Posted by Tom Gallione on March 6, 2006 at 9:52 PM
I have recently redesigned my website and if you have a few moments to take it for a spin and check for broken links. etc., I'd greatly appreciate it. It's separated into two sections...the nature/general photography side is where I'm looking for help.
Tom...I love your website! I spent a good deal of time clicking around, reading and looking at everything, and even lost track of time. Very nice design.
+ + Nice site. I do wonder about a few things though.
For one, nothing comes up when I click for the "new work" page except the word New York at the top.
I also wonder why you have two home pages? Or at least according to your layout.
I open the site from the icon in your post and I get that blurred turn-over page,
which I must say I love your idea for that, but when you click on the link in your pages that says "home" you get a different page with a tree. Not consistant! The "home" page should be the very first page of the site and no other. It is the front door to your web site.
About the one home page with the blurred turn-overs.
I love the idea, but I find the whole block of images way too small.
You have 10 times more empty white space than you do the whole rest of the artwork on it.
I'd like to see that whole block of blurred images made way larger so that when you roll over it and get the sharp image you can really see what it is. To me images that are too small to see are not really even worth showing in the first place. They are not "samples" as samples are supposed to be large enough to see.
Your people section is also great. I really like the way you scroll across the top sellections with the arrows, but I think I'd also like to use some arrows next to the images themselves so I can click through those.
One other thing that bothers me is the fact of how when you click on the "people" link on the first page you go straight to a group of people images, but when you do the same thing for the places & things you just go into a different single page, again with that tree shot. Doesn't feel like a smooth flow through that part.
Your "about" page is mostly about your photography and nothing about you, which is what that is usually for, as in, "Bio".
There have been MANY studies of web sites and from everything I have heard, they all state that the easier, and less work you make it for a visitor, the longer they will stay, and the more often they will come back. That said, I am wondering why you actually did one job twice? That being your double pages of the same images in your portfolios. You click on one group on that page, and it open another window with the same images in it. Then you have to click on each image to enlarge it. Why didn't you just make all of the portfolio thumbnails as large as they are on that second page you made and save that whole step? If there were more than would fit on one portfolio page then all you have to do is label them page #1 and page #2 and so on, but at least they will be a good size to see and save a lot of un-needed page creation.
I do like how your enlarged images show up, but you need to do something about the ID text under the images. You have two lines of text there and the bottom one is almost impossible to read, it is so faint and small. I can see that there is something there, but I'm not going to go find a magifiier just to be able to read it.
All in all you have a really nice site, but some things need looked at again.
PS - That cute little girl in the people section has the most increadable blue eyes. What a cutie!
Posted by Tom Gallione on March 8, 2006 at 9:13 AM
Hey, thanks Debbie!
Paul: I really appreciate all the time you put into your response. I'll consider your suggestions. I'm curious, what do you have your screen resolution set to? My primary screen is at 1600x1200 and certain things are smallish but not too small.
I don't have a large monitor at this time so it is set at 1024x768 most of the time.
I can't go as small as you do or my work images will be too small on this 18" screen,
but if I remember right your setting is way too small for general viewers.
Most people do not have hi-res monitors.
There are general standard settings that most web designers use so as to best appear on most monitors.
At this time I don't remember what they are, but you should be able to find out easy enough by asking around.
Jim E. can tell you what he uses for on here.
I would say to design at a setting for the average of what is the screen size used by most people.
Then you will only hear back from the extreme end users.
Posted by Walter Rowe on March 10, 2006 at 8:22 AM
According to the results of one of Jim E's polls, the majority of people are split evenly between 1280x1024 and 1024x768 for screen resolution at 35 percent for each. About 5 percent use 800x600, and 23 percent are greater than 1280x1024.
Click the "More Polls" link at the top of this page.
+++ A lot of what res people use all depends on the size of their screen.
You can't use a hi-res on a small screen.
Well, you can, but you won't see very much.
I generaly create my site at the middle res so that more people can see it better
and let the extreme users fall where they may.
Discussion
6 repliesThanks!
http://www.tomgallione.com
For one, nothing comes up when I click for the "new work" page except the word New York at the top.
I also wonder why you have two home pages? Or at least according to your layout.
I open the site from the icon in your post and I get that blurred turn-over page,
which I must say I love your idea for that, but when you click on the link in your pages that says "home" you get a different page with a tree. Not consistant! The "home" page should be the very first page of the site and no other. It is the front door to your web site.
About the one home page with the blurred turn-overs.
I love the idea, but I find the whole block of images way too small.
You have 10 times more empty white space than you do the whole rest of the artwork on it.
I'd like to see that whole block of blurred images made way larger so that when you roll over it and get the sharp image you can really see what it is. To me images that are too small to see are not really even worth showing in the first place. They are not "samples" as samples are supposed to be large enough to see.
Your people section is also great. I really like the way you scroll across the top sellections with the arrows, but I think I'd also like to use some arrows next to the images themselves so I can click through those.
One other thing that bothers me is the fact of how when you click on the "people" link on the first page you go straight to a group of people images, but when you do the same thing for the places & things you just go into a different single page, again with that tree shot. Doesn't feel like a smooth flow through that part.
Your "about" page is mostly about your photography and nothing about you, which is what that is usually for, as in, "Bio".
There have been MANY studies of web sites and from everything I have heard, they all state that the easier, and less work you make it for a visitor, the longer they will stay, and the more often they will come back. That said, I am wondering why you actually did one job twice? That being your double pages of the same images in your portfolios. You click on one group on that page, and it open another window with the same images in it. Then you have to click on each image to enlarge it. Why didn't you just make all of the portfolio thumbnails as large as they are on that second page you made and save that whole step? If there were more than would fit on one portfolio page then all you have to do is label them page #1 and page #2 and so on, but at least they will be a good size to see and save a lot of un-needed page creation.
I do like how your enlarged images show up, but you need to do something about the ID text under the images. You have two lines of text there and the bottom one is almost impossible to read, it is so faint and small. I can see that there is something there, but I'm not going to go find a magifiier just to be able to read it.
All in all you have a really nice site, but some things need looked at again.
PS - That cute little girl in the people section has the most increadable blue eyes. What a cutie!
Paul: I really appreciate all the time you put into your response. I'll consider your suggestions. I'm curious, what do you have your screen resolution set to? My primary screen is at 1600x1200 and certain things are smallish but not too small.
Thanks again.
I can't go as small as you do or my work images will be too small on this 18" screen,
but if I remember right your setting is way too small for general viewers.
Most people do not have hi-res monitors.
There are general standard settings that most web designers use so as to best appear on most monitors.
At this time I don't remember what they are, but you should be able to find out easy enough by asking around.
Jim E. can tell you what he uses for on here.
I would say to design at a setting for the average of what is the screen size used by most people.
Then you will only hear back from the extreme end users.
Click the "More Polls" link at the top of this page.
You can't use a hi-res on a small screen.
Well, you can, but you won't see very much.
I generaly create my site at the middle res so that more people can see it better
and let the extreme users fall where they may.