web design and how to do it

Getafix

Here's some free advice mercman (may help bargainboy too):

The actual graphic design of your site is pretty good, I can instantly see a site that looks like its had some time and money spent on it. First impressions count and you have grabbed my attention.

As a potential customer I would by now have already made up my mind that I'm dealing with a professional company. So I begin to navigate my way around the site and peruse your stock.

Immediately I hit what appears to be a dead end. I don't notice your main navigation hiding away up the top there. It is upstaged by the five circular links on the left. When you click on each of these five links you are presented with the same pop-up window, which is a little misleading. For the first 60 seconds I thought your site consisted of the homepage and one pop-up showcasing your products.

I was expecting to click on each of the five links and be taken to a separate page where I could view thumbnails and enlarged high-res examples of your products, as well as product specifications.

Your current images are 130 x 81 px. I suggest having an enlarged option of 400 x 250 px. This would result in a file size of 20-25k which hopefully wouldn't cause too much of a shock to your bandwidth.

Speaking of bandwidth, your homepage weighs in at 148kb. This is a little on the large side. Since it was built in Dreamweaver the code is very messy and could be streamlined. With good use of style sheets you could probably get the page weight down to below 100kb. Now this may seem a little pointless, but what you have to remember is you are paying for bandwidth, so the less you use the better. Its fine having a page weight of 150kb if you get 2 visitors a week, but if you are getting 500 then you will soon see your bandwidth shoot up. The last thing you want to do is exceed your limit because then you will be charged extra or cut off.

In summary,

- The look is good, some bigger product shots would make it better.
- The content does need restructuring.

I do hope I haven't offended anyone in this post, just a little constructive critiscism

G.

Getafix

Ian_Griffiths wrote:

Three grand is only 15 days work.

I want your job

mercman_3

Getafix,


Thank you for your comments. you have hit the nail on the head and explained EXACTLY what i am looking to do!

The things you have explained were all in the initial brief to my designer, he just has not done it and since no contract was signed he now refuses to update it to how i want it

I have very fixed ideas of how i want the site to look, i just do not currently have either the skills or the time

Many thanks for taking the time to write a post, your comments as with anybody elses are more than welcome

Best regards

merc