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LeuceDeuce
18th of October 2009 (Sun), 13:30
Looking for critique on the design, and navigation of the site. I know there isn't a lot of content yet, but that's on the way.

www.lightandshadow.ca (http://www.lightandshadow.ca)

Thank you for your feedback.
MakeMeShutter
18th of October 2009 (Sun), 16:50
Beautiful and easy to navigate layout.

I like the monitor calibration.
LeuceDeuce
18th of October 2009 (Sun), 17:08
Beautiful and easy to navigate layout.

I like the monitor calibration.

Thank you very much. I wanted something clean and easy to navigate, and most times I'm not a very good judge on how other people think :)

I also didn't want to use a flash based site, so hopefully I can get my SEO up there.
Hikin Mike
18th of October 2009 (Sun), 17:41
Thank you very much. I wanted something clean and easy to navigate, and most times I'm not a very good judge on how other people think :)

I also didn't want to use a flash based site, so hopefully I can get my SEO up there.

Once you add some content, refine your <title> element and maybe add a description metadata. ;)
LeuceDeuce
18th of October 2009 (Sun), 17:48
Once you add some content, refine your <title> element and maybe add a description metadata. ;)

Thanks! I'll get to adding description metadata for sure, but how can I improve the <title> element? I do want to show up somewhere on the search engines.
Hikin Mike
18th of October 2009 (Sun), 18:13
You pretty much have a decent title element. I try to limit my title to about 70 characters or less. Count the characters in a typical Google/Yahoo search. Maybe try this: 'Vancouver Based Fine Art &amp; Commercial Photography - Light &amp; Shadow'. This way you are guaranteed to "Vancouver Based Fine Art &amp; Commercial Photography" to show up...if that makes sense.

EDIT: Have your read this yet? http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=472885
LeuceDeuce
18th of October 2009 (Sun), 18:34
You pretty much have a decent title element. I try to limit my title to about 70 characters or less. Count the characters in a typical Google/Yahoo search. Maybe try this: 'Vancouver Based Fine Art &amp; Commercial Photography - Light &amp; Shadow'. This way you are guaranteed to "Vancouver Based Fine Art &amp; Commercial Photography" to show up...if that makes sense.

EDIT: Have your read this yet? http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=472885

Excellent advice. Something I've read about in the past, but didn't apply fully here.

Thanks for the link too. That was a good read as well.
canonman1971
23rd of October 2009 (Fri), 17:35
Very nice. Clean and simple.....
TheHoff
23rd of October 2009 (Fri), 17:46
Hi Chris, I could go on for days doing site reviews so I will keep it short at first.

The main issue you have now is with your navigation structure. On my 15" MBP, the page cuts off your main menu (Safari 4, OSX 10.6):

http://imgur.com/NEOik.png

So when I first get to the site, my eyes are drawn to the calibration links thinking they are your main navigation elements. The location of the navs should be reversed or rethought making sure that the main nav is always on the screen and "encompasses" the page below it so you know it is the main controller. My laptop res isn't the lowest res screen you'll find so there are a lot of people out there who would not see the menu.

The second issue with the navigation is that the title of the navigation "galleries" has the same style as the hover style of the real links. The effect is that it looks like four separate links "galleries, urban, nature, dance" rather than three links with a title. Also consider making the active state of the links different from the inactive. I can't tell what gallery I'm in by looking at the menu right now.

Otherwise, good job and kudos for rolling your own. Hope that helps.
LeuceDeuce
23rd of October 2009 (Fri), 18:07
Very nice. Clean and simple.....

Hi Chris, I could go on for days doing site reviews so I will keep it short at first.

The main issue you have now is with your navigation structure. On my 15" MBP, the page cuts off your main menu (Safari 4, OSX 10.6):

So when I first get to the site, my eyes are drawn to the calibration links thinking they are your main navigation elements. The location of the navs should be reversed or rethought making sure that the main nav is always on the screen and "encompasses" the page below it so you know it is the main controller. My laptop res isn't the lowest res screen you'll find so there are a lot of people out there who would not see the menu.

The second issue with the navigation is that the title of the navigation "galleries" has the same style as the hover style of the real links. The effect is that it looks like four separate links "galleries, urban, nature, dance" rather than three links with a title. Also consider making the active state of the links different from the inactive. I can't tell what gallery I'm in by looking at the menu right now.

Otherwise, good job and kudos for rolling your own. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the feedback! This is exactly what I'm looking for. Believe me I've wrestled with the size of page to display for, and I'm monitoring the analytics to see where I need to go with this. I may have to do something with the location of the gallery links regardless, as I can totally see that having them buried on a small screen is not a good thing.

Thank you very much.
LeuceDeuce
23rd of October 2009 (Fri), 18:08
Maybe putting the gallery links on the left hand side instead of the bottom. I'll see how that will go.

I'm going away for the weekend; back on Wednesday. I'll see about making some design changes then. I'll try to resize at 1024x768 without scrolling.

I always look at it from 1680x1050 and 1280x1024 so I don't make the best size decisions sometimes.