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Website Opinion



Hi,

My husband is a web designer and has just made his personal site. Please take a look and let me know what you think.

www.juanmartinez.co.uk

Please let me know the things you like about the site and also what you don't like.

Thanks all!

LoopyLou x
 
  A Ford **hides**
Hi, nice site!!!

For me 3 things bugged me,

1. Too much empty space for my liking.
2. Opening in a new (other) window, any links unless to other sites should open in the same window.
3. The having to move mouse to the right to read the narrative was annoying, would rather have a click for next.

Other than that, nice, clean simple.
 
  Megane 225 Arctic Blue
Nice site to look at and the sites from the links also look nicely designed.
However, I agree with MAMS on points 2 which also on my machine took over another page I had open and point 3 which if you were not expecting it could be confusing.

I also dislike websites that rely so heavily on Flash etc but this is a general comment and not specifically directed at this one. It does depend on the target audience but could and would limit the sites accessability to some groups of users.
 
  Megane Mk4
Nice site however I would point out 3 things..
the horizontal movement could be done with buttons really, makes the eyes go a bit weird.
The colours are a little too bright (thinking of patially sighted)
He could do with a HTML version of the site too, (some people might not be able to view Macromedia Flash)


Andi
 
  Monaro VXR
and a site designed with a higher resolution in mind looks like its optimized for 800x600 majority of people now run 1024-768 or 1280-960/1024 Worth optimizing it for those resolutions or having it scale up to those.
 
From a web developers point of view:

Tables for layouts are a no-no. Should be using css for that with divs.

Have all css and javascript as external files, saves having to dowload it on every single page as it'll be stored in the cache.

Invalid html too, should make use of the validator: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.juanmartinez.co.uk%2F

Dont use popup windows. Most people have popup blockers and/or javascript disabled, so they'll get nowhere.

As mentioned before, have a html version of the site. Some people can't have flash installed, such as people at work.

Colours don't seem to go well together and there's alot of whitespace.
 
  Golf GTI 1.8T
LoopyLou said:
thanks for your comments. i'll pass the info on.

does anyone have problems seeing the site?

hey lou, I could see it at college but didnt have flash there. just tried now to have another look and the site wont work for me :(
 

Red Cup

ClioSport Club Member
  Focus RS
I wouldn't employ or contract out to anyone who's portfolio site was done in Flash. It screams to me "I don't know HTML".

For someone who's been at it for 10 years I'd expect a lot better - Valid, well crafted (X)HTML, CSS layout and some advanced techniques.
 
Nightfire said:
From a web developers point of view:

Tables for layouts are a no-no. Should be using css for that with divs.

i hate div boxes LoL

site looks cool, main page should be in the middle imo.

Also left and right navigation was a pain :S
 
Red Cup - he knows html too well but has just started learning in flash (at a pretty quick rate I might add). A good html designer is easy to find but I don't think its that easy to find someone who can do flash (and thats where it all seems to be heading atm). And I think thats where the money is. His whole style is to avoid template looking sites and try and get some originality into the design and navigation. Personally I like the site and I like how things are different that a normal scroll up and down kind of site. I know some people have difficulty navigating and clicking on boxes but I don't think it needs to be changed. The comments are coming in really handy for improvements so please keep them coming.
 

Red Cup

ClioSport Club Member
  Focus RS
LoopyLou said:
I don't think its that easy to find someone who can do flash (and thats where it all seems to be heading atm)

There isn't a single large company that has a completely Flash site. It's a vaguely useful technology that has no real place on the web.

If you examine the web design trends in the last couple of years, the focus has been on web standards. Check out what the top names are doing, 37 Signals, Eric Meyer, Shaun Inman etc.

I'm not saying this to be obstructive, I'd be wary about trying to make a career from this when it's demand is fading. This is all the more relevant with changes in accessibility laws like WAI and Section 508 in the US and the DDA over here.
 
I understand that a high information site isn't practical in flash but thats not the kind of clients this is aimed at. My hubs is a designer and creates images for say a brand. I don't know many brand sites in html they always have fancy flash sites, because flash is flashy. Corporate sites need html, accepted, but if you are trying to promote a brand or a product and create an image of it for the consumer (I may be wrong but) I would want the fanciest looking site. I don't see the demand fading but again my expertise is not in the web but I am a user and I get impressed by fancy flash sites as they give the impression of professionalism. Each one of the clients his clients have been extremly excited and impressed with the work done on their sites. Do you have the same opinion on the other projects as they are all flash sites and if you ask me are perfect for the industry and purpose of the site.

Red cup, what do you do as you seem to have a lot of knowledge about these kinds of things? Its great to hear your comments but I find it hard to believe that you don't know of any large companies that use flash, but I'm assuming that you are talking about corporate sites.
 
  Megane 225 Arctic Blue
Nightfire said:
From a web developers point of view:

Tables for layouts are a no-no. Should be using css for that with divs.

Have all css and javascript as external files, saves having to dowload it on every single page as it'll be stored in the cache.

Invalid html too, should make use of the validator: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.juanmartinez.co.uk%2F

Dont use popup windows. Most people have popup blockers and/or javascript disabled, so they'll get nowhere.

As mentioned before, have a html version of the site. Some people can't have flash installed, such as people at work.

Colours don't seem to go well together and there's alot of whitespace.
css is certainly the up and coming way of web layout but I would disagree that tables should be discarded. Some browsers still do not support css properly but tables should always show as required. Is you sue css make sure the site still looks acceptabel without the css file loaded.

Agree with other comments here. My pop up blocker is always blocking genuine content which can be annoying and can result in the user either leaving the site or turning the blocker off, compromising pc security.

html version is always a good idea too, not only for people at work but for disbaled users hwo may use text readers etc.

Andrew
 
  172, Tiguan
Nightfire said:
From a web developers point of view:

Tables for layouts are a no-no. Should be using css for that with divs.

Have all css and javascript as external files, saves having to dowload it on every single page as it'll be stored in the cache.

Invalid html too, should make use of the validator: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.juanmartinez.co.uk%2F

Dont use popup windows. Most people have popup blockers and/or javascript disabled, so they'll get nowhere.

As mentioned before, have a html version of the site. Some people can't have flash installed, such as people at work.

Colours don't seem to go well together and there's alot of whitespace.

Agree with most of that TBH.

I disagree that you say Flash is where things are heading, it isn't, if anything we are moving away from Flash - we are slowly redoing all our existing Flash websites into strict xhtml.

As said validation/accessability is the current theme, though thats not to say a small amount of Flash doesn't add to a good website.
 
  Clio V6 255BHP
-TA- said:
something about that makes me feel abit sick!

mine = super basic, coded by hand! badly!


Its the basic ones that usually look the best, clean and simple

btw hope you don't mind but i saw good pic of my car from RWS, on your site I think, which i have kept for my collection

my website www.esventure.co.uk
 
  LiquidPhoto.co.uk
LOOOONY said:
Its the basic ones that usually look the best, clean and simple

btw hope you don't mind but i saw good pic of my car from RWS, on your site I think, which i have kept for my collection

:cool:

sure no problem, might have the full res version somewhere!
 

Red Cup

ClioSport Club Member
  Focus RS
LoopyLou said:
I just took a look at some of your work and its very smart and functional. Do you do web developing full time?

Cheers! :D

I do it professionally yep, but work is mostly rubbish Microsoft technologies and nothing worth demonstrating in my portfolio. :(

andrew_172 said:
Some browsers still do not support css properly

Allmost all browsers do not support CSS properly! I can count on one hand those that are fully CSS 2.1 compliant - Safari, iCab 3.0 and Konqueror, plus Prince which isn't really a browser.

You shouldn't have any major problems with any browser worth supporting - IE6 and 7, The Gecko based ones (Firefox, Camino, Flock etc) and those on Webkit / KHMTL (Safari, Shiira etc).

Use conditional comments to target IE specifically and the rest should be fine.

Incidentally, KuraFire's FACE is a good accessable alternative to Flash.
 
  RenaultSport Clio 172 CUP
Last edited:
Probably, or not enough knowledge, or don't know how to fix them, or feel that if it works then there's no need to code properly. Who knows. You'd have to ask them ;)
 


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