Feedback on my first site.

RasTa

Just wondering what the people on here think. I think it is a bit bland myself but the client liked it that way. In my final year in college and also wondering is it hard getting just web work.

www.marquee.ie is the site.

daryllsheridan

honestly its way to slow loading

I wouldnt have bothered waiting around if i had come from a search engine

And speaking of a search engine its gona struggle to get a good rating

Its technically good though (bit bland as you said though)

misterq

honestly, I was bored before the actual site content showed in the flash file.
Long intros are fine for the client who looks at it once or twice and thinks it is fab, but anyone who wants to actually look at the site won't give a toss.

The actual design isn't bad though.

forbairt

sorry these are going to be mostly critical comments ... don't get me wrong I do actually quite like the look of it and its not bad ... if it was a html site I'd be quite happy with something like that ...


I don't like sites that tell me ... load a swf here ... splash screens in my opinion are a no no ...

Its very slow loading ... I would have killed it .. if I wasn't waiting to give feedback ...

Clicking home makes it all have to refresh each time ...

I can't click on the images on the right ...

When I'm on the gallery .. I can't see what I'm going to click on I just have a list of numbers on the right and have to assume they are links to images ?

As others have said ... its too plain ... its nice yes ... but plain ...

I use the mouse wheel to scroll ... I don't like having to use scroll bars ...

The contact form .. should possibley be part of the contact page ?
The contact page very well styled ...

And if I want to go back I've to got through the whole intro all over again ...

Can you tell I don't like flash sites ..
Most of my comments would be true of a lot of flash sites ...

One of the few flash websites I ever liked was ... look and feel media ...
http://www.lookandfeel.com/index.asp

Its fun .. its entertaining ... the content is mostly there ...

Liam Byrne

daryllsheridan wrote:

And speaking of a search engine its gona struggle to get a good rating

Its technically good though (bit bland as you said though)

Site look and feel is grand, and very good for the first attempt, but if the content is completely in Flash, it's really gonna struggle.

What was the logic in implementing it in Flash file ? There's nothing on the main site pages that requires it, and the negative effect on search engines isn't justified unless Flash offers you something that you really need.

Also, the contact form doesn't appear in the same format as the remainder of the site - the form is VERY poor, with no branding or even basic formatting (fonts, etc vary between lines).

Very good first effort, but some things to think about.

yeraulone

Good layout and colour choice, text is easy to read on home page, but a little small on other pages. Maybe stick a skip intro button on the flash, and create a html version for SEO.

Also try and make your form in flash as well - see this tutorial

Great job on your first site, well done.

randombar

Ya fair play for a first effort, I've be arsing around online for years and I still haven't mastered flash!
My main points

I like the colours and layout of the general site

I don't like having to click on another page to go to home, 90% of internet users give up after 10 seconds or something. You want your main point of your website to be there on the 1st page they see.

Form does leave it down, I don't think it would be too hard to incorporate it into the flash part of the site. But then again what do I know!

Do you use some kind of program to design this or what?

aidan_walsh

"Thinking marquee?
Think marquee.ie"

Why are you advertising your site at me when I want to get to the information? I'm already there.

forbairt

aidan_walsh wrote:

"Thinking marquee?
Think marquee.ie"

Why are you advertising your site at me when I want to get to the information? I'm already there.

good point I hadn't thought about

daryllsheridan

Again not being critical

just went back for a second luk there to check out the form page and i nearly shut it off cause was taking ages to load and to top it off when u eventually get to the form page - if you click back you have to wait for the entire site to reload!

delly

Didn't feel it was that slow loading up, but didn't like having to click into the main page which was a pop up.

Gordon

It really doesn't need to be flash as mentioned, it would be much better for you (SEO speaking) if it was HTML and you could do all of that (bar the animation) with HTML. Incidentally I really don't like either the size or the actual font of the text.

zAbbo

exited before flash loaded

RasTa

Forgot about this, tis hard to find!

Thanks for all the feedback. Yeah all that thinking, thinking marquee crap is what the client wanted and I wasn't going to argue. I've meant to fix the form but im in my final year and haven't got around(I.E i got paid and couldn't be arsed)

Thanks again for all the feedback the site was a rush job and took 3 days. Got some pointers here I wouldn't of even thought about.

In terms of hits the owner paid google to be numbero uno

Oh and there is a static version of it, but the client wanted the pictures to fade in on each page. I think he loved flash!

seamus

As others say, I think this could have been done very nicely using HTML, and without risking annoying people. Perhaps the whole "Thinking Marquee?..." could have been done as a flash banner, instead of a big intro?

Fading images can also be done with Javascript, which would bypass the flash issue

Seth Brundle

A marquee site with no <marquee> tags :rolleyes:

mneylon

Painfully slow to load.

DonkeyStyle \o/

zabbo wrote:

exited before flash loaded

Same.
Sorry, can't be arsed.

RasTa

There is no meta tags because he uses google adwords, although he owes them 700 euros so they have removed them.

Seth Brundle

Did you say that Google removed the meta tags?
Its a bit dumb to mess with the largest search engine!

Liam Byrne

RasTa wrote:

the client wanted the pictures to fade in on each page. I think he loved flash!

Suicidal decision.....check what features a client wants, THEN check all the things a website should have (search engine response, ease of update, etc), AND THEN (AND ONLY THEN) merge the two while decide on the best technology......

Yeah, I know that can be difficult with some clients, but in all fairness, they're the same people who'll be cribbing in 6 months when the site is nowhere to be found on Google, or when they have to pay to update everything twice.

Flash is great for the advanced interactive stuff, especially if it needs to scale, but crippling the site's search-engine response so that he can just have "fading pictures" is nuts!

What's the point in having "fading pictures" if no-one gets to see the site because they can't find it ?

Aside from the fact that "fading pictures" can easily be done in JavaScript, in which case it's still search-engine friendly and degrades a lot better.

IrishMike

I know this may seem a bit of a personal question but what exactly did you charge for the site?
Its a nice site, very plain though. Didnt notice the loading issue (nice
connection) but i hate flash and think it should be banned tbh

destraynor

Cross Fade effects are easily achieved in Javascript
http://www.brandspankingnew.net/archive/2006/09/javascript_css_crossfader.html

Site looks nice though.