yet another website critique request

[jstraw]

No images yet...I decided I had this design at a stage where I'd like to get some feedback before I take it any further and while I search for the best domain name....

http://www.smallproblem.com/photosite/

 

[DWThomas]

At this point it seems a little sparse to get the whole picture, but it appears to be a clean, straight-forward framework. That appeals to people like myself who tend toward the minimalist approach to things like web design.

DaveT

 

[Steve Smith]

I agree with Dave, I also like the clean, minimalist look.

Looks good so far, get some images on there!


Steve.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

You have avoided mistake 101, i.e. Flash, and that's a very good thing. Otherwise I think the design is minimal (which I appreciate) and easy to understand/use.

Maybe one thing you should consider is that the back/forth arrows under the pictures move according to the picture's size. You should keep them at a fixed position, so that people can browse to the next picture without having to re-aim their pointer all the time. Moving UI elements are very frustrating, and while they're everywhere, polishing that small detail makes a difference.

 

[jstraw]

Maybe one thing you should consider is that the back/forth arrows under the pictures move according to the picture's size. You should keep them at a fixed position, so that people can browse to the next picture without having to re-aim their pointer all the time. Moving UI elements are very frustrating, and while they're everywhere, polishing that small detail makes a difference.

If I understand what you're saying, this should be fixed now. If it's not, then I'm not sure what you're saying. Could you clarify?

There will likely be some minimal widening or narrowing as the kerning of the associated text changes between "picture" and "pictures" and the numerals change.

I'm going into the code to change "picture" to "image."

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

If I understand what you're saying, this should be fixed now. If it's not, then I'm not sure what you're saying. Could you clarify?

There will likely be some minimal widening or narrowing as the kerning of the associated text changes between "picture" and "pictures" and the numerals change.

I'm going into the code to change "picture" to "image."

Oh sorry about the wording; yes, it's something I would recommend to fix. The arrows should stay put regardless of the size of the picture.

 

[jstraw]

Oh sorry about the wording; yes, it's something I would recommend to fix. The arrows should stay put regardless of the size of the picture.

Gotcha. Do they now?

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

OK, I'm still seeing arrows at different places, so let's make sure we're talking about the same ones.

* Click on Gallery in the right hand side menu
* Click on Gallery A
* I see Tux with back/forth arrows below him, so I put a post-it on my screen where they are
*Click on browser's back button
* Click on Gallery B
* I see two B&W Tuxes, and the arrows below it are not where I put my post-it.


Makes sense?

 

[jstraw]

OK, I'm still seeing arrows at different places, so let's make sure we're talking about the same ones.

* Click on Gallery in the right hand side menu
* Click on Gallery A
* I see Tux with back/forth arrows below him, so I put a post-it on my screen where they are
*Click on browser's back button
* Click on Gallery B
* I see two B&W Tuxes, and the arrows below it are not where I put my post-it.


Makes sense?

Ye, I understand now. The difference you're seeing is due to the fact that the sample thumbnail in Gallery A has not been normalized to my standard height dimension. If it were, there would be no change. But even if it were, you may find this implementation problematic. All the galleries will be different because they will not all contain the same number of images, therefore, they will not all have the same number of rows of images. The navigation within a gallery will appear below however many rows there are so the verticle position of the navigation will shift accordingly. the horizontal position should remain constant.

The ideal solution would involve placing that in a fixed position that would be independant of the number of rows of thumbnails. I'd have to look at the complexity of hacking the code to accomplish that. I'm not optimistic about that. Moving it above may be the simplest way to go.

 

[jstraw]

I moved it above.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Makes more sense above, as you avoid the potential risk of needing to scroll to get to the next image.

 

[jstraw]

Makes more sense above, as you avoid the potential risk of needing to scroll to get to the next image.

I'm probably going to limit thumbnails per page, so that wouldn't happen anyway and since that means only one row of thumbnails on the initial gallery listing, the change I made will probably be moot anyway.

I appreciate the feedback.

 

[Alex Bishop-Thorpe]

Wow, what an excellent employment of the available space. I like it, all the little touches especially.

 

[JBrunner]

Everyone has been very helpful with my design, so I'll throw my 2 cents in here. I like it very very much. Except one thing. All that white. Visually, white is the color that the eye is drawn to first, in any finite visual pattern. I would rather be drawn your images first. Thats just my opinion FWIW.

 

[jstraw]

Everyone has been very helpful with my design, so I'll throw my 2 cents in here. I like it very very much. Except one thing. All that white. Visually, white is the color that the eye is drawn to first, in any finite visual pattern. I would rather be drawn your images first. Thats just my opinion FWIW.

Interesting. I think of white as analogous to using white mats and mounts.

What would you recommend as an alternative?

 

[JBrunner]

Interesting. I think of white as analogous to using white mats and mounts.

What would you recommend as an alternative?

Keep in mind this is only my opinion. A white mat serves to draw the eye to the print, which is why they are so ubiquitous. A white border would serve the same purpose, so white isn't bad to use at all.
I just think the preponderence of white is a detracting element, where a more neutral color would serve to "pop" the images, that you might or might not want to have a white border on. Again, just my opinion, and we all know what those are like.


I don't use a white border on the images on my site mostly because I was interested in the least possible visual clutter.

 

[jstraw]

I've made some adjustments so that the thumbnails and the associated navigation don't change position when moving between the gallery listing page and the image view page. So when you click on a thumbnail on the listing page, it appears that you're on the same page and all that happens is the large image and the instruction to click on the large image for the full-sized popup, appear.

 

[jstraw]

I just rebuilt the entire site so that it's all CSS. The only tables on the site are the ones generated by the gallery (no, there still aren't any real galleries up). The site should be far more browser-compatible now. The only things that don't fully validate are the iframes attributes because I need to change the doctype from strict to transitional (geekspeak), and some really sloppy table-building done by an otherwise happy-making gallery app that was free (so hey...).

I'd be grateful for reports of any browser issues anyone comes across.

 

[percepts]

IE6 on W2K the content div jumps down the page so its below the flag div.

there's some strange code in your css. The flag div is specified as 76px high but it contains the nav which is specified much bigger.

 

[jstraw]

I'll have to find that platform in order to see what you're seeing. I still have IE6 on an XP box but not on W2K. I have the awful IE7 on this box and one cannot revert. The content div is supposed to be below the flag div and with positioning, there's no reason a larger div can't be nested in the code, within a div that's smaller.

 

[jstraw]

Ah, I see what I did. Thank you for catching a mistake for me. Now the rendering is much more similar for Firefox 1.5 and IE7 on XP Pro. How is it looking on IE6/W2K now?

 

[percepts]

that fixed it.

Also noticed on IE6 W2K the biography page has horizontal scroll bars showing in the iframe.

 

[percepts]

I'll have to find that platform in order to see what you're seeing. I still have IE6 on an XP box but not on W2K. I have the awful IE7 on this box and one cannot revert. The content div is supposed to be below the flag div and with positioning, there's no reason a larger div can't be nested in the code, within a div that's smaller.

Ah but you can run just the IE6 rendering engine.

go here and get what you need for testing: http://browsers.evolt.org/

amazing how small the core browser software is compared to the full installation.

its the standalone version you want unless your on a mac in which case maybe not.

its the standalone versions you want.

 

[percepts]

something you should know if you don't already.

place your cursor inside one of the frames such as on the biography page.
right click and select `add to favourites` from the context menu.

Now go to your favourites and click on the new favourite you just created.

you will get a page with just the content of the iframe and that is how the search engines will index your site. i.e. they create links to individual html files and not just the containing html file. That means that people may find a page in google etc and link to it and get a page with no possibility of navigation to the site proper. This is why iframes and framesets are not such a good idea.

 

[jstraw]

I'm not married to using the iframe. It's an experiment. I'm still rolling that one over in my mind.

Thanks for the tip about the rendering engine!