prelimanary site launch review

smeggle

I've been working on a total redevelopment and redesign plus new graphics on a car sales and repairs garage.

The remit was to upgrade the site, make it easier to navigate and simplify everything for the end user. Only little bug I can see is a white line about 2px's appearing under the header image which is annoying - trying to find the course now.

I've had to do the site live as they wanted to get it up fast so the pages past the index are as yet not fully finished. Just final code cleanup/header image to add but the headers past the index will have the owners name imposed on the image.

On the index instead I thought as I've used the name in the centre of the page theres no point in placing it in the header as well and it gives me the chance to (hopefully) show a high impact image of the main point of the business 'Cars!'.

Anyway - just to give you an idea of where I an going with it -

The site is here

http://www.odonovanmotors.ie/

(Just a note: the motorsport section is not fully developed yet - I'm looking to make that part more interactive.)

mneylon

The main graphic is pixelated

You've also mixed font styles which looks childish

The navigation elements seem to be cramped together, so they look like one block of text

You've also got typos - misspelling the company name all over the place

Professional designers know how to use thumbnails - you've just resized some of the images using the img tag and it shows

All in all I don't think it looks professional

Ph3n0m

blacknight wrote:

The main graphic is pixelated......All in all I don't think it looks professional

I agree - definitely not a professional job. To be honest it looks like something someone knocked together in 10 minutes

Seth Brundle

* remove the yellow link hover colour.
* If you have no privacy policy then don't link to one.
* The Enquiary (your spelling!) form should be tidied up. Remove the 'Hello,' bit from the box.
* Im not sure and maybe the client asked for it but is it necessary to take 3 different contact numbers and then ask them which one they want to be contacted by? Also the drop down with the preferred times - is it necessary?

I think the image thumbnails are the work of carzone (all the content is in an iframe). Ah - I see you were talking about the rally page!

axer

whats with the cars contracting and stretching (on top and the main graphic on the front page) according to the width of the page?

louie

My opinion?

It looks terrible, but if they are happy with it so be it.
Is not the worse on the net.

democrates

A non-arty programmer is doing graphic design

Fine work done on the functional side, but you really need to get an arty type to specify the visuals.

For starters replace the background image on the menu bar with a single tint, anything which allows a person to read the contrasting text.

Sorry, but the repairs page is like a demonstration of how not to use color. Pick a simple color scheme and apply it throughout the site. Remember the cars and text are the star attraction, not the page constuction, subtle background allows the eye to fall on the important content. How would you like if your tv screen had mad colors all around the border, that changed with each channel?

You have to bite the bullet on pre-processing images. If you decide on a fixed display size on the site to keep the layout neat, make sure all images provided meet the spec. Resizing in the client f's it up completely. HOWEVER, given the shape of a car is wider than high, the higher than wide images on the rally page need to be altered to comply, unless there's a smart car rally coming up.

Think about the browsing customer thinking of buying from your client. A buyer looking for a seller! The path from interest to purchasing decision should be a slide, not an assault course.

Like it or not, developing websites for customers who aren't IT literate requires you to put on your marketing cap. If it was your garage what customer experience would you like to achieve? And if you develop accordingly, charge accordingly.

Good move coming here for feedback, obviously you were looking at it and weren't entirely satisfied.

smeggle

Well the graphics weren't by me - so I'll get those looked at. The content I have no cotrol over - the owner said to take the content from the old site and display it in a more modern site...

I thought I had fixed those typos so will look over again ....


The menu bar image was mine but yeah - see what you mean I suppose

@blacknight? What are you talking about? the image in the main page? I've just resized that 4 times and can't get it to pixellate so you've lost me there?

The rally motor sport page I'm not bothered about as it's still being worked on

kbanno - the images are uploaded by the owner - I just get a feed from them. Simplest way was an iframe for now though I will probably change to a php include or what ever I use later but for expediancy I used an iframe

As for the three numbers and the options? I'd reply hasn't any of you got any manners? nah seriously I just thought it would be nice to give the customer the choice for a change like 'Please call me on my Mobile at 8pm' This means they will be expecting the call, there query will cost them nothing and I reckon it's a nice customer service. The owners agreed...

So apart from the nav bar image (Pig I liked that [jk]), Blacknights pixellation problem, couple of spellings (again grrr) the content is as I suspected - I can try influence that at a later date but for now have to run with what they say...

I dunno on the resolution side of stuff - I might just ad my bit of code that temp/resizes your browser to what I want - then you won't be stretching images with high resolutions (why anyone needs to go over 1024 except for gaming/visual is beyond me anyway edit2: they said the same about 800x600 as well 'oik' )

hmmm interesting reaction especially yours ph3nom.....:)

edit: what font change? It only changes once ..where I used comic ms on the front page? the rest is in Arial ... huh?

btw thanks

RobertFoster

smeggle wrote:

@blacknight? What are you talking about? the image in the main page? I've just resized that 4 times and can't get it to pixellate so you've lost me there?

smeggle wrote:

I dunno on the resolution side of stuff - I might just ad my bit of code that temp/resizes your browser to what I want - then you won't be stretching images with high resolutions (why anyone needs to go over 1024 except for gaming/visual is beyond me anyway edit2: they said the same about 800x600 as well 'oik' )

Wow, you really know how to treat your browsers don't you? I thought it was only Porn and dodgy crack sites that willingly resize someones browser. You should be conforming to your browsers, not making them conform to you.

AngryAnderson

Technically it seems fine at first glance... but sack your designer.

Serbian

The site seems to be down at the moment, I can't get to it anyway. If you still have the 4px gap underneath the header and you are using a Strict doctype, add the following to your stylesheet:

img {
   vertical-align: text-bottom;
}

mneylon

smeggle wrote:

@blacknight? What are you talking about? the image in the main page? I've just resized that 4 times and can't get it to pixellate so you've lost me there?

Get a proper graphics card. It's pixellated for me

axer

blacknight wrote:

Get a proper graphics card. It's pixellated for me

and me

Gordon

The title of the page should read "O'Donovan Motors" not "O'Donavan Motors", don't forget that while you're doing the typos!

The under construction/rally page should really be the same design even if it is under construction imo.

Plus, I don't like the different colour for visited links on the menu bar, I don't think main menu bars should have defined visited links tbh, maybe that's just me.

Oh and what I do like:
I like the car sales/van sales pages on the main carsales/vansales pages and the individual pages that open up within, with the car pictures. My only gripe is the scrollable box that contains them. However, it looks great and professional imo, it just doesn't quite match up with the rest of the site.

axer

Gordon wrote:

Oh and what I do like:
I like the car sales/van sales pages on the main carsales/vansales pages and the individual pages that open up within, with the car pictures. My only gripe is the scrollable box that contains them. However, it looks great and professional imo, it just doesn't quite match up with the rest of the site.

except the pictures of the vans are in 256 colours or something and dont look very nice that way but thats just a content issue.

smeggle

axer wrote:

except the pictures of the vans are in 256 colours or something and dont look very nice that way but thats just a content issue.

I'm going to have to chat with the owner on that. The problem is he's using a relatively old computer thats about struggling to run windows 98 properly. I'm suspecting his images are getting screwed when he loads them to the computer before uploading so I'm gona suggest he tries using the new computer at the office in Kilcrohan and see if that improves the quality. My guess is that it will...

@Serbian - *DoH* - I had to use that the other week at my own place as well - What a dweeble brain I am sometimes lol

Blacknight - See what you mean now thanks, and I know it's not the right thing to do RobertFoster but it bloody works though (Not gonna use it though - I only said 'Thinking about it' [jk in other words ])...

The feeds I have to fix cause the bars are pissing me of as well but the only other way I have at the moment is as a subdoain on carzone.ie - kinda defeats the object..

The rally section page should be updated I agree - at the moment I'm working on a novel way for them to give a more 'interactive' presence and an area that will be getting constantly (Hopefully) updated with there rallying career. I have a bit of archive material I'll be putting up to get some content into that area and then they will do the rest, maybe even some 'Live' footage.

My idea there is that there are a lot of Motor Vehicle sites in Ireland and competition is quite lively so to speak. I'm thinking the more I can utilise one just one area of the site as 'Dynamic' then hpefully I attract more return visitors. The more they return - the more they see the car/van sales links. I reckon I'm going to obtain the clients way more trade than just a feed from carzone. Or other methods of promotion. Hopefully as well, that will keep promotion costs down, as the content does build it will attract more attention, obviously depending on how the content is presented (;) )......

Thanks for the feedback everyone

democrates

Another suggestion, put the car search on the front page and ditch the 'welcome to' page.

One theory of design suggests you imagine a monkey with a big red fez visits your site, all he wants is the banana. Give the goodies straight away and he'll revisit for instant gratification. Attention spans aren't high online. Oo oo aa aa!!

To see how a welcome page can add to the overall site experience check out www.zombo.com (speakers on).

kc66

Just a small thing- did you paint over the top image on the home page? Look at the black on the bottom in front of the BMW

smeggle

kc66 wrote:

Just a small thing- did you paint over the top image on the home page? Look at the black on the bottom in front of the BMW

As I said the images were only taken by me (Only 4.1megapixels but all I have at the moment), she did what she did, I just leave ger work with a basic idea of what I want, (The idea was a modernised theme of Claude Lorrain - go learn your Art properly if you don't know who he is lol [jk])...

Anyway that aside, I've just been checking what propbably would be (certainly seems to crop up in the stats a lot), some of the most common key phrases and the site is getting listed 1st out of some pretty high results. (restricted to 'Pages from Ireland') though 'car sales west of ireland' searching from the .ie google data base on the open web places the directions page @ 16 out of 8.47million..

Not bad for a site that was virtually dead six - eight weeks ago and I've been restricting it a bit whilst rebuilding it. Also I haven't even had chance to start optimising or promoting the site as yet as I've been working on tidying and validating the xhtml/css - I'm about 50/50 through the whole site at the moment - should have the rest finished after I've finished moving two of my other projects to an unmetered server.

Even though it still needs work and support for resolutions finished of I'm quite pleased with how it's progressing, (excusing my spelling of course ), especially considering allready some very favourable seo returns...

Thanks again for your comments

AngryAnderson

I'm going to be totally honest with you. If you want to get all defensive and antsy, then that's up to you... but the design of the site is nothing short of appalling and I would seriously consider having it looked at. I haven't really looked under the bonnet but at first glance the markup and backend coding seem to be fine/working fine. But the creative... Jesus...

smeggle

AngryAnderson wrote:

I'm going to be totally honest with you. If you want to get all defensive and antsy, then that's up to you... but the design of the site is nothing short of appalling and I would seriously consider having it looked at. I haven't really looked under the bonnet but at first glance the markup and backend coding seem to be fine/working fine. But the creative... Jesus...

Whos gonna get defensive and antsy? Everyone is entitled to there comment just as well if I think there comment to extreme I am allowed to question or challenge those/their findings.

Being defensive, I would say the site is not doing that bad from being a totally dead site 6-8weeks ago to now registering with very healthy results in Search Engines. And I would also point out the thread title - 'Preliminary' meaning it's not ready but your views please on where I am going with it.

If you think this post defensive or any of the above responce posts are defensive then my apoligies. I was hoping to impart further information to give you a clear and fuller picture of what is happening with the site and why.

Still with a Google page rank of 3 inside of 8weeks is not bad going (Means the coding/optimization is shaping out nicely) and 1st page placement over 60% of current pages with the two main returns on probably two of the highest searched keyphrases in West of Ireland and over numerous Google data bases I'd say I'm doing something right?

The coding? Is as I say it is, 50% of 10 pages finished and all valid to W3C standard XHTML 1.0/1.1 CSS 1.0 (CSS Not yet checked). The site should be fully compliant to XHTML valid by the end of the month. For clients I only use xhtml, personal stuff I will let lapse untill I get time to upgrade it. The tables you see in two pages will be upgraded to divs/css styling.

As for your artistic eye? As I say - your entitled to your opinion but at least point out what you don't like and why. What you have written is just an insult and any other time I would just ignore it.

I'm all for critisism but at least make it 'Constructive' not 'Destructive'. Though obviously that is your choice ultimately.

Thanks for your comment though..



Thanks again for your comments

AngryAnderson

I have nothing more to add your honour. I concede that this site looks absolutely fantastic. It's beautiful. Stunning.

Gordon

You're still spelling the company name wrongly in some pages smeggle. Plus other spelling mistakes I noticed: preferred, enquiry, "everyone likes their car", "up to date", premises (plural of premise), peninsula, "their garage" and is it Kealkill or Kealkil as on most pages you have written Kealkill but on the map page you have Kealkil.

Oops, I gave you the correct spellings of the words there as opposed to the incorrect spellings.

smeggle

AngryAnderson wrote:

I have nothing more to add your honour. I concede that this site looks absolutely fantastic. It's beautiful. Stunning.

No problem

Thanks Gordon, will get them sorted but I've just checked enquiry and dictionary says it's right? Thanks for the otthers and yeah Kealkill is with two 'l's'...

Thanks again for all your feedback - even the destructive stuff...

AngryAnderson

God loves a tryer.

Seth Brundle

smeggle wrote:

Thanks again for all your feedback - even the destructive stuff...

It happens to most on here and very few site reviews don't get criticism. However, it is better off coming from strangers rather than your client or potential clients reviewing your work.

Serbian

I have noticed on a few of your sites that you are using xHTML 1.1. According to the W3C xHTML 1.1 should never be served as text/html, not even using content negotiation, so you should switch your doctype back to xHTML 1.0 - using xHTML 1.1 is currently making you less standards compliant.