Request for new website review and comments please

[User Removed]

Hello all! I just rebuilt my personally website and would like to get some comments and feedback on the site and how it works for people. Most of the changes were made to the GALLERY page, which now has a full checkout service. The gallery is not complete, as I only have a handful of images up right now...but the rest of my images should be added soon.

www.RyanMcIntosh.net

The site was designed and built by fellow apug member KJSPHOTO, Kevin Saitta. If anyone is interested in having a personal website built, contact him because he does great work!

Thank you everyone, and Happy New Year!

Ryan McIntosh

 

[Dave Miller]

Works well, and looks good. Well done both.

 

[Tom Hoskinson]

Nice website, Ryan (and Kevin) and nice images as well!

 

[roy]

I think it is a good beginning.

 

[Curt]

Hi Ryan, I just took a look at your web site and it's pretty impressive. I like the abstractions best but all of the photographs are fine. The layout of the site is easy to navigate.

Good luck,
Curt

 

[gordrob]

Very nice website and I really enjoyed the images

Keep up the good work

Gord

 

[Ian Leake]

Hi Ryan,

My overall impression is that this is a well built and user friendly site. Obviously a lot of work has gone into this. Having built several sites myself, I appreciate the effort involved.

As you've asked for a review, I've had a reasonably thorough look through your site.

Here are a few of my thoughts:

1) I think there's a typo in the gallery pages. On the listings the pricing heading is "*Teir" not "*Tier"
2) I like the font you've used for the main logo and banner ("Ryan McIntosh photography", "Home", "Gallery", etc.), but it displays poorly on my monitor. I think this is because the characters are not anti-aliased.
3) Some of your prints are identified as 8x10 when they are more like 4x10 (e.g. "Aspens, Flagstaff, AZ" [which is gorgeous by the way] and "Reclining Nude"). I assume they were shot on 8x10 but it feels odd to see an image labelled as 8x10 when it isn't. Would it be better to display the print dimensions?
4) It would be helpful to have the image details displayed when viewing an enlarged image in the gallery. I expect that most buyers would find it easier to press the "buy me" button on this screen rather then have to navigate back to the gallery index page.
5) It may be worth updating your page footer to show copyright 2002-2006 rather than 2002-2005.
6) On the gallery home page you have the text "Click on Image or Text below to enter gallery category." in bold and underlined. From a usability perspective it's usually wise to avoid underlining text as that implies a hyperlink which may confuse the user.

I hope this is useful.

Best regards,

Ian.

 

[Thomassauerwein]

Looks Great!! Nice job.

 

[photomc]

Very nice look, and after reading Ian's comments would agree with most. The font looks good, but does tend to become hard to read at times. Also, notice in the gallery page when moving from one page to another, the page count does not indicate which page I am actually on. Not a big deal, but nice to have if I wanted a reference to go back to later. Really a very nice site - curious if the black background becomes distracting for others...at first look I liked it, but as I view the site it became a distraction. But hey these are my impressions and it is your site. You and Kevin did a very good job. Look forward to seeing more updates.

 

[Les McLean]

Ryan, I like the simplicity of this excellent site and had no problems in finding my way around. Apart from the one or two small problems pointed out by Ian my only crit is very personal one. I think the very dark background detracts from some very lovely images and prints. I know that we are viewing low res images on a VDU and cannot hope to reproduce the final print quality but I think a lighter background would go a long way to helping make the images sparkle on the screen. I also feel that the rather elaborate and broad double border on each image is a further major distraction.

 

[Bill Mobbs]

Since Les pointed out a "very personal crit", I would like to do likewise. I personally do not care for buttons that say "Enter" to reach some part of the site. I like to feel that when I reach a site I'm already in. The site and your work look great to me! Thanks for allowing us to see it.

 

[Charles Webb]

Ryan,
You and KJS have done a wonderfull job! I know absolutely nothing about websites, but I had no trouble moving about in yours. The images look greatand the simplicity really pleases me!

Charlie..................

 

[c6h6o3]

...my only crit is very personal one. I think the very dark background detracts from some very lovely images and prints. I know that we are viewing low res images on a VDU and cannot hope to reproduce the final print quality but I think a lighter background would go a long way to helping make the images sparkle on the screen.

When you're dealing with people's reactions there isn't any criticism which is not personal.

My reaction to the site was very negative from the first second I brought it up. That black background is killing you. Scott Killian's site is not very different from yours in terms of layout, but look at how much more polished and sophisticated it looks just because of the background.

Some of your images are stunningly powerful. They deserve better design than what they're being given.

 

[kjsphoto]

First I would like to thank everyone for the critiques as I greatly apprecaite it. The way the site is built is that it is completely dynamic, the whole color scheme is also controled via style sheets. With the layout it it really easy to change anything with just a few mods to config params. Again thank you all for the feedback as it was really excellent information!

Thanks,

Kev