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Website Critique


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Finished a design for a friend of mine, did some PHP back end work to handle easier manipulation of XML documents for the page(s) content, images etc. Any thoughts, bugs, or just want to say a few words?

JenniferCripps

Thanks!

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Finished a design for a friend of mine, did some PHP back end work to handle easier manipulation of XML documents for the page(s) content, images etc. Any thoughts, bugs, or just want to say a few words?

JenniferCripps

Thanks!

I really like it man, It looks fantastic! Modern, slick, fast and it has...a uniqueness to it, which I haven't seen anywhere else on the web. Thoroughly impressed (Y)

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Looks really smart from what I can see, but the website only shows about 60% of itself. It gets cut off, and then all we have is black.

If I hold my mouse towards the edge of the visible layout, a verticl scrollbar will appear and the site will 'jump around' a bit.

Got some issues with it here!

Firefox 3.6, windows 7 64-bit

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Amazing design. I love it!

If I had the resources to get pay for that level of expertise, I would hire her services.

(Off topic: It's funny how Adobe Flash sounds so natural now, Macromedia is like a distant memory)

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Woops!! Issue fixed, was a change I just made a few seconds ago, d*mn you CSS :).

Thanks guys for the testing and reporting!

Now it looks amazing. Very good job on the site. Love the colors. Very easy on the eyes.

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It's very nice, the use of Flash makes everything smooth. This can also be a downside so bear that in mind.

Love it. :)

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Now that's just stunning! Looks immense when full-screen on my iMac. :yes:

How big is that iMac screen?

And thank you guys for the very nice comments!

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Finished a design for a friend of mine, did some PHP back end work to handle easier manipulation of XML documents for the page(s) content, images etc. Any thoughts, bugs, or just want to say a few words?

JenniferCripps

Thanks!

And you didn't just tweaked this template, right? ;)

http://s3.envato.com/files/144563/black/index.html#/homepage/

http://activeden.net/item/slick-full-website-template-with-cms-and-2-skins/49952

It's fair to mention the original template designers and leave a link, and not take the entire credit for yourself, since it's not entirely your design/coding.

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And you didn't just tweaked this template, right? ;)

http://s3.envato.com/files/144563/black/index.html#/homepage/

http://activeden.net/item/slick-full-website-template-with-cms-and-2-skins/49952

It's fair to mention the original template designers and leave a link, and not take the entire credit for yourself, since it's not entirely your design/coding.

The flash front end is not, guess I should have been more specific on what I did. I redid the back-engine for the XML files. The stock PHP admin system was very weak and contained many errors. And yes there are many flash customizations that are my own.

Thanks though for posting the link so others can see this wicked template!

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Only downside about a flash site is people like me who just leave.. I enabled flash and took a look, looks nice, but in my regular browsing when I see the whole screen taken up by flashblock, I just leave.

You also loose accessibility, and I find it a pain to browse the site.. Sure it's smooth and all, but on pages with text things like the scroll wheel don't work. Pages like Contact have the attach to file message in with the footer, making it hard to read.

It's the details that tend to bug me on sites :/

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Scroll wheel works very well here...

You are also obviously not her target audience :), if you are blind, odds are you are not coming to her site to view her graphics portfolio so accessibility is not an issue. I cannot agree with or follow the "hard to browse" click portfolio... click the category... click the image you wish to view... not sure where the pain comes :).

I will see about adjusting the colors on the contact page to make it more readable. I too am not a believer in flash, however her target audience, and viewers enjoy the "flashy" designs and animations etc.

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How big is that iMac screen?

And thank you guys for the very nice comments!

Mine is 21.5" (1920x1080) - and it does look great.

Although it's a template, it's still a great showcase. Logo looks good, and you edited it pretty well!

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Mine is 21.5" (1920x1080) - and it does look great.

Although it's a template, it's still a great showcase. Logo looks good, and you edited it pretty well!

Dual 22" CRTs here :) 1280x1024 :)

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Scroll wheel works very well here...

You are also obviously not her target audience :), if you are blind, odds are you are not coming to her site to view her graphics portfolio so accessibility is not an issue. I cannot agree with or follow the "hard to browse" click portfolio... click the category... click the image you wish to view... not sure where the pain comes :).

I will see about adjusting the colors on the contact page to make it more readable. I too am not a believer in flash, however her target audience, and viewers enjoy the "flashy" designs and animations etc.

Scroll Wheel doesn't work at all here. It's not just the contact page, the Brittney Spears page also has text covered up by the image.

Accessibility is always an issue. Or are you implying people with poorer vision don't need graphics for themselves of businesses ?

I understand the Client is always right, but I would move any that I work with away from this.

Flash, means she's lost everyone that either doesn't use flash at all, like me blocks by default, or companies that simply do not install flash on their office computers ( I know several ), etc.

75% of what's been done could be done in HTML+Javascript, it would be accessible to all, easily read by screen readers, SEO friendly for Search Engines. In short open up many more doors. At the very least there should be some sort of HTML fall-back.

( I know I'm coming off as a bit of a prick, but I am so it's ok :p )

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Never worked or been around a company that does not have Flash, Silverlight, or AIR installed on their systems. All of the companies I have worked for required flash / silverlight for charts, graphics, and other dynamic content, really there is no need for businesses not to install Flash or Siliverlight.

Sure it could have been done in javascript, but by your book, what about those who disable javascript? Or script blockers, or security software that prevent javascript actions, or browsers with weak javascript support, we could go on and on. HTML support, same goes here... Weak browsers, browsers that do not follow "standards", browsers that follow standards "differently", there is no pleasing all worlds you will always have that one dude who swears using *insert_product_or_language_here* would be better. Sure if this was microsoft.com or dell.com or some large corporate site, then yes this would be a requirement.

Companies of which she is gearing towards do and will have flash installed. Your monitor must be running on a very very low resolution or a very small screen as the page you are talking about is fine here, no text over lapping, no scrolling needed either.

By my experience, companies who do not try and keep up (or remotely close) with todays technologies, odds are you do not want to work for or with them.

Also tested scroll wheel in FF 3.6, IE8, Maxthon (using IE7 rendering engine), and Chrome, wheel works perfect.

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I'm running Chrome ( Latest Dev and Latest stable in Windows 7 ) in neither case does the scroll wheel work. Does work on other sites.

Most business I've worked around don't have it because it becomes a productivity distraction.

1024x768 is still the standard for business computers. I'm running 1366x768 on my laptop, and 1280x800 on my work desktop.

Excluding IE6, it's not hard to make a site that looks and works the same across browsers. I've never had any issues.

I don't see using flash as a website as Keeping up, in fact I see it more as the reverse. A few years ago I had to have flash enabled, many sites were simply unusable without it. That has changed, I rarely have to enable flash on my computers, normally it's there for a carousel, or some other element, but nothing that prevents the site from being seen or used, the novilty has worn off and companies and people alike are remembering that it's better that more people can see and use the site, than it is that it looks "flashy". And if you choose to ignore all the companies that aren't as "Progressive", then you are ignoring the masses. The key to being successful, I've found, is to make yourself appeal to as many as you can. Hell even Adobe's site is fully usable without flash, you loose a few carousels, but that's about it, and IMHO, that should be how it's done.

If she is only advertising her site, giving out business cards, and the like, then you're likely right. If she wants people to find her however, then flash just killed those chances. No content means no SEO. Google "can" crawl flash if accessibility is enabled, but without html content it gets ranked down.

In any case, I've said my piece.. Since neither of us are going to budge I'll just move on :p

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Attached is a screenshot of the page in 1024x768 resolution. As you can see there is some overlap of design on text. Does the layout have a minimum width and height set ? Because the vertical scroll bar does not appear at any viewport size which is bad design. With scrollbars even if the resolution is small people will be able to view the content. Scroll wheel does not work, its a minor annoyance. Flash is not my thing but I think enough has been said about that. That being said there doesn't seem to be any fall back for people without flash. If the whole site disappears without flash its pointless. Flash must be used to enhance the presentation. In other words a site must be functional without flash. Atleast thats how I develop sites.

post-63312-12687575556332_thumb.jpg

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