Need a feedback plz
- Thread starter deniss
- Start date
C
chrismitchell
Guest
well i'll be honest with you denis, it looks like its a template to me.. nothing more than that... sorry...
br3n
Senior Member
Hi Deniss, Looking at visuals only - no comments reguarding code I think youve skipped a few basic lessons.
If your going to have some motion or animation on the site its best that it doesn't loop, Maybe play it once and offer a reply if you think its necessary. I'll explain why... The reason you have it there in the first place is to grab attention and jump straight into the vision of the user... Works great, However it continues to work and becomes an anoying distraction so when you try and read the content its still there buzzing around in your peripheral vision.
Also... That motion clip draws your eye to the left, but the logo/branding is on the right? contradicts the purpose a little.
There are quite a few parts that anoy me, I dont think average joe would notice them but little bits like the lens flair, big no no! also the spacing on your navigation bar is strange, some central some not.
If I were you I would redesign a lot of the sections of the site! dont get me wrong its by no means the worst and as I said... average joe will probably be happy but thats not the purpose of this forum/thread.
My advice is to try and lift the site, add some 3d elements, some simple drop shadows (not standard settings
) few gradient overlays and try and break the frame somehow.. Create an element which sits outside of its "box"
Hope thats helped? feel free to pm for some ideas etc, Ive got far too much time on my hands atm
If your going to have some motion or animation on the site its best that it doesn't loop, Maybe play it once and offer a reply if you think its necessary. I'll explain why... The reason you have it there in the first place is to grab attention and jump straight into the vision of the user... Works great, However it continues to work and becomes an anoying distraction so when you try and read the content its still there buzzing around in your peripheral vision.
Also... That motion clip draws your eye to the left, but the logo/branding is on the right? contradicts the purpose a little.
There are quite a few parts that anoy me, I dont think average joe would notice them but little bits like the lens flair, big no no! also the spacing on your navigation bar is strange, some central some not.
If I were you I would redesign a lot of the sections of the site! dont get me wrong its by no means the worst and as I said... average joe will probably be happy but thats not the purpose of this forum/thread.
My advice is to try and lift the site, add some 3d elements, some simple drop shadows (not standard settings
) few gradient overlays and try and break the frame somehow.. Create an element which sits outside of its "box"Hope thats helped? feel free to pm for some ideas etc, Ive got far too much time on my hands atm
Xenonsoft
Active Member
Design wise it's alright, it's not very aesthetically pleasing but it does the job.
What I would say is that I switched off very easily when reading some of the text on the site, it could possibly do with better spacing and less text at that, it seems as though text has been added wherever possible with minimal use of a hierachy (h1, h2, p, etc.)
If you need all that text on there then split it up into more paragraphs and increase the line-height (also known as leading). On some pages where it's just text from one side to the other it's pretty daunting and people won't read it. If you want to increase usability check out Mark Boultons series on Five Steps to Better Typography, it will certainly help.
Layout wise is fine, but the eye will nearly always scan from left to right which means the nav bar with adverts is more of a draw than the actual content, it may work a little better if it was the other way round.
Finally, the links are hard to recognise as links. I do this myself, I prefer a clean design to one with underlines or bold colours sticking out but usability in the end is a must and we've got to make sure users know where the links are so they can choose whether to follow them.
What I would say is that I switched off very easily when reading some of the text on the site, it could possibly do with better spacing and less text at that, it seems as though text has been added wherever possible with minimal use of a hierachy (h1, h2, p, etc.)
If you need all that text on there then split it up into more paragraphs and increase the line-height (also known as leading). On some pages where it's just text from one side to the other it's pretty daunting and people won't read it. If you want to increase usability check out Mark Boultons series on Five Steps to Better Typography, it will certainly help.
Layout wise is fine, but the eye will nearly always scan from left to right which means the nav bar with adverts is more of a draw than the actual content, it may work a little better if it was the other way round.
Finally, the links are hard to recognise as links. I do this myself, I prefer a clean design to one with underlines or bold colours sticking out but usability in the end is a must and we've got to make sure users know where the links are so they can choose whether to follow them.
berry
Active Member
Not very exciting to me I'm afraid. Seems' American corporate' and 'templated'. Cold colours and the whole thing isn't dynamic of fresh and exciting as the actual prospect of your product is. There is no 'design buzz' or excitement or power to persuade. It's a website but it's not communcating the right messages.
"Tell a good joke bad and nobody laughs, Tell a bad joke good, and everyone will" BB BoL
"Tell a good joke bad and nobody laughs, Tell a bad joke good, and everyone will" BB BoL
tbwcf
Active Member
Not keen myself to be honest, visually I don't find it appealing or easy on the eye, particuarily on the home page where the video is a distraction from the text.
You have the body background-color as css in the head of the page and everything else in a separate stylesheet imported? that makes no sense, just change the body background in the external style sheet and don't add in the extra css in the head.
Your navigation uses images unessecarily you can achive that using text/css and avoid using dreamweavers clunky rollover js.
The site is built with tables which is a general booooo from me and the mark up does not validate [Invalid] Markup Validation of http://www.kirkwooddirect.com/ - W3C Markup Validator
You can avoid the flash generated errors by using swfobject - Google Code
and you have all your email address listed on the about us page, that's spamtastic! you'll get bombed.
not very postitive from me I'm afraid but constructive none the less.
You have the body background-color as css in the head of the page and everything else in a separate stylesheet imported? that makes no sense, just change the body background in the external style sheet and don't add in the extra css in the head.
Your navigation uses images unessecarily you can achive that using text/css and avoid using dreamweavers clunky rollover js.
The site is built with tables which is a general booooo from me and the mark up does not validate [Invalid] Markup Validation of http://www.kirkwooddirect.com/ - W3C Markup Validator
You can avoid the flash generated errors by using swfobject - Google Code
and you have all your email address listed on the about us page, that's spamtastic! you'll get bombed.
not very postitive from me I'm afraid but constructive none the less.
glenwheeler
Senior Member
It's definatly not the worst i've seen if u have coded it yourself? but there is that major problem of the animation looping over and over again. I tried to read the site and just ended up closing down because i was going dizzy with that in the corner of my eye.
Levi
Ultimate Member
got to go with the others on this, it just isn't enticing to me either and that flash animation was blocked by adblock very quickly as it was just irritating.
It also does look very template based so it might be worth changing a few of the images such as the main header one etc to something a little more related to your business rather than the current one.
It also does look very template based so it might be worth changing a few of the images such as the main header one etc to something a little more related to your business rather than the current one.