Another newbie site C&C request

Hi all

Just joined the forum as I liked what I saw, and am a Canon user.
As seems to be the obligatory request from a newbie, would welcome
and C&C of my website. Please bear in mind that I'm not exactly the
most proficient web designer

I am trying to keep it simple and straight forward, and as it's all self taught
through trial and error, is a constant WIP. Site built using Frontpage with the
odd tiny bit of HTML tweaking by me when I find something useful.

Feel free to comment, especially the load times, as I changed ISP from a US based provider to a UK provider (through a Swiss company) due to my first
ISP being way too slow to load.

www.slimsphotos.net

Regards Chris

The first thing I notice is it screams 1990's, as in very dated looking

Next it loads extremely slowly for a site with content so simple, not sure what's taking so long...

After I let it load (I'll use this page for example http://www.slimsphotos​.net …tos/Scenery/sce​nlist.html) I couldn't even find any links to click, not to mention half the images were broken and the ones that weren't seemed stretched waaaaay to big or just completely out of place, which in all made the site pretty unusable.

I'm not sure what the purpose of your site is, but if it's to bring in business (or anything other than personal) I would strongly suggest looking around at other sites either on POTN or just google for personal photo galleries and find a few you like and figure out why they look good and try and use some of those elements in your own.

Or buy a premade template, but that's no fun

You have a web page though, so that's a start, but if your really looking to make it better I would definitely suggest reading up on some basic HTML and trying to work without Frontpage (it really is pretty bad at webpages).

It's too big. Not everybody has huge monitors. Scrolling from side-to-side is strongly discouraged by most people who write books on website design.

Also, on some of your galleries, you have too many clicks to get to the actual gallery.

Hi guys

Thanks for the feedback, always good and interesting to hear others ideas.

Firstly let me say, its not for business, just personal site to share pics with others, as was fed up using other online galleries.

Good to find it loads slow for US users, this is the reverse of what my first site with a US ISP gave me. Slow to load for europeans, but quicker for US based users. Guess that's a trade off I have to accept. Here the pages load quite quickly, depending on the amount of pics on the actual page. I've started to load galleries with a max number of thumbs capped at 20 per page and have multiple pages instead of having just 1 page per gallery, to help with load times.

mr-e I'm not sure why you couldn't find any links from the scenery list, will look into that, as when I load up the page, all the gallery buttons are there just to the left of the descriptions, and then all the pics load, so I don't show any broken links. Hmm, need to figure this out.

Picture size, I've been sizing them on my monitor which is only a 17", but for this year, 2008, am planning on having the galleries load up at 800 x 600 max, so see where you are coming from.

Agree, buying a premade template is no fun, and if I did I'd learn nothing. I do have some courses coming up in the next few months from work, which may give me a better understanding and a chance to improve the site, so here's hoping.

photoguy6405 not sure how I could reduce the number of clicks to get to a specific gallery, while also keeping gallery descriptions, and smaller gallery pages, but open to suggestions

Anyway guys, thanks for the feedback, appreciate it. The site is a constant WIP, work permitting, so hopefully it will get better with time.

Regards Chris

I'm not sure either, I've linked a screen shot of what I'm looking at, I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.12 (the latest version)

I can see where (I'm assuming) there are supposed to be links, but it's not that the links are broken, there's just nothing to click (no difference from regular text)

It's a large one, I'm on 1280x1024
http://www.ijphotograp​hy.com/stuff/potn_slim​s_site.jpg

If you want more help with the matter I'll be glad to look through the code and see if I can find anything in particular, but who knows what Frontpage has put in there in the way of crap code

One of the first things I would do is dump Frontpage and invest into something like Dreamweaver, if that's how you wanna go, otherwise it's time to start learning code

Just had a look at the screenshot, see what you mean. As I don't use firefox, and no one I know over here does, never checked it using that browser. The IE here at work works fine, so it may be a browser prob. but as this (and web design) are not my areas, then couldn't say. Thanks for the offer of help, and I'd gladly take you up on the offer, but first I'm going to look into JAlbum to work on the galleries and try that, see if I can get things looking a little less like me (dated) and more modern. Still want to keep it simple as I don't think I'll make money from my pics, and it's just to show my pics to the world
Have some courses coming up, maybe in April to do with the works intranet site, so will see what they cover as well.

I'll do some work on it over the next couple of weeks and try get something better before the airshow and carshow seasons start next month (first show 20th April).

Thanks again for feedback, gives me plenty to think about.

Regards Chris
PS, really like your nature pics.

Hi guys

Okay, have been looking at the actual gallery format, and have tried something using JAlbum. If you could have a look at the link below to first attempt at getting the galleries looking better, and pull it apart
Am not sure if I'd prefer a black background with white text. Also maybe just put filenames under the thumbs, with the comments on the picture window. What do you think. Ignore the actual pics, they are just a few I used for testing.

http://www.slimsphotos​.net …Misc/papiltest/​index.html

Chris

W.O.W. it's usable! (at least for me anyway )

Seriously it's looking good, I'm not a fan of the gray background, and I've found many older people have a real hard time reading white text on a black background, so maybe try something less contrasty, or stick with the standard black on white (what I like).

Also make sure to integrate the jalbum gallery into your site, having separate pages that look completely different will just confuse users, try and keep your logo/navigation/genera​l look and feel of your site and just add in the jalbum gallery.

Looking good!

mr_e thanks for the feedback, glad it works for you now.

Am leaning more to the black background myself the more I play with it on the pc. Will have a look at some different colours for the text. I plan to incorporate everything into a new look site, but thought I have to start somewhere, and it will take me much longer to convert all the galleries than it will for the front end, hopefully

Thanks

Hey welcome to the site.

Ok for the big things:
Well I agree with the first critique it is VERY out-dated looking. I think the right banner doesnt even need to be there, Copyright information should ALWAYS be footer text, 8pt-9pt font on the bottom of the page. Therefor you can now rid of the red banner on the right of the page.
Also the Slim Photos logo is a bit corny, try thinking of a better logo because that gradient was a very cliche gradient in the 90s and seems power-point like.
Try a softer colour pallate for your site as well, the red against the white against the black text is very harsh and contrast a bit too much making the site busy looking.
Also one BIG thing I just noticed, WHY IS YOUR CONTENT TEXT IMAGES!?!?!?!? That is EXTREMELY bad for web-design and VERY bad for user accessibility, I would say change that IMMEDIATELY.
There is no reason,
http://www.slimsphotos​.net …urich1_files/im​age017.gif
should be an image at all.

Also there are stretched images everywhere.
What are you using to design this site, before I go into any more detail, i would like to know why its looking like it is now.

Hi cujojpn

Have already agreed the site looks outdated, and am starting a re-design. First the galleries then the frontpage. It's easier for me to work backwards and redo the galleries, so then I can design the front-end and have all my links to the pictures work correctly. May seem a strange way to some to do it, but I'm a flight dispatcher by trade, so am used to doing everything backwards
Another reason for working on the galleries first, is there seemed to be a problem when viewed in firefox that mr_e pointed out. Got it sorted, now just have to rebuild the galleries in JAlbum.
The site was built using frontpage, as I knew nothing about how to go about it before I started 18months ago.
Below is a link to the first gallery I've redone, try that and see if you still have stretched images.
http://www.slimsphotos​.net …/Goldau/Goldau_​index.html

Thanks for the feedback, I'm working on it all

Regards Chris

Well keep at it, im really looking forward to seeing the re-design.