this.

Wasting space to specify the requirements to view the site is pointless as well, they either have it or they don't. By the time they're on your page it's too late. If they're viewing in 800x600 they're not going to magically run out to upgrade their monitor to a 1024x768 while on your page.

I also hate flash websites. They are not search indexable (meaning google hates them). A lot of the stuff can be reasonably duplicated with DHTML. Alot of the rest of the stuff is generally just fluff. If only 20% of people have trouble viewing your site with flash, you just lost 20% of your customer base. Does the fancy flash animations grab enough customers to make up for it?

A business website is for business, not to act as an art project.

Put your contact info in a footer in every page. If people have trouble pulling up your contact info page (which i did) you just lost a customer.

Colors, graphics, fonts, and layout were very well done.