Honest Opinion - Website Header

Drea

Hi all,

I was hoping I could get some people to give me their honest opinion of a couple of versions of my website header. I paid a designer to do the first one but I didn't really like the bar so I made a couple of other versions. I think I prefer the links to be along the top but gave both versions of them down the side to show the difference with or without the patterned bar. I can change anything around.

I've now looked at it so much I'm beginning to think the whole thing is rubbish! Please, honest opinions, I'm struggling to see through the trees right now

crafty*kate

I like it with the smaller green bar and the links underneath, not in a list. I don't like the texture on the green, looks a bit outdated to me, perhaps. Only my opinion, of course. Perhaps make the text for the links grey not black so it blends in better?
I would put your contact details back on the green , but smaller so they are not the first thing you notice.
It looks like that woman on the chair is having way too much fun! Definitely not in my office

Drea

crafty*kate wrote: »

I like it with the smaller green bar and the links underneath, not in a list. I don't like the texture on the green, looks a bit outdated to me, perhaps. Only my opinion, of course. Perhaps make the text for the links grey not black so it blends in better?
I would put your contact details back on the green , but smaller so they are not the first thing you notice.
It looks like that woman on the chair is having way too much fun! Definitely not in my office

Thank you! I quite like the texture but my OH reckons it looks outdated too (his exact wording as well) so I'll probably take that off. You're right with the colour of the links. I'll play around with contact details, I just hated how the designer did them to be honest

The woman on the chair was the first thing I mentioned when I seen it too! I wonder if I could change that picture (getting a bit technical there) :rotfl:

crafty*kate

If you have the original files, you could take that picture out I'm sure - depend what format the designer sent you.

Personally I would make the contact details much smaller and lighter - they're in a really bold font - I would use something similar to what they've used for 'freelance administrator'.

If I was being really picky I'd probably take out the shadowing on the green box as well - on the version your designer has done it looks too heavy to me.

Like I said, just my opinion though!

jungle_jane

I don't like the green either and its quite hard to get text to stand out on green. I think you would be better off with blue shades....nice and slick and professional. I also think that the grey icons are a bit much - it looks a bit 'clip art' if you know what i mean? I would stick with one icon - probably the coloured in lady sitting down.

The combination of the icons and the green to me says 'zany' rather than cool, slick and calm professional. Of course this isn't a problem if this fits what your target market expect and want. And that's the crux of good web design - who are you targetting and what would most impress them? If you are after banking and finance type of work then i would go for a more muted colour scheme and less icons. If you want to work within the music industry or television then i think you are bang on with your look and feel.

I would advise you to think of who you are targetting and then go out and look at other people's websites who are targetting the same market. This will give you an idea of what works, what your competition are doing and what you need to include on your site as a bare minimum.

Regarding the design I like the contact details being upfront as in http://img823.imageshack.us/i/abadminheader2.jpg/ but prefer the navigation in http://img718.imageshack.us/i/myversion1.jpg/

Regarding the navigational items, do you need to have a Home (what are you going to put on your home page?) as well as Services, About and Benefits? Could you not put your services on the home page? And what does the Benefits section do? Is that the right label (name) for that section?

Hope that didn't sound critical - i think its quite cute really. Just wanting to give you some feedback from someone who works in the industry:-)

Drea

I firstly took out the "having too much fun" picture and then thought it looked cleaner without the one to the right too.

But does it look okay with the contact details up there? It doesn't does it, I just looked at it again.

I really think I've spent so much time on it I'm struggling to see it now :rotfl:

I will be targetting small businesses who either don't have the skills or the time (or just can't be bothered) to do their own admin work. I'm afraid the green is pretty set in stone

I see what you're saying about having a Home but I think it would be handy to advertise any offers etc right on the home page. I could be wrong... Benefits were to explain the benefits of hiring a freelancer instead of going down the temp route, and general benefits of hiring me of course

Thank you, all and any opinions appreciated.

Drea

- or we have this...

martindow

The image does look look a bit like the office Christmas party. My ideal office admin person would be sober and industrious. Maybe the riotous scene is the office now before you straighten it out!

I disagree with other posters about the contact details. I think these should be prominent - the golden rule of web sites is to not make important things difficult to find.

jungle_jane

I still like the contact details being upfront as in http://img823.imageshack.us/i/abadminheader2.jpg/ with the navigation in http://img718.imageshack.us/i/myversion1.jpg/ the best....although the ladies foot is seperating Home from the rest of the navigation and so the eye kind of glosses over Home and you almost miss it.

i like it much better with less icons.

Agree that you should keep your contact details upfront. Be careful about exposing your email address like that though - you could get a lot of spam.

I think that http://img849.imageshack.us/i/tryingagaincopy.jpg/ has too many instances of your name - AB services and Andrea Brown both look like trading names/logos. I quite like the name version - would you consider trading just under your name and leaving the AB out? or are you keen to promote the company rather than yourself as an individual? If you were planning on hiring people down the line you would want to have AB promient with no reference to Andrea Brown. If the company is about you and your skill then you might want to promote your name (which is what you are selling) rather than AB, which is more generic. So i guess i would use one or the other depending on how you are pitching yourself/the company and not both

i think the green bar is a bit of a waste of space unless you are going to either put your contact details in it or your navigation. if you don't want to do this, perhaps a thin green line might work better?

one final thing - it's a bit cheesy but do you have any testimonials you can put on the site?

PasturesNew

It's rude in a lot of cultures to show the sole of your foot to somebody. Really rude. That woman's foot sticks out a bit....

jexygirl

Im useless at webdesign, you only have to look at ours lol! But I do notice daft things - I know it might be too late to change - but the email address sticks out to me as
"a badmin "

Told you I notice useless things! For what its worth, I liked the http://img535.imageshack.us/i/tryingagain2.jpg/ but again, I'm no designer!

Jex