Please critique my website, Thanks in advance!

http://www.sidebdigita​l.com

First off, if I have to download a plug in I go no further. It is reasonable to expect people to have fairly recent flash support, but don't assume anything further than that.

spphoto wrote in post #4228820
First off, if I have to download a plug in I go no further. It is reasonable to expect people to have fairly recent flash support, but don't assume anything further than that.

I have to agree.

yeah, i was kinda torn ... converting it to flash loses the picture quality. but i guess youre right ... flash is more universal. thanks for the comments!

Same as the others with the plug-in, but I did go further. I'm not 100% sure what you're trying to focus on on your site - we have photography, videography, DJ service, I know you're trying to be a jack of all trades but you need some focus. There's more info about what equipment you use (which clients could care less about) than samples of why they should choose you. Your photos, videos, etc should be the thing you hit them with. If those make an impact they'll search the site for the details on pricing etc. As it stands it's difficult to find your work samples.

ok, ive converted the thing to flash.

thanks Dorman, this is exactly the kind of critique i was looking for!! much appreciated!

Thanks to fast internet connection loading time is still acceptable. Someone with a slow connection will have a problem.
(--) text as graphics and moving.
(--) on my 1600*1200 display the images are very boxed and not sharp, see attachment with crop
(--) moving images are quite blurred

I would leave after the first 5 images not looking for further details.

Flash allows you certain things, but I see more negative things regarding flash, especially you need the correct player, that I avoid flash.
How many times have I seen that I didn't have the correct player and trouble installing the player. Much to much.

Edit: Attached image

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Website design is out of the eighties. Blue bar at bottom is horrible. Fonts are terrible. Flash video is massive, loads WAY too slow. At that point I lost interest, I suspect your customers will too.

I agree with Tim. Not soo much in the design aspect until he pointed it out but It loaded too slowly

honestly - its crap... takes far to long to upload... after 5 mins i got fed up and closed the window. - i have not seen any of your pictures because i could not be bothered to wait for them to load.

I wrote a nice long post but then flipping back between your website and here caused my browser to crash, heres the shorter version of what I can remember.

* 1mb connection at work, several minutes is still too long to load the front page.

* You have some nice images in your gallery but the flash compression coupled with too much ken burns effects makes some of them look terrible, doesnt do them justice at all.

* You need more consistent menus, you dont have a link to your portfolio from your home page, this will usually be the first page a bride looks for. You dont link to your contact info on every page.

* Dont underline text that isnt a link.

* A contact page where visitors can complete an online form will yield more enquiries than just an email address from my experience.

* Frames = urgh

* Look into SEO, it doesnt seem to have been considered when the site was designed and its a useful way of getting business without paying money out for advertising.

Sorry if its a bit blunt, like I say I did write it once and it read much better the first time.

I was still at 0% after a couple of minutes on a dial-up connection. Lost interest and moved on.

It's been said before, but needs to be said again. Sloooooow loading! And I don't remember the last time I visited a site with frames I let it load while I did other things, so I did have a look at the site itself so I have a couple of critiques that haven't been mentioned:

1. Links that change font size when I mouse over them making everything jump around is annoying. Colour change is ok, but not size (in this case anyways).

2. Your thumbnail photos aren't actually thumbnails, but large photos resized by html. Use photoshop to resize them...they'll look nicer (less jaggy) and help your other pages load faster.

3. Red, White & Blue text on a black background makes my eyes do funny things. That may just be me though.

4. This one has been mentioned in countless other "critique my site" threads, but music that you can't turn off is, well, a turn off

Hope that helps a bit!

heh...just browsed back to your home page again and the movie had to re-buffer! Faster than the first time, but still 20 seconds or so...

[edit] - sorry, I just had to say that I let your flash movie finish and it started over again on it's own, but first had to go through another 30 seconds of buffering. That's got to go!

I have to agree with Tim. What is with that slogan.

Yep------I waited the 80 seconds for it to load (and the longer I am waiting the more I expect from it) Then after the first few pics I could not endure any longer and left.