Functional enough?

[JohnJH]

Hello, i'm lookin to get some feedback on my site. Need to use it to get me work somehow...Is the content even good enough to get me work?

Any suggestions on layout and presentation is greatly appreciated. Also curious if i have too many pics in my portfolios.

One more thing, how are the load times? Made it in iweb myself, but it loads soooo slow on my laptop and i hear iweb is the culprit.

Thanks again,
john

www.johnheppe.com

[tracknut]

Hi John,

- I like the photos a lot, the onlyl class that didn't do too much for me was your "misc" group.
- Site was horribly slow to load. About 10 seconds before *anything* showed up, and then a couple more minutes (and a request for me to install quicktime) before a movie was apparently downloaded (that didn't start). I would have quit if I wasn't trying to give you some feedback.
- Navigation essentially goes away when I hover over it. Are you trying to hide them, or are you trying to make it easy for your customers?
- Your email address isn't at your domain... not sure why you'd do that.
- If you want a movie on the home page, I'd figure out a way for it to kick right in fast. You can't make folks wait. And quicktime? huh? Probably should be Flash.
- It certainly wasn't clear to me from the site that you're looking for work. Did it say that somewhere that I missed?
- You need a better title and meta description tag, as well as some good old-fashioned text on your home page if you're thinking google will help you out.

Good luck with the job hunt!
Dave

[JohnJH]

Dave - Thank you so much for taking the time to give me feedback. iWeb is super limited in the amount of control it gives me, but I made a few changes based on your notes.

-Thanks for the compliments - should I lose the "misc" group altogether? I felt like most of them were portfolio worthy, but they just didn't fit into the other categories. At the same time I don't see the content of those images making anybody want to give me work...I just really like em personally.
-Added a home page so my cinema reel isn't automatically shoved in the viewer's face (site's original use was intended for a reel showcase only), initial load time should be a bit quicker. How bout the photo pages? Those load the slowest on my laptop (it is old and showing its age). Sometimes takes a whole minute. Is it the same for others?
-Changed the color layout so the navigation buttons don't disappear into the white background like before.
-Don't know how to make my email addy at my domain...is it not kosher to have a regular gmail account? It seems like it'd be convenient professionally since gmail pushes straight to my cell phone.
-First complaint I got about the quicktime format...it does make sense to make it a flash video instead. I'm sure iWeb disagrees.
-Thought about adding a services offered page, but I don't consider myself a pro with a service to offer so I decided to just let my images speak for themselves and then hope the employers/clients i show the site to would just want to give me whatever's in their wallet...or offer me work based off what they think I'm capable of.
-Title changed (not necessarily better).

Seriously thanks again for the feedback.

[Hikin Mike]

Your home page needs some content and maybe a short slideshow or at least a picture. I started to look at your Cinematography but it took too long to load. You might want to find something different.

The colors need more contrast IMO. Gray background is fine, but the white/dark gray nav is hard to read.

You really need to get a "real" e-mail address. 'gmail.com' just doesn't say "Professional" to me.

You need a better title tag then "John Heppe". Read this: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=472885

Good luck!

[tracknut]

As regards the individual photos in the galleries, I didn't notice any particular delay in loading them. It was only the quicktime video on the home page that caused trouble.

Since you've made a point to say you're looking for work, and you do have some very nice images in your portfolio, I would try hard to step into the shoes of your prospective employer or customer, and critique the photos through their eyes. For example, your blurred images of circles may be artistic and were happy to see come out of the darkroom, I can't really imagine looking at them and saying "hire this guy!". Artistically, there is no *point* to them, if I may pretend to be an artist.

Regarding the email, you just need to make a forwarding address at wherever your domain is registered, to forward something like john@johnheppe.com over to your gmail. You'll still get it on your cell phone.

And I would still recommend being more forward with your request for work. Your new layout gives you a perfect opportunity to do that. Add a photo to the home page, and then put the text right there - what are your skills, what are you available to do, who are your potential customers. See my photo home page for the kind of thing I have in mind.

Dave

[JohnJH]

thanks again for the input...i've made a few changes based on it, unfortunately the one thing i can't really do much modification to is the navigation bar. iweb 08 won't let me format the text/color. it won't let me delete it either so i can't make a nav bar out of just text links. The page title tag is also connected to the nav bar, and there's no way to separate em. I'm not too worried about topping google search though, I think its a small price to pay for a personal website that has cost me <$15 in total to make...

-added pic to title page, not my greatest photo but i think its appropriate for the site. comments?
-recompressed demo reel from 40MB to 20MB. that's about as far as i could push it.
-slimmed down the portfolio's a little bit...but i couldn't bring myself to remove the out of focus firework pics...i like em too much
-changed email addy to something legit and added a services section

i can't thank you guys enough for the honest feedback, i feel like the site's usability has improved a lot

[ScottKCooper]

there has to be a way to change the mouseover on the links from white to something a little more eyecatching. it would be in your John_Heppe.css file. change the a:hover to red. there was a little wrapping on the credits area - the l in commercial for instance. the pics on the misc. page loaded for me, but it seems that there should be white space between all images, not just the tall ones - you need some padding throughout. love the images, the overall look, and respect the credentials!

[10bmw10]

everything loaded fast, video played well, pics were quick. looks good man.

[OdiN1701]

NO.

[tfizzle]

in iweb you can just make a custom bar and then hyperlink it to one of your own pages. That's what I did:

www.fainphoto.com - all made in iweb.

Just make some kind of text (text box) then click on the whole thing (or the text) and then in inspector hyperlink that to the page you want it to go to.

Take off the "show page in navigator/show navigator" and just make a custom navigator (even pull in .jpg backgrounds if need be).

It's pretty simple. Takes some time to hyperlink everything together but not real difficult.

[JohnJH]

very awesome...thanks for all the input, getting rid of the built in navigator changed my world

-fixed all links
-embedded flash version of video reel
-shuffled/slimmed down photos

i think i've found a pretty good balance between cleanliness and functionality on the site now

thanks again