Website Input

www.williambralldesign.com

I've been doing a little local webdesign lately and decided I could turn it into a bit of a business. Mainly local, but I wouldn't mind doing design/development for anyone.

The site is pretty straight forward, I'm just looking to make sure it works on as many different browsers and OSs as possible, or at least breaks gracefully. (there is one mac bug I haven't been able to ID, cuts half of the buttons off, if anyone can tell me what is up with that, it would be great)

Also, at the bottom of the page are 4 style jewels which change the site's graphics. This is mainly so I can demo styles for people without making dummy sites. You can see how different styles effect the image the site puts off.

I want some feed back on the ones I have (so far, each one is somebodies favorite one, so I must be doing something right) and if you have any ideas for styles I should do, that you think would be popular.

I may add a random style code to the site eventually. It would change the style once when you go to the site, and then not change it again while you surf the page.

Anyway.. Thanks for your help. And if anyone wants me to do some work for them, Tell me you saw this and I'll give you a discounted rate, perhaps free, depends of the size of your project.

Looks good, but before I get into it could you change the font to Arial or Verdana? Up to you, I just think it would look better.

hmm. Every time I click a button and it loads the page I get flashed with that diagonal line background and it does my eyes in.

Yeah change the font from times new roman.

The buttons look like programmer art, sorry.

The Antialiasing is dubious.

Sorry dude but it doesn't look pro enough to me, but hell I'm just one person. Good luck with it anyway.

Just checked out the other styles, some are better than others, but still have that same slightly old-style look.

... why do people hate times? I've always thought it looked professional and taylored... :/

EDIT

There it is arial now.... I don't like it as much, what do you think?

EDIT 2

Yes, old-style, as in user-friendly, simple, and what 99% of customers require. I do plan to make a few 2.0ish styles and something technological like bungie's site and something arty/music-site-ish

The background really does need some adjusting, I just got blinded by it on my LCD monitor here.
(saturate the colors a bit or something?)

Is it a problem with LCD monitors then? The background for this site (default i guess) it far worse on my eyes.. is that just me?

Is it better with the second color scheme?

Those diagonal lines are definitely not easy on the eye. They really make it hard to look at the site.

The background is *way* too high contrast, and the diagonal lines are very distracting. I find my eyes wandering along the borders of the page, rather than focus on the actual text.

A good background needs to be subtle, and not draw attention. The disruptive 'flash' that Grey mentioned above will pretty much go away if you use a background that's easier on the eyes. Stay away from diagonals, and don't use two colors that are such polar opposites, but rather use two subtle shades of the same color if all you try to accomplish is breaking up a 'boring' single-colored background.

Arial is definitely easier on the eyes than Times. Sans-serif fonts are generally easier to read than serif fonts.

I don't know.. I just feel like it is missing something. Every site in the world has boring verticle stripes and arial...

But, general consensus wins.. I'll make the buttons better too...

looks better alreadybut could do with some more tweaks.

Hows that?

I'm still saying it doesn't look -better- it looks more status-quo... but then again, that is what customers want. So That is what I am going to shoot for.

It doesn't stay put... try FF and see it yourself. It moves depending what page / sub-section you look at.

Thats cause the scroll bar is coming in/out depending on how long the page is.. that only happens at greater than 1024 rez... I don't think there is anything I can do about it, short of justifying left.

Same thing happens on every other website you've ever visited that is centered on the page... and the ones that aren't that fill the whole page too, like this site... only it is the stuff inside the boxes that stretches and moves.

About the default style. There's a whole lot of aliasing going on. Every curve is aliased. The fonts on the little graphics (Home, News, Info, etc) look out of place and appear just a bit amateurish. If I were you I would embed the fonts into the graphics to give them a better appearance or just make the font smaller and bold it. The body font is too big, try 10 pitch. I dunno... it just seems to have a Frontpage-ish look to it.

One more thing... when I first get to the site, the header graphic is the first thing to load and it has a very jagged edge on the left that's visible for a second. CTRL+A on the page and you'll see what I mean.

Btw I'm using IE 6.

I'm not keen on it personally (this isn't a dig, it's just well, ugly).

On another note, if you want to do web design professionally, you need to investigate accessibility, XHTML and a bit more on CSS.

Incidentally, you should put a character encoding definition in.

usually UTF-8

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

Most people make their fonts too small, 12 point for main body text isn't an academic standard for no reason, it is because all the old profs can't read 10 point or 8 point all day.

My target market is the over 40.

Pert. Your page still has the lower links in it, and they are broken cause you are re-designing.

A bit ironic to click "Accessibility" to find a 404.


I mean, it is obvious that all of you designers don't get it... I didn't expect you to, anyway.

all these frontpage and ugly comments aren't helpful, all they do is make me reconsider listening to what good advice you might have to say.

So if you actually aim to help me, be nice about it. If you just want to insult me and make me feel bad, move along I don't have the time to feel bad right now, sorry.

Well, my page is about a year old and isn't likely to be updated since I changed from freelance to employed.

I've been a too busy building websites for my employer instead.



Putting your fingers in your ears won't make it any more beautiful.

If however you would like people to expand on their feedback (however non-constructive you believe it to be), you should ask.
I'll admit that mine was terse, but at least I didn't say "OMG that site suxors, you are so gay, and lame and stuff LOLOLOL". That would not have been constructive.

If you've read this far without getting bored then here's some constructive advice (I think this will help you more than trying to provide feedback on that website); I would suggest you take a look at other designer's work, design websites, etc, and learn the techniques used, they often provide inspiration for new ideas. Now is the time to do it, because once you've got the work in, you won't have the time to research.

? Taste ? its what it is all about. I didnt find anything wrong with it at all. If the site was intended for a rock band, I would say yes boring. But if I was selling something, like your doing, I say yes its great. DampeS8N, your site looks fine. Remember, your asking programers their input. Your going to get negative feedback, when it wouldnt suit their taste in the first place. They need a website shpwing off their graphics etc. Since I do more different things then just programing, I found your setup great. If you choose to have feed back on website design, wouldn't you ask people who 'web design'? Anyhow, I like your site, since I do a little on web designing myslf. Keep up the good work.

Thank's dave.

Actually.. The last people I want feedback from are webdesigners.... ironicly, most of them care so much about slick graphics and fancy bits that they lose the really important aspects of the website itself.

My designs facilitate the function of the site. Clear controls and function and easy to use.

A slick design will wow people, yes, but if that design clouds the interface or makes it load slowly or otherwise makes the page worse than if it were plain text, it is broken.

A good design will enhance usability and clearly define areas, not be a bunch of flashy garbage.

My clients seem to respect me for this anti-designer design mentality.

Unfortunately none of their pages will be ready for a while and I can't add them to the portfolio page yet.

Remember to wipe your fingers when you're done. The taste can be pretty horrible.

actually... it tastes pretty neutral, like clay.

Look, I've been incorperating 90% of what people have been saying, when I agree with it, and sometimes when I don't agree with it because a lot of people seem to agree.

For what it's worth, the new background looks a lot better now IMHO, much less distracting than the previous version.

Pehaps, but it also seems to lack personality... It is starting to grow on me though.

Perhaps it's fits you then.

My opinion: It's way to boring. Granted, Dave has a good point about simplicity, however for what you are charging, I (being a paying customer) would expect just a bit more from the site if I want you to design one for me. It looks way to pixelated to me, the stripped background, the buttons with noticable color shading.

Edit: I just realized I can click on 'style' icons at the bottom. I probably wouldn't have noticed that originally since I only spent a few min looking over the site in general. You should probably bring a little more attention to that as it might help you gain some business (not too much attention, just under intrusive).



There is a line between flashy garbage and simple yet elegant. One can have smooth lines, decent coloring, and even a few complex images yet keep the layout simple and efficient.

My prices are about 50% of what websites traditionally cost around here.

When it comes to customers, I do what they want. I urge simplicity and ease of use and then do what they need, ultimately the portfolio section will speak to that. I know it doesn't do anything for me now. It will in the next few months as projects are completed.

So far everyone is very happy.

Considering I am doing work for companies that paid $2,000 for a site like.... www.candyexpress.com (just an example, I can't name a real customer)

I think they are getting a good deal.

As far as the style jewels go, there is a little blurb about them in 2 places on the site, and I will also likely be making it random too... At least random between some of the best looking styles.

it seems to be working, the site I mean... I've been contacted by people through it already.