web layouts

[GUJUm0deL]

Hey guys (and gals), have an interesting discussion topic here. What would you say the web design layout technique is now??

Most people are under the assumption that all websites should have state-of-the-art designs, with all the bells-and-whistles, like flash animations, high-end graphics, cool visual scripting, et al. All the things that tend to make the website take longer to load, especially on dial-up...

My cousin thinks that my website should be spruced up, like add some flash animations and whatnot. That got me thinking, since my cousin is not in the profession, his opinion is interesting. Has anyone here came across a client who thought their site should be more “fancy”, even though a nice, clean look is more professional??

It’s always interesting to know about opinions from people not in the profession.


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Reality continues to ruin my life...

http://www.imajinarts.com

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[jrbarnett]

Personally, I don't see much wrong with your site in terms of look and feel. I am not a professional website designer either and also detest bells and whistles where unnecessary, but I have thought of a couple of improvements for your site:

1) Remove the use of deprecated HTML tags and use CSS instead - you already use it in some places, and make the necessary changes to allow the site to be fully accessed via screen readers for the visually impaired. See

http://bobby.watchfire.com/

for more information. I think that this is a requirement for business sites in the US, it certainly is in the UK, even though very few have actually implemented these.

2) Nowhere in your site does it give any indication of where you are prepared to travel for on site work - eg are you prepared to go and do a broadband installation or PC peripheral setup in a different country or even continent??
You might want to say something like &quot;Imajin Arts will do on site work where necessary in <area and country>. Where work can be performed using electronic communication methods (eg email, fax, telephone), geographical location will not be a consideration. You will need to think about this and phrase it in a way that is appropriate to your needs.

John

 

[GUJUm0deL]

jrbarnett, hey thanks for the feedback. I'll look into your comments. About the geographic question, that can be addressed when the client contacts me. I am not too worried about that. I also highly doubt that a client in London would want to hire me, someone in the states, when they can get someone much cheaper in their own locale. But you do bring up an interesting point. For the time being, I can address this issue with the client when we converse...

This topic was more geared to the general aspect of webdesigning and layouts. I was simply wondering what my peers thought about the whole high-tech web layout vs. clean, sleek, smooth layout.



[sub]
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Reality continues to ruin my life...

http://www.imajinarts.com

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[cian]

A very common practice now is to go clean CSS with very simple layouts. A lot of sites have gone for very basic header and static side column with a flexible main column.
I have seen a lot of technology related sites go that way. I guess when using CSS it's the simpliest and most stable?

That's the problem with CSS, making killer layouts is a lot harder than with tables.

But that's just one common practice..



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[ChrisHunt]

I think people who do not USE the internet very much are easily impressed with flashy graphic effects, scrolling text and other such gew-gaws. I'm sure we all put piles of animated gifs into our first web sites - I know I did!

People who use the internet more often realise that such things might make a page more interesting to look at, but they often make it more difficult to read. Experienced site builders are aware of other issues, such as accessibility and search engine optimisation, where plain text is very important.

I think your site's OK as it is, though perhaps a few well-chosen pictures might spice it up a bit. Of course there's always things that can be improved...
[ul]
[li]Declare a DOCTYPE for your pages and validate them against it. HTML 4.01 Transitional would be the easiest one to go for.[/li]
[li]Use correct spelling for &quot;Site Picks&quot; in the menu bar[/li]
[li]The text in the menu bar looks slightly strange, have you resized it or something? You ought to be able to achieve a similar effect with &quot;real&quot; html text and CSS anyway.[/li]
[li]Consider how appropriate some of those downloads are to a commercial site. How do you think the statement &quot;Fake virus. Very amusing and a real scare if you didn't know it was a fake virus&quot; will play with prospective clients?[/li]
[li](Getting picky now) On the front page, &quot;...re-designing of web sites (including layouts), banners/logo creation...&quot;. What kind of redesign would not include the layout? and it should be &quot;banner/logo creation&quot; or &quot;creation of banners/logos&quot; (I prefer the first)[/li]
[li](Even more picky)Still on the front page &quot;Its your site...&quot; should be &quot;It's your site...&quot;.[/li]
[/ul]
On jrbarnett's point, I couldn't find anywhere on the site where you indicate your geographical location. You should probably have a full mailing address on the contact page, but at least you should say you're in &quot;New York&quot; or something.

I think you should attach prices to those services where you can, get a portfolio of past work together and online (surely not difficult if you've been at it for 6 years), and have an &quot;About&quot; page telling us more about the company/you. It looks to me like you're a one-man band, don't try and hide it! Make it a strength - pointing out the personal service your client gets compared to being lost in some larger outfit.

I've drifted somewhat from the point, but hope you find some of the above useful.

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk

 

[GUJUm0deL]

ChrisHunt, hey thanks for the input. I agree that when most people think of websites they visualize flashy animations, blinking text, and high-end graphics that take forever to load, even on high-speed connections. Like I said before, I was just curious if anyone else had the same comment made to them.

About your comments for the site:
1) The DOCTYPE I thought I had it, must have just slipped away, i'll add that

2) I spelled the site picks that way on purpose, it was suposed to be catchy. But does it come off as someone who needs spelling lessons??

3) Hmmmm, the text in the menu bar were all done in PS, using the same font, and the same font size. That is strange that you noticed that.

4) Well, the &quot;fake virus&quot; is in the &quot;Misc&quot; section, as in, something else for you to play with, or have fun with. You don't think that would be appropriate?? If so then I would just get rid of that section all together.

5) I like &quot;banner/logo creation&quot; as well, i'll stick to that.

I see your point, as I did with rbarnett about the geographical location. I guess to avoid any confusion, I can make a notation that Imajin Arts is based out in NYC. Originally I was going to make that note, but then it kind of got axed in the final draft.

Hmmm, not sure I want to attach any prices, that would mean that those services are pre-defined as being $xx.xx, I believe since all clients are different then should the prices be. Not fair, for one client to pay $XX for one job where they want function a, b, and c and then have client 2 pay the same amount where they only want function a, and b only. Know what I mean?? I want to potential client to contact me, that is what the consultation is for.

Imajin Arts is all me, as in a one-man band (for now), but I was confused as to how to market it. Should I use the term &quot;we&quot; or &quot;I&quot;?? I chose &quot;we&quot; cause I wanted to give the idea that Imajin Arts is an entity of its own, with the potential of growth. That Imajin Arts is not just one person trying to make it in the profession, plus if in the future I hire some people, then &quot;we&quot; seems fiting. Know what I mean??

The &quot;clients&quot; section will up soon. But unfortunatly, there are no guarantees that the sites you create will be up a few years later. I have some sites that have been taken down, for all sorts of reasons:
&quot;the company doesn't exist anymore&quot;
&quot;the services the site gave are no longer valide, hence no need for the site&quot;
&quot;the client decided not to continue with the online route&quot;
etc. etc. etc.

But in any case, my existing sites will be portrayed soon.

Thanks for the input.





cian, I agree that CSS offers a more clean, simple, and sleek view of the site. And so far, I love working with CSS, its very easy to maintain and debug. But the average user doesn't know about the CSS and what its for, they just see the page online and thinks &quot;its not as flashy as I thought it would be&quot;

I personally don't like a site that is too flashy and upbeat, takes forever to load and one mistake and you have to start from the begining. Like

http://www.macromedia.com

is all done in flash, and XML (I think its XML), but on their site, you click on option and the browser doesn't load the page, you get sent back all the way to the beginging, which can be annoying when you were like 8 pages down the site, know what I mean??

[sub]
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Reality continues to ruin my life...

http://www.imajinarts.com

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[ChrisHunt]

&quot;I spelled the site picks that way on purpose, it was suposed to be catchy. But does it come off as someone who needs spelling lessons??&quot;

It does to me. When I first saw it I thought it might be short for &quot;site pictures&quot;. I think it's best to stick with standard spelling for a business site.

I was looking at your site with my work PC, which has a posh flat-screen terminal - it really sems to show up even one or two stray pixels. Viewed at home on my cheapo CRT it's not so bad. Still, to me, the C and S characters seem to stray slightly above and below the other characters, and the upper and lower branches of the E are thinner than the middle one. Something you might try is turning the anti-aliasing off to get crisper letters, it can be worth it with smaller font sizes.

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk