My new webpage

[ivan muller]

Hi all

With the help of my 'tekki' son Alex I have just loaded my webpage! Feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Ivan

Page is in my signature.

My Webpage

[61Dynamic]

Looks good and is simple to navigate. It almost has a Lenswork kind of feel to it.

There are a few things that are distracting though and fixing/tweaking them could substantially improve the appearance of the site.

1. Put a mute button on the home page. Sure, music is cool and sets a mood, but I and many others already have music playing and it's a bit annoying having a site tell me what I should be listening to. If music playing is going to be the default behavior for the home page, then give your users an obvious means to mute it if they wish.

2. If you are going to use purple for links, make it a bit more subdued (darker). As it is, it is clashing and pulls attention away from the images. And, make the links in the footer match.

3. Get rid of the beveled text. It makes the site look low-buck 90's .bomb-ish, not to mention tacky. Bezels are the sworn enemy of thin fonts. Particularly smoothed bevels. Thin fonts as they convey trim classiness and elegance, but the bevels contradict that feeling.

4. On the front page, try and make the numbers aligned. Having them zig-zag up/down across the bottom of those thumbnails adds resistance to the eyes ability to follow the thumbnails from side to side.

5. Some images aren't loading up on image view pop-up windows.

6. On the image view windows you have a gradient at the top which doesn't match the theme of the site. As much as I love gradients (as my site demonstrates), if a gradient does not match the rest of the sites appearance, it does not belong.

7. Do you really need all those search options on the links page? Offering your viewers too many unnecessary options can actually turn them off of your content. If they (the search fields) are there to search your site, eliminate all but one and make it clear that it will search your site. If they are just searching the net in general, get rid of them all as they currently look as attractive as wart.

A tip on adding content or features to a website: When considering something (like all those search engines) ask yourself, "How would this benefit my viewers and would they even care?" If you can't think of a compelling answer to that, one that is stronger than the temptation of getting referral fees from ad-clicks, then that content/feature should not be on the site otherwise it becomes a distraction from your site.

[Chris_T]

As noted by the previous poster, the purple really stands out, like a sore thumb. In the following thread, you may find comments about other web gallery designs also apply to yours:

http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....showtopic=13890

Hi all

With the help of my 'tekki' son Alex I have just loaded my webpage! Feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Ivan

Page is in my signature.

My Webpage
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=126467\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

[Chris_T]

Well said. Many photographers miss the point that designing a web gallery is very different from creating an image. A photographer may create an image to only satisfy him/herself, and may not care what others think of it. But when creating a web gallery, he/she is inviting the world to visit and must take the viewers' experience into consideration.

It is good to find another poster as critical about web design as I am. <g>

A tip on adding content or features to a website: When considering something (like all those search engines) ask yourself, "How would this benefit my viewers and would they even care?" If you can't think of a compelling answer to that, one that is stronger than the temptation of getting referral fees from ad-clicks, then that content/feature should not be on the site otherwise it becomes a distraction from your site.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=126478\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

[ivan muller]

hi

Thanks for all the detailed comments, I appreciate your  time and effort to respond to my request. I am in the process of implementing them. It is all very complicated (to me) and it may take some time!

I trust though that all the glitches and 'mistakes' did not detract too much from the viewing experience(of the photographs)! Above all I wanted the site to be quick and uncomplicated with some short comments on my photographs and the process there of.

Regards Ivan