Improve your website (have it reviewed)

I'm not an expert but my two cents...

We've been filming and photographing and stuff for a while now, having spent quite a few late nights, having thousands of photos now...

I think I like seeing pictures of people in costumes, or at least black or something...

If it's YOUR picture, the one on your bio, then maybe just pose with fire, instead of doing some crazy fast move but we can't see your face.

Seeing pictures on a website of someone in a hoody, or cargos, or a girl doing a bend back and her t-shirt riding up... To me (because my troupe leader is so strict.. :P ) it looks like 'this photo you took some time at some gig'.

And to see your face, do something like btb/overhead butterfly, or (i don't know staff move names) the 'in front of you staff turning thing changing hands'... *rolls eyes*

and SMILE! you ENJOY spinning.

And try to be parallel to the camera so they can see your perfect circles...

And yeah - someone mentioned cropping... cropping is good.

Oh, and if I'm some 18yr old booking you for my party (or rather, finding you and telling my parents they HAVE to get you) an "I am so hot and tough and I'm touching fire" shot would do wonders.
Oh and if you have tattoos - why not get one fire tracing near the tattoo? Extra tough!

The average person can't tell that you're doing some awesome move by the complicated messy trails... - but if you look neat and professional and have some different toys in your photos...

FLAME - I like your photos! You have a good posy/spinning mix and I like that you're at wearing the same colour and what looks like a uniform.

www.thestunthouse.com/firetoys

What do you reckon? It's not a fire performing sie, but it's similiar...

You don't need to be a pro-web designer to get a semi-decent looking website. Check out mine:

www.firetroupe.org

I used iWeb on my Apple Mac to make it. OK it looks like a ripoff apple.com, but it looks smooth and gets the required information across. The only trouble is that now, only people with macs can modify the website, and I'm the only one in my troupe that can do it. Bums!

Rellizate, just a quick first impression of your site - it looks good but the opening screen annoys the hell out of me.
I don't reckon any site should have a welcome screen that makes you click on another link before anything interesting comes up.
At the moment, I click on the link to the site, then have to click again to enter it - that's one click too many, the first page people see should have something attention grabbing, not a mainly blank page with another link to enter.

Basically, http://www.thestunthouse.com/firetoys/home.asp is a much better first page, so I think you should drop the walcome page with the Enter link.


akgraphics - again just an initial flick through your site and I notice a similar problem...
Clicking on the gallery link should go straight to the gallery, not just to another mostly empty page that makes me click on another link to actually get to the gallery.
If I just want to see cool pictures, making me click twice to get into the gallery is just wasting my time godammit

Sorry, that's a particular bugbear of mine - I firmly believe that websites should be as easy to navigate as possible and have no dead pages that really only serve to slow navigation down

Heh I think you're right Bovril. The trouble comes when you try to make different components fit together (in this case, a Gallery 2.0 template and an iWeb website) - perhaps you guys are right, web design should be left to the pro's!

Couldn't you just point the link directly to the gallery though?

Akgraphics: To be quite honest I disagree with you. It's true you don't have to be a professional to make a site and even a site that is slick. But by the same token you don't have to be an artist to paint a pretty picture and you don't have to be a poi spinner to spin a ball around your head. Just because you can, doesn't mean its the same quality as someone who does it for a living. I don't mean this as a critisizm just a statement of fact.

I used to do web design for a living and let me tell you, when I got into it i thought it'd be a breeze. Web sites are cake to make. The difference is DESIGN is not cake. When it comes to design a professional is going to have so many more tips and tricks, so much more experience, and many more resources at their disposal that will help the little things that the average user wouldn't think about in the first place. here's some thoughts on your site, and please don't think i'm attacking you or anything, this is just from an actual designers point of view:

You have to code for the lowest common denominator, this is a sad fact of the internet. You'd be surprised how many people still have 640x480 resolution (ugh). To this end, the header pictures on your page are WAY to big. They are pretty surely, but to large functionally. The ones on your safety and FAQ pages are much more along the right lines. Why? because if you have a smaller screen that image IS the whole screen just about. The exception being your "what we do" page, because you have text in the picture. That being said... text in the picture isn't consistant with the rest of your site. Also, header images should all be the same size. Final reason for not having large pics like that: people with slow connections...

Users don't like to scroll... people are lazy... having the screen monopolized by a huge image is a pain honestly. When users have to scroll, they don't want to have to scroll much. I'd recommend adding a navigation bar at the very bottom of the pages just above your footer image (smaller font of course). This makes the page nicer to navigate and requires less scrolling.

Gallery... oye EVERYONE messes up a gallery. I know you used a template so it's not your fault but a Pro gallery will be integrated into the page, match the feel of the site, and like bovril said, not require extra clicks.

Artwork: your header pics could do with a bit of photoshopping for levels and of course cropping. Header images are for page introductions, not selling products... that's what the body of the page is for.

Overall design. The stark white background contrasts sharply with the headers and such. this does give it a "clean" mac type look but is that really the look you want for a fire troupe? Fire is about dark, mystery, trails, warmth, and intrigue. It's not about a bleached countertop which is kinda what the white reminds me of for some reason. I can NOT stress enough how the subconscious impression a person gets from your site will affect their thoughts about it and the likelyhood they purchase your product (your show). They need to feel like they are getting a taste of what they will pay for. I'd go with a darker (doesn't have to be BLACK, just darker) scheme for effect. Another reason for a darker scheme, it'll make the page seem fuller. For those with larger monitors and resolutions, pages that are a single column with a bunch of space on the sides are uninteresting. Did you know that the average user takes less than 4 seconds to decide if they are going to dive deeper into a site? Nearly all of that is based off the initial impression. Here's a tip I give people, look at a page, squint/blur your eyes, FEEL the shape of the design and see if it still is attractive to you.

There's other stuff I could throw in here but those are the main points. Again I'm not picking on you, your site just happens the be the one I clicked on first lol. This is all just constructive feedback from someone who did it as a job for quite a few years. Goodluck!

Thanks Imbalance I'm loving the insight there. The flipside of using a nice and friendly website-making software like iWeb is that there is zero-flexibility (i.e. making a gallery that doesn't look like an apple product, or putting navigation bar at the bottom of the page). Plus being a poor old mechanical engineer, all this new fangled web-design malarky makes my head spin much respect to you HTML-heads out there!

I've got to do some more work on the chimaera site soon as i've finished the documentary im working on. I know there are a few issues with it but what do people think?
www.chimaeracircus.co.uk

And while im at it, what do you think of www.inspinerate.com? Havnt touched it in over a year so could probably do with some improvments by now.

I was going to comment on your site, akgrahics but Imbalance has said pretty much everything i was going to say.

Oh my God I love this opportunity!

Please, please tell me what you think of my site! I'd love any and all constructive critisism!

Keep in mind - please - that I have designed it, created it and am maintaining it, and I do not know html. Everything I know I learned along the way, luckily I am using a program provided by Yahoo, which is very user friendly.
I have been trying to learn more and more about seo, but there's so much to learn.

so please help me - thank you
www.MariannaBellyDancer.com

Ok, review for Marianna...

First look, I have to scroll down before I can actually see anything other than your name... A lot of room at the top is taken up by " Please refresh your browser for all changes to take effect" and English vs squiggle (sorry, I am an ignorant Australian...)

So if things were squished up a bit so I could see 'belly dancer' and 'fire dancer' on first look...

"(fire fans and fire sword - both of these are very
unique and dangerous)."
Are these really unique? I guess dangerous you can say since the audience is people who have never played with fire.
I thought fire fans and fire sword was pretty common...

I like the info on the first page. Good intro into who you are, what you do etc.

Could you have the menu at the side? To the right? There seems to be dead space there.. adn then it could go with you when you scroll down.
And it would also mean, things are moved up.

Your schedule is up to date! YAY! (SOOO many websites aren't)
But do you need April there? couldn't it be May and June?
And having the addresses on that page - very nice

OH! Music just started.. Is this only for the parties page?
I like the music... but if I'm already listening to music on my computer (or if I'm at work and not meant to be looking up belly dancing pages) it would be very annoying.
People have different opinions on automatically starting music.. for me, it's a no.
And also, the dials are hidden in the bottom right corner, practically off my screen. Not easy to find when you have to turn the music off NOW.

On the parties page, the tiny picture of you in purple.. is well, tiny and you can't see anything.

OOps, my mistake, it's a link.
"- flaming sword - very unique and dangerous!
- fire fans - also very dangerous and unique"
You already said it on the front page, and now you're saying it again.. twice...

"You may hire more than one dancers"
more than one dancer_

The pictures of you in blue half way down the page look professionally done, i think they should be higher...

Or maybe try to get more pictures of you on a plainer background, rather than at shows...

It was a bit wierd to have the background change for Al Bustan...

"First of all I am much more humble than that."
...are you supposed to say you're humble.. I'm not sure.

"Second, what is beauty? "
From a completely cynical male perspective, as soon as anyone says "what is beauty anyway", they instantly think that person must be very large and quite ugly. Obviously we know you're not from the pictures, but I didn't quite get the point of this...

...Maybe you want a page for yourself, and then a page for business, that are separate. So you can have lots of photos of you + children at your page, but on your business page, they should only be your best photos.

There is a large gap on the costumes page, between costumes and the red harem pants.

Contact page again has music.. wierd baby crying, non belly dancing music...

On the contacts page, I have to scroll down to nearly the botom to actually find your contacts. I think this should be higher.

In regards to pictures... If they were all in line, or had a border, it wouldn't look so higgeldy piggeldy.

Overall, i think you have all the relevant information.

Maybe too much information, and too many pictures.

I think maybe your nicest pictures, and then ones of each toy... I don't remember seeing isis wings...

It was interesting getting to know more about you, but i think there was too much information there, and if someone is just looking for a dance, they could get overwhelmed.

But, take or leave my advice. I'm only one person, and also have limited website building experience.

"www.chimaercircus.co.uk"
was completely down for me so.. ???

Inspinerate
First impressions - looks good! not too cluttered. the top banner looks fuzzy...
Do you need "inspinerate | fire spinning" above the logo?

under home it says home again

Is showcase one word?

On the right there are a few spelling mistakes

I don't think you need 'navigation'

The spin vids don't really have any explanation to them.

The contacts booking page. i think this should be lower in the navigation bar. And I don't really know why you have bookings there. Maybe you should have a link to your spinning website on that page too. Otherwise people won't know why they're booking you.

O wait, your link was typed wrong, the chimaera circus site DOES work...

Ok, so the inspinerate site I think is good. simple, i don't know how easy it is to DL things, I didn't try.

A few unnecessary things IMHO, but very good overall.

And chimaera too...
(I'm bored, give me a break! )

First impression - OOHH PRETTY!.. wait, why do I have to press enter.. I think that's unnecessary.

Text on front page is v good, brings in audience

Pictures, I like the body tracing stomach shot.. hahaha

the one top right, what is that?? I can't see the person...

the bottom picture has interest but... Not so sure, peoples faces are blocked by fire.

Clicked news and I see no news, only fuzzy trails.
If I want news, I want it to be there, I don't want to have to scroll for what is supposed to be the main part of the page.

And these pictures, may look good to non-spinners, but to spinners, they seem random and messy. and are face occluding.

Hmm, I like your news page, it makes the "hey, these are our previous gigs" part seem quite professional and means people could go see you (if you updated it since July 2007)

And performers without borders (I know doctors without borders of course) how interesting!!!

"contact staff, tim is reknowned " Capital T and no k
"stitlwalking " (sp)

Sy's picture, beautiful flowers/trails, but i can't see his face
... or Alice's face
...Helen isn't smiling.. or looking tough... Is this a posed picture?

Steves and Oli's faces too...Gayle is very small

I like your shows and workshops page, concise but enough...
and also it puts you apart from those who'd just randomly spin. You guys have choreography and costumes and it's made clear you're more professional than a lot

In photos.. I like how you don't have millions of photos. A few I'd say aren't website quality, but most are
the VERY FIRST photo.. is fuzzy and I can't make out whats happening...
that's first on second page (which was the default.. which made it confusing)
1 and 2 are swapped...

I like the contact page too though a non-hotmail email would make you look more professional.

Links - again I have to scroll before I get to links

All in all, very nice!!


Very clean and professional, I like the font and colour scheme etc.

And as if I haven't spammed this topic enough.. :P

Here's our new website, not very old.
It needs expanding, but I'd still like opinions on look and availability.

www.firenmotion.com

I'll start (so you're not shy)
I don't like that it has to load first, but then, it's really quick on my comp so it didn't matter so much - was it longer for you, what connection do you have?

There may be too much white fuzzy effects, especially on page 2 where they obscure Stu's face.
Second age looks a bit matrixy, with the lines :P
But I like how the pictures are our 'different' toys, not just staff and poi.

In fact, we do need a page saying what equipment we use. i think that's the next update.

Who are we wise, Mike's face is a little dark, and Byron's a tad small, though there's the other big pic of Byron on page 2...

Last page, again, lots of white stuff.

And hmmm, Jed's got his mobile as international. I wonder how many dumb Australians won't know that you put a 0 instead of +61.

that's me, YOUR TURN!!

Thanks for the input, natasqi. You picked up on a few points i was aware of so i guess that just reinforces that i should sort it out! The gallery certainly needs work and i agree about the email.

I'd happily give you my opinion on your site but you didn't include a link!

HAHAHA.. *facepalm*

www.firenmotion.com

I'll add it above too :P

Nat ..what are you avoiiding??..

Nat I find the navigation bar not easy to find..maybe with contrast. Later bars look the same but arent clickable.
Maybe rainbow sparkles on the bar would be nice

Nat - beautiful website!

I love it! Artistic, with a beautiful design yet simple and leaving a nice imprint!

Very well done!

I wrote a massive reply to this thread a while back but FF3 broke and lost it and I couldn't face re-writing it all ...but since I can't sleep at the moment and I'm bored, here's a few points:

1) I think the browser demographic[^] isn't as clear cut (or as skewed towards IE) as a lot of people believe. The more 'techy' your site the more your viewers are likely to use firefox/opera/safari. It would be interesting to here what sort of split HoP gets - maybe Malcolm has some stats to contribute?
2) The same goes for screen resolution[^]. From what I've seen it looks like maybe as little as ~10% of visitors use < 1024x768 ...once again though, that figure seems to vary wildly depending on the nature of the site.

@Imbalance: Do you have any figures to support your claims with regards to browsers and resolutions? I'd be happy to be proved wrong

@AK: Personally I really like your site with it's white-ness. The clean look makes it seem more professional somehow. Did you know the main graphic on the first page I visit doesn't appear in FireFox 3 (I realise I'm in the minority in using version 3, but it won't be all that long before it's released )?

I think you ought to make the contrast on your navigation higher. On my monitor, it's not all that obvious which section I'm in because the highlighted grey looks very similar to the other links.

I agree with Imbalance on the size of the banner - keep it a consistent size, but I don't think having different banners for different pages is a problem if you keep the overall format the same (which you have)

@natasqi: Lovely site! A Couple of minor points though:

1) I find the bouncy effect of your navigation really annoying.. I don't know why, it just feels really cheesy.
2) I think you would benefit from having some videos of clips of performancs or some of the sorts of things you would do for a fire/glow show. I was suprised to find that what looked liked links to some examples under "What we do" in the bit highlighting "Our shows" - links to examples there would be icing on an already very sweet cake


Hope some of that is useful?

Jon