Website Review :)

stooge

Hi All,

I'd be grateful if you could provide some constructive criticism of the following website.

Cheers,

Stooge

Squeeonline

Not bad.

Not sure why the paypal logo is there. Looks out of place and isn't necessary IMO.

No Favicon.

The code is a little dodgy in places...

<meta name="description" content="Your description goes here" />
	<meta name="keywords" content="your,keywords,goes,here" />

using <br /> tags instead of <p>

Use of id vs classes needs revising. "Left" is more something that would be a class not an ID. It doesnt really change anything though.

no alt on any images.

intro text on front page is written in the first person. It's a matter of preference but this kind of thing is usually written in the 3rd person.

email address in header is actual text which I was surprised about. Most people just put it in an image which makes it impossible to copy/paste info. I would recommend using <a href="mailto:heremail@address.com">herEmail@address.com</a> instead. If you want to keep the same appearance, give the anchor an ID and remove styling in the CSS.

stooge

Thanks very much for the feedback Squeeonline. Points duly noted and a code review and tidyup will be commencing this week

Squeeonline wrote: »

Not bad.
Not sure why the paypal logo is there. Looks out of place and isn't necessary IMO.

the paypal logo was requested to indicate that paypal is accepted if you want to buy a painting but buying directly for each inidividual painting was not requested/wanted.

Squeeonline wrote: »

No Favicon.

How would I put one in?

Squeeonline wrote: »

The code is a little dodgy in places...

<meta name="description" content="Your description goes here" />
	<meta name="keywords" content="your,keywords,goes,here" />

using <br /> tags instead of <p>

The dodgy code is a result of trying to explain to the owner how to update the site themselves

Squeeonline wrote: »

Use of id vs classes needs revising. "Left" is more something that would be a class not an ID. It doesnt really change anything though.

Fair point, I do need to go through all the classes and tidy up a lot of code.

Squeeonline wrote: »

no alt on any images.

Do you mean alternative text? Will go through and check as I thought this was filled in.

Squeeonline wrote: »

intro text on front page is written in the first person. It's a matter of preference but this kind of thing is usually written in the 3rd person.

Originally was 3rd person but was requested to change to first person.:rolleyes:

Squeeonline wrote: »

email address in header is actual text which I was surprised about. Most people just put it in an image which makes it impossible to copy/paste info. I would recommend using <a href="mailto:heremail@address.com">herEmail@address.com</a> instead. If you want to keep the same appearance, give the anchor an ID and remove styling in the CSS.

I was wondering about the header alright. I originally had the email and name in the image but thought for search purposes it would be better in the header?

Squeeonline

favicons:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/.../favicon.png" type="image/png"> in the head.

Alt text is important for search engines as they can't read images.

If you're designing a site for someone, at some stage you need to put the foot down. You are the expert and they are hiring you because you know more than they do. Tell them that you'll make the changes they want but it isn't the best thing to do.

number66

Just a couple of suggestions

on the exhibitions page you should add some contact info for the locations so people can find out what the opening times are.

and the email address seems a bit out of place floating on top of the menu

there seems to be something going wrong on the contacts page

I'm viewing the page on Firefox 14.0.1 and probably cross browser issues causing these glitches

http://imagebin.org/224227

on the Paypal icon, really it's just confusing. why not just say it in the contact page.

"If you are interested in purchasing any of the paintings on my site or if you have any quires/comments, please contact me using the form below."

I'd put the " * signifies required fields" below the data fields to the right of the submit button.
Also having required fields but no data validation before submit could cause issues.

You might want to add appropriate call times with the phone number.

Maybe slow down the auto image changes on the home page, the seem a bit fast to me.

and finally if the aim is selling the paintings should really give some idea what they cost.

Just my views, hope you find them helpful.

M.T.D

Hi
Having the name and telephone in header is good for the search bots and helps to for local market, the email is another matter, leave it out or swap it for an image.
The images are almost all full size, consider creating a parallel image directory of 150x150 thumbnails to use in the gallery menus etc. watermarking the larger images would be good as well

Squeeonline

If you're worried about your email address being used for spam, I've had success with this.

http://hivelogic.com/enkoder/index.php

stooge

M.T.D wrote: »

Hi
The images are almost all full size, consider creating a parallel image directory of 150x150 thumbnails to use in the gallery menus etc. watermarking the larger images would be good as well

Thanks for that. The load time of the gallery page is something that made me think about putting in thumbnails but as the owner will be updating the site the simplest way was to link to the original. By chance do you know of any free image watermark/thumbnail creating software?

M.T.D

Almost any graphics programme will resize and compress a jpeg image and probably do a watermark as well. Often an older version is given away on cover disc of computer mags. Whether you are scanning or photographing the pictures, that software will be able to do different resolutions and probably crop the image square for the thumbnail.