Charlotte Rutherford

NetHosted Customer Joined: 29 Jan 2005 Posts: 382

<snip>

fantastic young photographer

Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2010 3:39 pm Post subject:

Nice looking website but too nice! Meaning, when I first saw the site I was immediately drawn to the photos which I thought over-powered the navigation......I then went to click on the word Photography only to find it was not a link

Upon looking at your header/logo, after a couple of seconds I realized the links were in the name! There is nothing wrong with that but the links need to more outstanding (i.e. blacker or red or something!).

I like the use of b/w in the bio, but feel the contact area would benefit from a Contact Me Form. Also, @ntlworld.com does not make you look professional.....you should use info@charlotterutherford.com for example.

I am undecided about the scrolling into the header/logo on your last two pages.

Regards

John

NetHosted Customer Joined: 29 Jan 2005 Posts: 382

it's a site for a photographer and they are the main focus.
the navigation is exactly what they wanted and pretty obvious.

Not sure what you mean about the scrolling on the last two pages? All gallery pages are the same.

Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 2:37 pm Post subject:

when you scroll down and then up again to the very top, on those last two pages the photos cover the logo and links.

You say the links are pretty obvious, but as said; when your eyes come from the photos and then look upwards to the logo and links it takes the eyes time to adjust (split second).....mainly because of the blending (grey on pink). As said, and its only a suggestion, but try red links or purple links......a colour contrast as opposed to a colour blend. Or fade (lighten) the name (logo) a little more and/or make the links black/darker.

Regards

John

NetHosted Customer Joined: 29 Jan 2005 Posts: 382

cheers. I see it on all pages if you have a browser window like a letterbox. One a 1024x768 it works fine (for me) and there is no vertical scrolling. What size window do you have?

Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 8:26 pm Post subject:

I completely missed the fact that you could scroll sideways on the gallerys at first. I just wondered why it took so long for the pictures to load. I have a fairly fast broadband connection and nethosted is fast so it was unusual. The reason of course was all the pictures loading at once.

I think I would add some sort of indication that there are more images available.

NetHosted Customer Joined: 29 Jan 2005 Posts: 382

I only have slow broadband and don't have any problems. The images need to be best quality so there is no room to reduce their resolution. Any delay could be the mysql lookup.

that's what the scrollbar is there for. That would be like telling people to page down of they don't see the side bar

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 9:25 am Post subject:

People expect to scroll down. They don't expect to scroll sideways. I scroll down using the scroll wheel on my mouse which doesn't work sideways.

NetHosted Customer Joined: 29 Jan 2005 Posts: 382

well if everyone did what everyone expected the web would be a boring place

Time for a new mouse too lol. My 5 year old MS one scrolls horizontal as well.

Maybe people without scroll wheels will see the scrollbars on the page too.

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 10:00 am Post subject:

The scrolling is an issue. It didn't take me long to figure it out, but it's a pain to have to drag or click to get through the images.

Anything that makes it hard work for your visitors is generally not a good thing, no matter how much you like it yourself.

NetHosted Customer Joined: 29 Jan 2005 Posts: 382

and your site would be exactly the same if it didn't have javascript to navigate, you'd still have to scroll regardless of the direction. As we have a web full of people that don't like Flash, don't like JS or would have us back at just HTML to their anal standards, keeping it simple is just what some want.

It's not about whether I like it, it's what the customer wants. I could have done it in jquery, flash, had bells and whistles all over it but they wanted simple.

And hard work? really? scrolling horizontal and scrolling vertical take no difference in effort by my book. It works in IE6 too.

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 11:42 am Post subject:

Scrolling in general is not hard work; I specifically meant repeated, stop-start horizontal scrolling. When a visitor has to scroll right to view a row of photos with varying dimensions it can be quite awkward, especially at the lower browser windows sizes. Obviously the scroll wheel doesn't help with horizontal, either, and moving a mouse horizontally with a button held down is substantially more intensive than vertically (wrist+arm versus forward/backward with fingers).

For photography sites I find it easier to look at slideshows or thumbnail galleries.

Anyway - hope you're not offended by the feedback. It's good to hear the client is pleased.

NetHosted Customer Joined: 29 Jan 2005 Posts: 382

No, no offence

I think the photographers like it as it's instant, you see the images rather than click, new page or click, pop up.

It could also be a laptop thing. Many don't use a mouse these days so dragging on a bar is easier than moving it around to select an image, close a box?

NetHosted Customer Joined: 01 Aug 2007 Posts: 23

What I've read about usability studies does seem to show that horizontal scrolling is a problem. People don't expect to scroll horizontally, so any content that is hidden in that way simply won't get seen by the majority of visitors. So unless the site's designed only to appeal to a small group who would expect that, it will reduce the usefulness of the site.

NetHosted Customer Joined: 29 Jan 2005 Posts: 382

usability studies? wtf? God help them if they had to use something like Excel.

As I said the internet would be a boring place if nothing was ever different.

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