Critique My New Website

wackman

Hey Guys,

If you have a sec, take a look at the rough of my new web site, blackstonebuilder.com and let me know what you think.

I'm looking for something a little different and unique of course but clear, easy to navigate and usable.

Thanks,

Wack

dougchips

It took 6 seconds for the box to appear for me to install flash and then about 10 seconds for the page to load. The watermark needs to go or at least fade it a little. For some reason I had to click on the box under the picture to get the flash to work, not sure if others will know to click the box.

Nice pictures. The box on the bottom can be clicked on also. When I reload the home page I have to click the boxes again, maybe a click here to play? On the about page you need something to tell people what to do with the box on the right, sort of like the meni button on the left. Same goes for the remodel page. The new constructio page loads way to slow, people will click off of it before they wait for it to load.

I could not get your contact box to work, I filled out all the fields---might want to check it. My ip end with 6.112 if you want to check your stats to see what my computer has for operating system and flash.

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dougchips

screen shots from your site, if you want me to delete the images from the post let me know. The first one is with all the fields filled out and the error message and the second is what I see when the remodel or new construction page is opened.

Attached Thumbnails

   

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To get the best replacement windows, or sun rooms contact the replacement windows experts at FHI Vinyl Window Company.

wackman

hmmm, not good. I'm going to forward this to my designer so definitely let me know everything you can see.

I'm not worried about the screen shots at all.

dougchips

What are you using for a stats program? You should be able to see people clicking on the page and then clicking off of the page really quick. As I said, the pictures are great but people will not wait around to see them.

__________________
To get the best replacement windows, or sun rooms contact the replacement windows experts at FHI Vinyl Window Company.

firemike

The main page does load a little slow (I have DSL.) Like Doug said, unless you happen to mouse over the montage on the right, you wouldn't know it was a flash program. And the button under the flash box on the left and at the bottom should have some type of label, maybe like "Start" or "Start Slideshow".

On the NEW CONSTRUCTION page, it took mayby 15 - 18 seconds for the image rotation to load and start on my machine. Maybe a "loading" graphic or something to let visitors know something is happening. I almost clicked off because I got tired of waiting, it didn't look like anything was happening. Also, the box on the right, you might want to put a notation for a visitor to click one of the buttons to get someting to happen. I thought something should load automatically, didn't know I had to click a button at first.

Same thing on the REMODEL page, took a while to load and no labels/directions

Personally, I hate flash slideshows and movies if they aren't necessary. Whenever I visit a website that has a flash intro that takes more then 3 or 4 seconds to load and play, I hit the SKIP button. If there is no SKIP button and I really don't need to visit their site, I back out and go somewhere else. This is just my personal preference, when I am online looking for something, I hate to waste time with non-relevant stuff. Even more irritating when your forced to deal with with slide shows, yet you are not able to stop them when you do see a picture you like.

I do like the way you transition from chalk renderings or solarizing of the image to the actual image on the mouseover in the upper left corner on the ABOUT page, that is a nice touch, and very cool! Might want to do that on teh other pages as well. The green background in the image cells (with the Blackstone Builders watermark) seems a little bright compared to the rest of the page, and the text gets mostly covered up by the flash boxes, you can't ever read one full set of text, might want to go with a solid background, the broken text is sort of distracting.

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-Mike-

wackman

I agree, my designer is really doing a good job and has lots of great ideas but I don't really care for the watermark and bright green which is a recent addition to the site. I personally don't know anything about this stuff so I'll let him know everything you guys point out.

I like the idea of the movies being optional instead of just having them play automatically.

Do you guys think it's too busy besides the main background color and watermark?

TridentOps

Hey whats up. A couple things:

The green Background with watermark is a little hard on the eyes. Doesn't seem to tie in with the rest of the site.

Instead of flash, maybe have your web designer use something else so that the images can be indexed along with the text. Also, the code on the flash seems to be overlapping / causing some errors on the 'about page'. If he must use flash, tell him to implement a pre-loader so that people know something is loading. I like the video and the transitions from drawing to photo. That was nice.

The side navigation buttons text IMO should be the same size. Just gives it a more uniform feel

On the remodel page, I would again, use something other than flash, or at least a faster loading version of the page. Also, the buttons are a bit counter intuitive. I had to guess what to click. And then, a lot of the flash was programmed improperly as it hides text and the images don't transition properly.

In general, I would add more text and lose some of the flash. I think a lot of the stuff you have there would look better static and you could just accent it with slide shows. If you google 'Smoothgallery' you will find a sweet little non flash image gallery. Free. I use it a lot on my site because its not flash based and it can go from a single pic or an entire gallery. No programming knowledge needed.


Hope this helps some. send me a pm if you have any questions.

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Trident Construction Management
Remodeling, Landscape and Water Features

tinner666

Kinda slow loading. Got an error message. I have flash turned off as a rule, so a lot of potential businrss sites Loss me in a hurry. I don't wait for them to load.
Not that mine are any great shakes!

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Frank Slate Roof Repairs, Richmond, Va.

gideond

The flash just isn't cutting it. The boxes below aren't labeled in any way, making it confusing for any visitors to figure out what the boxes do if they even realize you are suppose to click on them. Any yes there are some overlapping issues with the flash on a few pages. That's the main weak point. The layout of the site itself is fine. I agree about the background though. Tone it down. Only other thing is the video on the main page. I'd ditch it completely or re-encode it to better quality standards. It's very blocky and doesn't give a professional appearance. If your server can't support the size needed for better video quality I think you'd be better off without the video. It could just be the encoding method though. There are plenty of things that can be accidentally screwd up with video if you aren't use to working with it.

wackman

Wow, you guys are impressive with your knowledge.

I'm just a nail banger turned business man. Most of that stuff I didn't even notice till you pointed it out and now it's obvious.

I appreciate the help and keep it coming.

ChrWright

Your designer is doing what designers are good at--loading your site with lots of "flash"y features and not a lot of content--i.e. it's not doing a very good job of selling people on contacting you and using you.

Benefits, benefits, benefits. Why should I choose you over anyone else who offers the same services as you?

Remember that most web designers lack any kind of sales background. You have to keep that in mind before you shell out your hard earned dollars on a design that turns people off or does a lousy job motivating them to contact and use you.

Ask yourself, what am I trying to accomplish here? With my own website, I'm trying do two things: First, for people who contact me from a referral or another source, I send them there to see my work and to hear from other people (referrals) what it's like to work with me. It establishes my credibility and enhances my reputation with people who don't yet know me. Second, for those people who are searching the net looking for remodeling services in my areas--I want them to be able to find me and entice them into calling me.

Every single page should be selling you, and you can't sell with pictures and graphics and animations---you sell people by telling them stories...telling them about you and what you do and how it will benefit them... Telling them your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)--I.E: why you should choose me over any and all other options available to you. Make it look complicated or unclear or hard to navigate and you'll get "nexted" in a heartbeat. The attention span of the online user is exceedingly short and getting shorter by the minute.

Simplify simplify simplify. I would dump the flash all together. Pictures of your work are very valuable, and short videos too, to an extent. But you need to get to talking.

You'll find it very hard to get top placement with search engines (another topic altogether) with nothing but flash and pictures.

Not trying to discourage you or insult. You're ahead of most people already by just getting yourself out there.

I built my own site from the ground up about three years ago and it's taken me a long time and a lot of mistakes to get it to where I think it should be. Like building a kitchen, there are an endless number of decisions to make and it takes a lot of research to really make it work well for you.

Christopher Wright
WrightWorks, LLC
wrightworks.net

Second Look

• Scrap the "join our mailing list" section.
• On the "contact us" page, the contact info is in a font that's very tall and hard to read.
• when viewed in Firefox, the contact form is jammed up against the right margin, in a way that isn't pretty

If a designer had this site in their portfolio, I would hire a different designer.

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Second Look home improvement www.SecondLookHome.com
Handyman and Home Repair Specialist in Rhode Island
RI Licensed Lead Safe Remodeler/Renovator, RI Registered & Insured Contractor

arturjhawk

no offense

but

website looks like crap
did u even pay for this?

wackman

The designer is a friend of the family and I knew going in that he's a bit new to it, but after cafefully considering my options I went with him because:

1.He's inexpensive.

2.He's including lot's of extra's, like coming out to sites and taking pictures and video.

3. He knows he's new to it as well and is open to all ideas and criticism. He was excited when I said I was going to ask you guys to check it out, so he wants to improve.

4. I own all of it so if I want to go elsewhere I can without losing what I do like.

5. He's local.

I figured if I don't like it and want to get it done by one of the pros on here I could with very little into it so far and at least I let him have a crack at it. If it turns out good then I got it real inexpensively and I gave a local guy (who's also one of my dads best friends) some work.

I posted his personal site on here before and no one liked it, so I was prepared for this.

I'll take everyones ideas and comments to him and see what we can do and then I'll put it back up here.

I really appreciate the honesty instead of just saying "looks good".

gideond

One thing that will really help him out is to install Firefox, Opera, and Safari alongside IE and test the page in all of these popular browsers. The main problem with testing in IE only is that IE doesn't follow web standards all the time. It follow Microsoft's standards. So what works okay in IE may hot work well in any other browser that does follow web standards.

lazycontractor

Exactly. This web development is really not easy because there are different browsers available out there and the developer have to take care of all of them.

Comments: Personally I don't like your website very much because it lacks the professional touch. But as you mentioned that the guy who designed it is new then its OK. You can go with that. But I would suggest you to keep working on this site and try to improve the visual appearance. Colors are OK.

Work is good

wackman

I printed up this thread and took it to my designer. He took it very well and seemed to genuinely take it all constructively. Thanks for the input guys.

Wack