New website - comments? suggestions?

[DMcGrew]

http://www.dustinmcgrewphoto.com

I'm just starting to get this thing built. I really want to keep it simple. I don't have everything setup yet.. still need to get wordpress installed and create a theme for it. What do you think about the general direction I'm headed in? Good? Bad? Likey? No likey? :)

[DerekSimon]

Ok didnt look at all of it but so far this is what I noticed.

Interesting landing page with the automation slideshow, really good choice of photos to use in it.

Really well organized overall and pretty simple which is always good.

The bad- the gallery tab doesn't do anything at all in IE or Firefox. The URL is slightly long and may be hard to get out there so people remember.

Actually non of the tabs work besides purchase prints.

I would actually finish it up before looking for advice because nobody can give much help with a work in progress. So far I like it, but it seems a long way for a finished project.

[Nistelrooydude]

I would actually finish it up before looking for advice because nobody can give much help with a work in progress. So far I like it, but it seems a long way for a finished project.

Agreed

[brecklundin]

To be honest there is only one pet peeve I have with so many photo sites...the startup page always wants to load something that can take seconds to load. I come from an ecommerce development background where that sort of thing, is, ummmm, a no-no. People with slow connections will leave if they have to wait even just 10 seconds.

BUT, photography as I am learning is a different animal. At least photographers think it is a good idea to have slide shows, animations or some Flash thing on the front page. If it works I think that is excellent! And I LOVE yours but I have a HUGE pipe connection and it is actually the server end which limits the load time for me.

The other thing to consider with slide show type intro pages, they are great looking but for your repeat customers, they tell me it can get annoying to many of them. They just want to get in to the content they want. And even when I point out they can just book mark the page of interest, they tell me it's too much trouble and easier to just go through the front door....sigh...I KNOW...

What I would do is look at how long visitors view that page and if the leave from there to continue on to the site. That will tell you what might be best for the sort of actions you might need to reconsider or, hopefully, just leave it as-is.

Like I said, I really like it because its clean, fast and very easy to navigate. Though on my browser setup the link to buy prints tries to open a new tab/window which my pop blockers stop. Not sure if you have the page open on a new tab/window or it is solely on my end. It is another feature that might need some closer looking into via your server logs. Many people, to this day, have no clue about pop-ups being blocked and only feel the link dos not work for them.

but like I said, nice job and the things I notice are trivial at best...only time will tell as you examine traffic patterns through your site via those server logs.

[DMcGrew]

To be honest there is only one pet peeve I have with so many photo sites...the startup page always wants to load something that can take seconds to load. I come from an ecommerce development background where that sort of thing, is, ummmm, a no-no. People with slow connections will leave if they have to wait even just 10 seconds.

BUT, photography as I am learning is a different animal. At least photographers think it is a good idea to have slide shows, animations or some Flash thing on the front page. If it works I think that is excellent! And I LOVE yours but I have a HUGE pipe connection and it is actually the server end which limits the load time for me.

The other thing to consider with slide show type intro pages, they are great looking but for your repeat customers, they tell me it can get annoying to many of them. They just want to get in to the content they want. And even when I point out they can just book mark the page of interest, they tell me it's too much trouble and easier to just go through the front door....sigh...I KNOW...

What I would do is look at how long visitors view that page and if the leave from there to continue on to the site. That will tell you what might be best for the sort of actions you might need to reconsider or, hopefully, just leave it as-is.

Like I said, I really like it because its clean, fast and very easy to navigate. Though on my browser setup the link to buy prints tries to open a new tab/window which my pop blockers stop. Not sure if you have the page open on a new tab/window or it is solely on my end. It is another feature that might need some closer looking into via your server logs. Many people, to this day, have no clue about pop-ups being blocked and only feel the link dos not work for them.

but like I said, nice job and the things I notice are trivial at best...only time will tell as you examine traffic patterns through your site via those server logs.


Thanks for the suggestions. Yeah, the load time on the homepage was a big concern for me. I actually removed about 5 images since I made my original post. I've been testing the load times on my girlfriend's broadband.. which is the bottom line that Verizon offers.. and its pretty slow. What I think would help is a progress bar of some sort that would let users know how much longer the download will be. The one I have on there now is just a basic animated gif. I have to look into some scripts that will show that status.

[DMcGrew]

I got the blog in yesterday and I'm in the process of setting up the galleries now.

[Bas]

It looks nice Dustin! I like the layout, it looks clean!

Can I ask where your gallery is based on?

[DMcGrew]

It looks nice Dustin! I like the layout, it looks clean!

Can I ask where your gallery is based on?

Thanks :) Yeah.. the gallery is called Gallerific. http://www.twospy.com/galleriffic/

[brecklundin]

Thanks for the suggestions. Yeah, the load time on the homepage was a big concern for me. I actually removed about 5 images since I made my original post. I've been testing the load times on my girlfriend's broadband.. which is the bottom line that Verizon offers.. and its pretty slow. What I think would help is a progress bar of some sort that would let users know how much longer the download will be. The one I have on there now is just a basic animated gif. I have to look into some scripts that will show that status.

Glad I said something that made sense. I sometimes offer that suggestion in a way that some think I am saying I don't like the site. I LOVE your site it is super clean, not cartoon-ish to the point of distracting from the whole point of the site, which in your case is your photography. I have seen some sites which are really neat looking but by the time you get throw all the fluff you almost forget why you went to the site to begin with. ;)

And while you keep the site very "clean" you did not remove the personality. Great example of clean, efficient with an eye to site efficiency without it being a cookie cutter "sterile looking" site. I think is the best way I would describe the sense I get when I visit the site.

Good luck with it... :D

EDIT: Thanks for sharing the galleriffic plug-in. I would love to find a fast non-flash, non-Silverlight options. For Silverlight, rowser support is waaay too limited. And I don't care much for what flash has mutated into over the years though it is not awful, still a lot of people still will either not use it or can't. So, I might look at Galleriffic as an option.

[brecklundin]

BTW, have you considered dropping the "quality" down on the gallery images to help the control load faster. Right now the looks to be ~1.4MB of images used by the tool. I obviously haven't looked at the code and doco but I am assuming the tool downloads all the images before starting. If you gave up a bit of JPEG quality I don't think many visitors will notice any difference then the can see the higher quality images if they look deeper into your site.

I just think if you could get the image download in the 500k range it would be a BIG improvement. I almost always start with a 70% level but have dropped to 60% w/o giving up too much for the intended purpose. And I have yet to see anyone be able to tell the difference between 100% and 70% online at the sizes you are using. Or have you already dropped down as much as you dare?

[grimm5577]

i would try and make the images load via XML then you won't have any load time issues.
other than that if you like it kudos! it's simple and clean.