Requesting Website assistance and critique

[bob williams]

I have had a zenfolio account for about 9 months now and have been tweaking it during that time. I finally figured out how to do some site arrangement and customize some of the functions so this week I spent more time to get it like I wanted and would like your input on the layout, ease of use, general look and appeal of the site, etc. I do have some specific questions:


1. Is the opening slideshow the right size and speed for browsing? should it be bigger, faster, slower or there at all.


2. I am having problems with the search function finding my shots even though I have spent some time developing key words for some of them. (I have sent this question to zenfolio as well)


3. Is the arrangement and titles of the galleries ok, or do you have suggestions for improvement


4. Is the general color scheme appealing or irritating (I am red/green color blind--so so what looks good to me may not look good to the masses) Be honest here, please.


Here is this site and thanks for any comments. http://rwilliamsimaging.com/


Thanks,


Bob

[ddt0725]

Hi Bob,


I just took a quick look at your site and so far from what I

[canoli]

Nice work Bob, I like it very much. The background color is almost exactly what I would've chosen - a neutral gray with a little "personality" - nice!


There really isn't anything not to like about the site IMO. The layout is easy to navigate; it's a Flash site without gimmicky animations so it loads quickly. You mentioned trying to work out what's going on with the Search. Once that's functional I think you should be very happy with the site, and your visitors will be too.


If I had to pick something that hits me a little "off" I'd say the font choice for the word "Imaging." Since it's the only instance of that font I think it should "make a statement" so to speak. As it is now it looks like an out of place Times font, ordinary and colorless. (sorry, I don't mean to knock you over the head making my point!)


You could color it - the orange in your headings is very nice to me, understated but "present." But I'm guessing you already tried that and didn't like it. If it were me I'd change the font entirely. A good rule of thumb is "have a good reason for using a 3rd font" on one page. I think you can still obey that rule by finding a stronger style for that one word.


All in all you've done very nice work Bob! If you didn't change a thing I'd say it's a very welcoming site. I said "if I had to pick something" and I really meant it; it's perfectly fine the way it is.


Thanks for sharing it - I need to get a site going and yours has given me inspiration to look into zenfolio.


Thanks again!

[bob williams]

Thanks Denise---I'll work on those things and continue to work on the search parameters.

I do have one question for you, how do you get people to know its there. Do you advertise? Have business cards? Does it come up under various google searches?

No, I have been lazy and have not developed/printed business cards, nor do I advertise---so far this has just been my own personal endeavor. even the pricing and product offerings are an undeveloped experiment for the moment. But...... on both Google and Bing I get the #2 listing if I type in "rwilliamsimaging" which I really like. Now I just have to figure out how to get my images to come up if the right key words are type into a search.


Thanks for looking and commenting,


Bob

[bob williams]

If I had to pick something that hits me a little "off" I'd say the font choice for the word "Imaging." Since it's the only instance of that font I think it should "make a statement" so to speak. As it is now it looks like an out of place Times font, ordinary and colorless.

Thanks for the look and thoughtful review Canoli. It's appreciated. Actually the word imaging is part of my logo, watermark etc. So it's actually a graphic and not just simple text. After reading your review and taking a second look at it, I think I agree with you. Let me see what I can do with it.


Thanks,


Bob

[bob williams]

I agree, the search is pretty useless right now. I did a number of searches that I know you have photos of but nothing came up.

Now I really feel stupid; it seems thatI had several images and one whole gallery marked as "private" in the acces control/search parameters. Changed it to public and everything seems to work fine now. I do still need to work and expand on the key words, but at least I know what the problem is now.


Thanks again for the look Denise.


Bob

[Kayaker72]

Hi Bob,


Great website and excellent photographs. You have quite the collection....I am definitely a little jealous.


As for comments, on a broad note, I was wondering if this was for personal use/for sharing with friends, or is this for professional use where you would like to sell pictures and, potentially, your photographic services? I ask becausethe inital page makes it appear as a personal website but then I saw a link where I could buy the images and "rwilliamsimaging" certainly sounds professional. If this is intended to be a store front, you might want to make that more clear on the initial page. Maybe a few opening lines guiding someone new to the site on how to use it.


A few minor comments:

• At least for me, your opening slide show was all pictures of wildlife with multiple pictures in a row of a wolf. To showcase all of your images, I would have the opening slideshow oscillate between the different types of pictures you have. Also, instead of back to back images of the same subject, I would gofrom a wolf to an elk to a landscape shot, to a hummingbird, etc.
• I am not sure I would change this, as it is minor, and you may have several good reasons for why you have it this way. But I noticed that you start with you menu bar on the side and then it switches to having the menu bar at the top.
• And this is really the engineer in me coming out, but you have each of your photograph categories at the same level (font/alignment, etc) as "Contact," "Resources," amd "guest book." Again, the engineer in me would be tempted to have the main headings of "Pictures," "Resources," "Guestbook,""Contact," and maybe "About Me" and then have each of the type of pictures as a subcategory (different font/alignment) under "Pictures." That works best if the menu bar runs along the side. It only really works along the top if you do a pull down menu.
• "Resources" goes to a PDF and not a HTML page. It works, and again, there may be great reasons that you have done it like that.

But overall, it is a very nice website. Easy to navigate, intuitive, and your color scheme helps highlight your images.


I hope that is helpful.


Brant

[Iguide]

Hi Bob:


Your site reflects your talent and patience. Any words I write here will pale to my impression of both. Very Well Done my man.





God Speed

[bob williams]

Brant, Iguide thanks for the look and the comments.

I was wondering if this was for personal use/for sharing with friends, or is this for professional use where you would like to sell pictures and, potentially, your photographic services?

Actually, all of the above. I started out just wanting a place to show my photo's to friends and family and the site slowly developed from there to eventually adding purchase options.

If this is intended to be a store front, you might want to make that more clear on the initial page. Maybe a few opening lines guiding someone new to the site on how to use it.

This is the hard part, I am not very good at selling myself/work and honestly, I really have no idea where to start--if you have specific comment or know of a good example, I am all ears.

At least for me, your opening slide show was all pictures of wildlife with multiple pictures in a row of a wolf. To showcase all of your images, I would have the opening slideshow oscillate between the different types of pictures you have

Yes, this does bug me as well. As best as I can tell, my provider only allows the opening slide show to come from one gallery---so, I think I am going to develop a gallery just for the opening slide show; something that has a nice mix of my favorite shots.

[*]I am not sure I would change this, as it is minor, and you may have several good reasons for why you have it this way. But I noticed that you start with you menu bar on the side and then it switches to having the menu bar at the top.

This was done on purpose. I wanted to limit the amount of vertical scrolling one had to do to naviagte the site, so I simply saved a little head room by placing the menu on the side. But since you mentioned it, I may play with it some more.

And this is really the engineer in me coming out, but you have each of your photograph categories at the same level (font/alignment, etc)

This was also done on purpose. I had it like that before, but after rearranging the opening page, the 3 line menu didn't fill up enough of the space on the side of the slide show, so I just expanded the gallery listing.

"Resources" goes to a PDF and not a HTML page. It works, and again, there may be great reasons that you have done it like that.

The only reason I did it like that is because I haven't figured out how to load an HTML page into the zenfolio template. I know it can be done, I just haven't worked with it yet---but now that you mention it, that could be this weeks project.

Your site reflects your talent and patience. Any words I write here will pale to my impression of both. Very Well Done my man.
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Thanks, your comments are appreciated and encouraging and thank you for commenting on my site.


Thanks to all for your comments,Thay havedefinely helped me out and given me some ideas for improvement.


Bob

[HDNitehawk]

Very nice site and work Bob.


I could only offer a layman view of the site.


1st on the home page I came to the link that said "Large Birds". To me it sounded somewhat generic and should have said just "Birds" or been specific to the type like "waterfowl" "birds of prey" or something like that. Large Birds just sounded odd.


2nd, this is especially true of some of your landscape photos, they are not labeled or named. If I were buying a print from an artist I would want the artist to name it. A location and description might be nice to.


3rd when I first got to your site I wasn