Finally settled on a layout/style for my website. Would appreciate your feedback.

achtungbarry

Hello all,

I've had a few attempts now at setting up a website but it never really worked out. I tried Webs.com but found it to be slow and clunky. Zenfolio looked great but the SEO was really bad.

So I've finally settled on a simple and less formal blog style site which has the added advantage of being completely free. I noticed that the blog section of the site was the part getting the most hits and was most search engine friendly so I decided to move the whole thing to the blog. I found a cool full screen template and just adjusted the html to change the colours and put in a menu bar.

My gallery is now very simple. I just embed my flickr sets as a slideshow which is easy to use and when I update my flickr, the site gets updated automatically. Again a little tinkering with the html gets them to the size I want.

I think the blog format suits as I just want a simple site to share my work and tutorials and have a bit of fun. I also like posting photos with descriptions of how they were taken and processed. Share the knowledge and all that. It can also be handy to refer people interested in buying prints too.

I'd really appreciate your feedback on the site/blog: colours, usability, layout etc etc.

Cheers.

Barry

http://www.barryocarrollphotography.com/

nilhg

I like the look and feel Barry and the flickr slideshow looks good, the only thing I'd suggest changing is to have only one post on the home page, as is it's quite long.

Freddie59

Lovely site. Very easy on the eye. loved the tutorial on the blending. Well done!

achtungbarry

nilhg wrote: »

I like the look and feel Barry and the flickr slideshow looks good, the only thing I'd suggest changing is to have only one post on the home page, as is it's quite long.

Thanks for the feedback. It's true that the tutorials take up a lot of space and make the home page very long. I'll see if I can do something about that

Freddie59 wrote: »

Lovely site. Very easy on the eye. loved the tutorial on the blending. Well done!

Glad you enjoyed it. I'll put more tutorials up soon.

thinktwice

Freddie59 wrote: »

Lovely site. Very easy on the eye. loved the tutorial on the blending. Well done!

+1

Love your photos esp. the way they are blended for the 'painted' style. My only criticism would also be the tutorial, great help and very educational but it is very long on the home page. Perhaps put a link on the home page for tutorials and have a separate page? Great work otherwise.:)

achtungbarry

thinktwice wrote: »

+1

Love your photos esp. the way they are blended for the 'painted' style. My only criticism would also be the tutorial, great help and very educational but it is very long on the home page. Perhaps put a link on the home page for tutorials and have a separate page? Great work otherwise.:)

That's an excellent suggestion. I do have a link on menu bar and side panel already but rather than posing new tutorials on home page in their entirity I could post a short preview and a link to the full tutorial.

thinktwice

achtungbarry wrote: »

That's an excellent suggestion. I do have a link on menu bar and side panel already but rather than posing new tutorials on home page in their entitity I could post a short preview and a link to the full tutorial.

Absolutely, that's a better way to do it. Just have all links and a great photo on the home page and let the viewer decide where they want to go. I can't talk I'm not at all happy with my site www.dimage.ie, well it's ok but she (the web designer) just wasn't getting what I wanted it to be. Everytime I want to update I have to ask her hence my website isn't kept updated, SEO then useless. I have asked and asked her for a code that I can just keep it up to date and I have also asked her to add a blog so that I can keep the site active and drive traffic to it. I still haven't heard from her!! Have no idea what to do now, it's driving me mad and it cost enough so there's no point getting another done.

mehfesto

Really like the site. Nice, clean and informative.

Personally I'm not mad on your body font, but that's just me! And that said, I'm still not happy with mine either, but I couldn't choose one and I toyed around for HOURS with it! So maybe I'm not one to comment on that!

the_monkey

Nice site and excellent photos .... wow - makes me wanna just quit photography.

Third Eye

Well done on the website. My only criticism is this...all your bodytext is white on black which is very hard on the eyes. It's fine to this for short sentences but for long paragraphs it's better to have dark type on a light backround.

achtungbarry

Third Eye wrote: »

Well done on the website. My only criticism is this...all your bodytext is white on black which is very hard on the eyes. It's fine to this for short sentences but for long paragraphs it's better to have dark type on a light backround.

Thanks for the feedback. This is exactly the kind of thing I am looking for. I do like the dark grey background but I could possibly change the text from white to light grey and see if that is easier on the eyes.

whyulittle

Third Eye wrote: »

Well done on the website. My only criticism is this...all your bodytext is white on black which is very hard on the eyes. It's fine to this for short sentences but for long paragraphs it's better to have dark type on a light backround.

+1

I just read the first few paragraphs, and when I looked away, it was all still imprinted on my eyes!

Also, the navbar on the right is cutting off the right hand side of the photos. Granted, I'm on a small netbook.

Deliverance XXV

It's a bit of a strain on the eyes alright. Some points that may help:

• Use the white colours sparingly, as in headers or titles.
• Maybe use a different shade of white or grey for the body text.
• The white in the header image & as image borders are very strong - maybe a dark grey might work there, particularly as an image border.
• Maybe a smaller fixed structure would help as on my 1680x1050px it's very large. The font is large and the paragraphs larger. A structure that would be alignment with the header image?

To give you an idea of how grey text might work on a dark backgrounds have a look at a Wordpress theme I made a while ago and see if that type of colour-coding is for you. It's unfinished but you'll get the gist.

Hope this helps. Oh, and awesome photography, Barry.

achtungbarry

whyulittle wrote: »

+1

I just read the first few paragraphs, and when I looked away, it was all still imprinted on my eyes!

Also, the navbar on the right is cutting off the right hand side of the photos. Granted, I'm on a small netbook.

Deliverance XXV wrote: »

It's a bit of a strain on the eyes alright. Some points that may help:

• Use the white colours sparingly, as in headers or titles.
• Maybe use a different shade of white or grey for the body text.
• The white in the header image & as image borders are very strong - maybe a dark grey might work there, particularly as an image border.
• Maybe a smaller fixed structure would help as on my 1680x1050px it's very large. The font is large and the paragraphs larger. A structure that would be alignment with the header image?

To give you an idea of how grey text might work on a dark backgrounds have a look at a Wordpress theme I made a while ago and see if that type of colour-coding is for you. It's unfinished but you'll get the gist.

Hope this helps. Oh, and awesome photography, Barry.

Thanks again everyone for the suggestions and feedback. It really is a big help and is appreciated.

I few of you have mentioned the white text on the dark background as being hard on the eyes. I've now changed the text to a light grey which I think improves the situationa bit. I've left the titles white and made the links white (they were light grey) but the bulk of the text is dark grey.

I can see your point on the fixed screen Deliverance XXV. The reason I went with a stretched layout is to allow the photos to be viewed at their largest and so that the sidebar doesn't eat too much into the screen real estate. I'll, stick with it for now but am not ruling out a change either.

sprinkles

I really like the site. The blog In particular I'm very grateful that you have taken the time to publish your own tutorials. Much appreciated!

The only real annoyance was that the flickr slideshow tended to cut off the "caption" on some of your black and white portrait shots - as the top and bottom of the shot is covered by the navigation bar. Is there a way to hide this?

dinneenp

some lovely photos!
could be just me but for me it's too cluttered- the right hand pane goes on and one with too much info-
latest news
welcome
galleries
contact
tutorials
my flickr
currently reading
blog archive
followers
recent comments

Welcome to my blog shoud either be your home page (or if you want newest blog/photo on homepage) then have it on 'about me' page.

Make the horizontal links more prominent- bolder, change colour when I hover over them etc.

Chorcai

The "Gallery" section is a bit bare, maybe a small thumb nail with the text beside it, all aligned to the left. No where else have you used "centre align" for text, to me it just looks a bit off or not finished.

Over all very nice site. Well done!

achtungbarry

dinneenp wrote: »

some lovely photos!
could be just me but for me it's too cluttered- the right hand pane goes on and one with too much info-
latest news
welcome
galleries
contact
tutorials
my flickr
currently reading
blog archive
followers
recent comments

Welcome to my blog shoud either be your home page (or if you want newest blog/photo on homepage) then have it on 'about me' page.

Make the horizontal links more prominent- bolder, change colour when I hover over them etc.

Thanks. I'll probably remove a few things from the side panel alright.

Chorcai wrote: »

The "Gallery" section is a bit bare, maybe a small thumb nail with the text beside it, all aligned to the left. No where else have you used "centre align" for text, to me it just looks a bit off or not finished.

Over all very nice site. Well done!

That is very true about the gallery. I've fixed it now and there is a nice grid of thumbnail links to the galleries. I'll also change the hover colour for the menu bar.

OctavarIan

White text on near black is harder to read for long passages than near black text on white. Coupled with the really wide copy width it isn't doing your writing any favours at all. Majority of people won't read very much of it. Ideally your body copy width should be around half of what you currently have.

But then that gives you less width for your photographs! Solution is to write much less text, maybe try keep it to a few lines. Might not seem like much but that's all 99% of people will read in its current state anyway.

achtungbarry

Thanks everyone for the feedback and advice. I've taken on 2 bits of advice in particular and applied them.

1. I've switched to a fixed width.

2. I abandoned the white text on dark background which in fairness is a bit hard on the eyes.

I think it is nearly there now. My only concern is that it may look a little cold and clinical. I know a photography site should have a simple design with neutral colours but I wonder could I warm it up a little?

Any suggestions?

http://www.barryocarrollphotography.com/

Thanks for the help so far. It is appreciated.

limericklassy

I think the banner is boring, if u take photos, put some in the banner, I dont like the colour of the website, too dark. The first page you go to should let let me know a bit about the services u offer etc not straight into a place in france..imo

achtungbarry

limericklassy wrote: »

I think the banner is boring, if u take photos, put some in the banner, I dont like the colour of the website, too dark. The first page you go to should let let me know a bit about the services u offer etc not straight into a place in france..imo

I agree about the banner and I've just cahged it from all grey and white to dark red and dark grey writing on a light grey background which I think is more striking and warmer.

As for the services I offer. To be honest, I only really set up the blog to share some photos and tutorials and as a bit of a project for myself. It's for enjoyment mainly. If I do get a little bit of business (which I have already) because of it than that is a nice bonus.

TinyExplosions

This is getting really nit-picky, but I really don't like the "tabbed" effect for your main navigation, the rounded corners are just too much for me.

As for it being to simple, I don't think that's an issue, as the cleaner it is, the more your work stands out... for that reason I'd be disinclined at having a large header image, and would almost say to go smaller on the current one -let your images do the talking, not the page design, as the images you have up there are stunning!

whyulittle

Much much better than it was.

I'd leave the header as it is, unless you can make it from one photo. I wouldn't go making a montage out of it.

Personally I'd justify the text (alignment wise).

And if you have time and want to go hunting something down, apostrophes don't seem to be showing in the recent comments section down the RHS. The code is displaying instead.

DougL

I think the website is really looking good now, but I have a couple of additional suggestions.

1). For some reason (in Firefox anyway), when I click on a tab at the top, the tab is not "selected". For example, when I click on "About", the "Home" tab is still white, and the "About" tab is still black. I would expect to see the selected tab be white to indicate that it is selected.

2). I'm not a big fan of the way you've integrated your flickr galleries. It's convenient, but it doesn't allow the viewer an easy way to click on a button and purchase a print. You have some great images, and a slick website. It seems a shame not to make it easy for people to click and buy prints with a paypal button, or similar.

-Doug

Trev M

Hi Barry ,

Ive had your site bookmarked for sometime now and finally got to have a look today.

I take it from the thread here you have modified bits here and there and I think the final product looks fantastic.

I guess my feedback is less technical and a bit more, I dunno, perhaps more from a viewer perspective more so than a critical designer/photographer perspective ...anyway ...some feedback.

I think you have a very distinctive approach and style and come across as very modest. I mention this because I think this is key to engaging people and getting them to return to the site, dont change this .

Whilst you have a commercial element within the site I think you've avoided looking like your trying to "creating a brand for yourself", something a lot of people appear to be doing and it often comes across a bit meh. I reckon a single point and click to purchase would be a great addition as has been mentioned. I think the photography on display is fantastic in my opinion and I love the fact that you presented the HDR panel for your accreditation, louder and lesser photographers around wish they had your cahones:D.

Overall I think your site comes across as a very personal, confident and passionate project, your work is of a very high standard in my view and the fiddly techy bits are more or less ironed out, all in all Id say result.... I'll be a regular visitor .... given you've put such attention to detail in consider looking at updating the barryocarroll.com borders on some of them and perhaps a little smaller?

10/10 on the tutorials aswell , although for whatever reason I have a white text on an off white background on HDR I and II (Firefox 3.6.9)

All the best ,
Trev

BrokenArrows

on the galleries i would like to see thumbnails for the different categories as just having the list is very plain.

Pick your best work from each category. Create a thumbnail and title it.

kjt

Really nice site Barry! Simple, easy to navigate and well presented images!

Everything one needs in a photography site! Hope it all goes well with sales too