My website! Please Let me know what you think :)

[skraaal]

Hey guys,

I just wanted to give my website a shout, I've been working on it on and off for a while now - and I'm finally happy with how it looks in terms of layout and page content!

I've also set up my own blog connected to the website too, where I'll be listing WIPs and general miniature news and musings! I may ramble and go off topic at times but I'll do my best to keep it all centered around our beloved hobby!

Please check them out and let me know what you think, either in this thread or preferably via the contact me form, as It'd be great to get some feedback about both the website and the blog!

* Website address; [url]http://www.miniature-studio.com/[/URL]
* The blog can be found on front page of the website or alternatively via this link: [url]http://www.miniature-studio.com/apps/blog
[/URL]
Thank you very much!
Axel.

*hugs a plenty*

:cute:

 

[Bloodhowl]

Get a message to install flash player in order to view site. Not non-flash player tablet friendly.

 

[skraaal]

Get a message to install flash player in order to view site. Not non-flash player tablet friendly.

Hmm, it is a flash based website. If your using an ipad, going through the Skyfire App may work for you. If you don't know about it anyway, Skyfire is an app that allows you to view lots of flash based websites on your ipad, I'm not saying you should get it just to see if you can view my website on your ipad but in general its an app that i would highly recommend as there are lots of flash based websites out there or flash player embedded videos! :cute:

Btw there are a number of different ways to gain access to flash based websites on your ipad / iphone. This website gives a nice breakdown of the easiest ways!

http://www.wikihow.com/View-Flash-Based-Websites-on-an-iPad

 

[Bloodhowl]

Thanks for that! However, I think I will just use my PC at work tomorrow when things get slow to check out the site. :wink:

 

[dogfacedboy uk1]

I just get a bar that keeps on loading and then starting again mate.

dfb

 

[cassar]

very nice everything appears to be working here im just on an old laptop

 

[Bloodhowl]

Loaded fine on PC. I like the gallery. Can't say I care for the black and white photos on the Home page. With the gray/black/white motif of the page, it all just kinds of blends together and my eye was immediately drawn to the coolminiornot graphic on the lower left.

 

[skraaal]

Cool thanks for the feed back - I can change the first image of the desk layout to colour if you guys reckon it'll help catch the eye more.

Something that was mentioned on another site, was that people felt I didn't really need the first page that you click before getting to the site itself, what are your thoughts on that?

@ dogfacedboy uk1: I'm not sure why that would be tbh. Silly question I know, but have you tried just re-loading the page? (or possibly deleting your browser cache) I tired opening it on a Mac at work and it worked fine, also works on my laptop and desktop, so it must just have been a sever glitch on the hoster's side or your browser / connection. Let me know if after re-trying you still can't get on and I'll look into that further mate.

Once again thanks for the responses.

:cute:

 

[Bloodhowl]

Cool thanks for the feed back - I can change the first image of the desk layout to colour if you guys reckon it'll help catch the eye more.

Something that was mentioned on another site, was that people felt I didn't really need the first page that you click before getting to the site itself, what are your thoughts on that?

Once again thanks for the responses.

:cute:

First, I am not in any way, shape or form a web designer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express. (apologies if you don't get the joke!)

You are off to a great start, now just need to fine tune. As you have it now, I don't think you need the first page, unless you want to add some sort of age verification or content warning (miniature naked boobies can be so damaging to a young boy! Look how Supervike turned out!).

I think removing the photo of the workbench on the second page and incorporating the logo from the first page would be better. Add the work space photo to the "About Me" page, or create a "The Studio" page and put them there.

Last, I think darkening the text (or changing the background color) so the text stands out just a wee bit more would cut down on the eye strain of us older folks.

I can't remember if Runebrush was a web designer or not. I know there are a few floating around the forums. It would be interesting to get their input and read their thoughts.

 

[skraaal]

Last, I think darkening the text (or changing the background color) so the text stands out just a wee bit more would cut down on the eye strain of us older folks.

I can't remember if Runebrush was a web designer or not. I know there are a few floating around the forums. It would be interesting to get their input and read their thoughts.

This has also been mentioned to me, and it's on the list of to do items, so that people don't have a hard time reading the text. It would be awesome to have a a web designer's thoughts on it too, I agree

 

[skraaal]

Righto, made some changes;

* Font is now a few shades darker, so those having trouble reading it against the white background should be fine now.
* The First intro click page is now gone, when you open up the website you arrive immediately onto the home page - there's no need to faf about clicking a button to get to the main site now.
* Changed the colour of the welcome text and the boldness of the my blog text - the coolminiornot link now doesn't seem to draw the eye as much as it did when the lettering was just plain black.

Time for a cup of tea! :cute:

 

[erasetheprocess]

I am a former webdesigner, and work extensively in Photoshop as part of my own hobby and for my own job. I also know how rough Flash can be to work with. With that being said, I hope I don't offend with my personal suggestions.

1) The flash worked fine for me, but I update my system all the time. With that being said, the jarring movement of the text onto the page was a little..."hokey," to me. Its like when someone does a powerpoint that has a transition effect on every one of 80 slides. The page takes more time to load, and visually detracts from what you are actually trying to display.

2) With THAT being said, I think your color choice was perfect. It allows for simple navigation, but the bulk of your color is shown in your actual completed work, which, for an "Artist" site, is exactly what you want.

Cheers!

 

[skraaal]

I am a former webdesigner, and work extensively in Photoshop as part of my own hobby and for my own job. I also know how rough Flash can be to work with. With that being said, I hope I don't offend with my personal suggestions.

1) The flash worked fine for me, but I update my system all the time. With that being said, the jarring movement of the text onto the page was a little..."hokey," to me. Its like when someone does a powerpoint that has a transition effect on every one of 80 slides. The page takes more time to load, and visually detracts from what you are actually trying to display.

2) With THAT being said, I think your color choice was perfect. It allows for simple navigation, but the bulk of your color is shown in your actual completed work, which, for an "Artist" site, is exactly what you want.

Cheers!

Thank you very much for the feedback, it is very much appreciated. :smile:

 

[RuneBrush]

Heyho, I heard my name

Yup, still stuck as a webmunki doing various bits and bobs. Currently working on developing an html5 interactive publication (yes, page turning and interactive elements)

Overall I like the site. I like a clean and crisp style so the site appeals to me. Here's my objective comments on each page for what it's worth

Home
Needs more eye candy! Coloured pic in the middle that rotates through three or four different images would help liven the page up.
Like the stars when you mouseover the title
Your "please feel free to browse the site" would be more useful if it were a description about what the site is about. The fact that the person is looking at your site means they're going to browse it, with or without your permission and I've yet to see a "this is my site, now sod off you nosey bugger"
The scroll bar on the text under the main picture needs shortening, it's a complete mare to scroll through the text!

About
Again a little more colour would help to liven the page up. What would be quite clever is a close up of your hands painting something - the piece in colour and your hands & background in grey.
You've got just enough text on the page without it feeling rambling (if you read any of my blog entries I have a habit of waffling)

Gallery
I thought the number and arrows was actually page navigation rather than image. Personally until you get more images up I'd hide the navigation because it doesn't actually provide anything for the viewer currently.

Contact Form
Does everything it needs to!

FAQ
I'd perhaps change FAQ to Q&A - that way you can actually make up your own questions and answers rather than going "lots of people ask me X"

General
I'm personally not a fan of pure Flash driven sites although I do think the features they add are really lovely. In my experience, Flash version isn't as much of a problem as it used to be with Adobe's updating routine, however Flash isn't available on the iPad so you are effectively prohibiting any iPad users from viewing your site. Google also never used to index flash text, so you're not going to get fantastic rankings even though you have provided the correct meta keywords and description.

I'd split each page into it's own folder space - so each page is an entity in it's own right. What I mean by this is that your about page would become http://www.miniature-studio.com/about/. Again it's a search engine thing, Google for example will think you have only a single page on your site as it stands.

I would extract your header and footer as regular HTML elements rather than flash. For your site, the footer would be the most important as it contains links that take you away from your site. I personally like to see what link I'm clicking on in my status bar before I click it. Even if you don't change this, it's best to make external links open up in a new window.


Final thing I would say (other than it's a nice site) is the most important question when building any site is "What is this website for". If you can answer that you can work out what you actually want from the site and how to achieve it.

pete

 

[skraaal]

Heyho, I heard my name

Yup, still stuck as a webmunki doing various bits and bobs. Currently working on developing an html5 interactive publication (yes, page turning and interactive elements)

Overall I like the site. I like a clean and crisp style so the site appeals to me. Here's my objective comments on each page for what it's worth

Home
Needs more eye candy! Coloured pic in the middle that rotates through three or four different images would help liven the page up.
Like the stars when you mouseover the title
Your "please feel free to browse the site" would be more useful if it were a description about what the site is about. The fact that the person is looking at your site means they're going to browse it, with or without your permission and I've yet to see a "this is my site, now sod off you nosey bugger"
The scroll bar on the text under the main picture needs shortening, it's a complete mare to scroll through the text!

About
Again a little more colour would help to liven the page up. What would be quite clever is a close up of your hands painting something - the piece in colour and your hands & background in grey.
You've got just enough text on the page without it feeling rambling (if you read any of my blog entries I have a habit of waffling)

Gallery
I thought the number and arrows was actually page navigation rather than image. Personally until you get more images up I'd hide the navigation because it doesn't actually provide anything for the viewer currently.

Contact Form
Does everything it needs to!

FAQ
I'd perhaps change FAQ to Q&A - that way you can actually make up your own questions and answers rather than going "lots of people ask me X"

General
I'm personally not a fan of pure Flash driven sites although I do think the features they add are really lovely. In my experience, Flash version isn't as much of a problem as it used to be with Adobe's updating routine, however Flash isn't available on the iPad so you are effectively prohibiting any iPad users from viewing your site. Google also never used to index flash text, so you're not going to get fantastic rankings even though you have provided the correct meta keywords and description.

I'd split each page into it's own folder space - so each page is an entity in it's own right. What I mean by this is that your about page would become http://www.miniature-studio.com/about/. Again it's a search engine thing, Google for example will think you have only a single page on your site as it stands.

I would extract your header and footer as regular HTML elements rather than flash. For your site, the footer would be the most important as it contains links that take you away from your site. I personally like to see what link I'm clicking on in my status bar before I click it. Even if you don't change this, it's best to make external links open up in a new window.


Final thing I would say (other than it's a nice site) is the most important question when building any site is "What is this website for". If you can answer that you can work out what you actually want from the site and how to achieve it.

pete

Hey Pete,

Thank you for taking the time to write that out for me, they're all great points and items that I'll be taking on board. The more I get used to playing with this type of thing the more comfortable I'll feel doing it I guess. Over the next week I'll end up adjusting those bits that you mentioned concerning text on the homepage etc

I like the colour on black and white background idea too, I'm pretty sure i can do something about that!

The only item at the bottom of the page that doesn't open up into a new window is the blog hyperlink, I wanted it to but can't find a way of doing it so far!

The other things like individual pages will take me a tad longer hehe but its all been noted down so once again thank you.

All the best,
Axel.

:cute:

 

[dogfacedboy uk1]

Nope, cant access it. cleared the cache, all i get is a blank page. this is in Firefox, with a freshly upgraded Flash Player. However my pc is spewing out random error messages all over the place every session of use. There is something obviously wrong somewhere. That said, I have no problem connecting to any other site I visit, including a flash one.....

dfb

 

[skraaal]

Nope, cant access it. cleared the cache, all i get is a blank page. this is in Firefox, with a freshly upgraded Flash Player. However my pc is spewing out random error messages all over the place every session of use. There is something obviously wrong somewhere. That said, I have no problem connecting to any other site I visit, including a flash one.....

dfb

Well thanks for re-trying. It must be your end though, I've now opened it on all major web browsers inc Firefox, Safari, Opera, IE etc and they all work fine. Also tried it on other people's pc's / macs and it was fine there too. Sorry man, not sure what else I can suggest.

Your pc sounds like it may need some TLC though

 

[Bloodhowl]

Your "The fact that the person is looking at your site means they're going to browse it, with or without your permission and I've yet to see a "this is my site, now sod off you nosey bugger"


pete

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[dogfacedboy uk1]

Well thanks for re-trying. It must be your end though, I've now opened it on all major web browsers inc Firefox, Safari, Opera, IE etc and they all work fine. Also tried it on other people's pc's / macs and it was fine there too. Sorry man, not sure what else I can suggest.

Your pc sounds like it may need some TLC though

I think you're right.....the technical term for my laptops condition is "f**ked".

dfb

 

[Dragonsreach]

I think you're right.....the technical term for my laptops condition is "f**ked".

dfb

Not necessarily, could be a Registry cleanup is needed, as well as some home built love and attention.
Google Abexco Registry cleaner or look it up on Download.com, install and run it several times. Cleans out all the "dead" registry entries and is so simple to use. (our Techiies use it and swear by it)
The Google Wise PC and do the same.

Remember Defrag is your friend.
Not perfect love and attention but just like a car service helps keep the machine going.