Improve your website (have it reviewed)

nat, your site is lovely, really pretty. As jon said though it could do with some sort of promo video, even if its only 30 seconds, it lets people see what you do and backs up the implied claims you all rock!
Only other thing is that you cant access it on pocket IE or MiniMo (both mobile internet browsers) you cant get past the loading screen. Probably not that big a deal at the mo but more people are accessing the net from their phones these days and you want to accomodate everyone (tbf tho, lots of sites have issues being displayed on a 320x240 screen, including hop and chimaera!)

Mobile browsing.... shall include it in my new concept, thanks for the remainder.

I just stumbled across a nice little list of questions to ask yourself which you lot may find useful. I know I for one can't tick many of those boxes :O

Cool..I'm always interested to see how people get around our site...
we've just had an update which has included a lovely backend section so we can edit/change all the text and pictures. A must for all future websites I have made for me!

One *major* issue with our site that I know of is that Safari 3.1.1 will not allow straight downloading of stuff form our site, only streaming. *Intensely annoying*

I welcome feedback and a small prize for anyone who finds our "easter egg"...

www.flameoz.com

thanks in advance

Dave

Knoxious....

The bad

1) I really dislike your navigation for a few reasons:
a) It's not immediately obvious that it's a navigation panel
b) I have to hover over each one to see what's available
c) There's a gimmicky little animation when each one pops up which means it takes a while before I get to see where the link goes.
2) It's flash only.
3) It doesn't resize at all (not even vertically) so no how big or small people's monitors are, they're limited to the size you've stipulated.
4) You have to click enter to enter the site... you should definitely get rid of this step as it only serves to delay people who want to get to what you're all about. Try setting this as the first page...
5) Under Opera there's a sort of half-hidden link to an older version of the site which is written in HTML.. which seems more hidden in other browsers (is that the easter egg?).

The good

1) You have contact details on every page.
2) You have some really good clips of you spinning.
3) The text and images is pretty descriptive and gives a really good sense of what you're about.

So to sum up, nice content but the delivery could do with some work (in my opinion).

If you insist on using flash (some people do like them), at least provide a link to the non-flash site (in an obvious place).

Hope that doesn't sound too mean - just my opinion so feel free to shoot me down

Hey Dave! Review to Flame Oz.

Not in any order...
I think there's a spelling mistake under the juggling link...you'll fiund?

and perdy.net is broken.

I love how you have posed pictures, pictures of past shows, or you and the audience being amazed. And how they all look professionally done.
I really like your photos.. though I think that without them, I wouldn't really know half of what you do by the text.

The site size is great with my browser, i didn't have to change anything...

And there isn't a 'meet your performers' part. Personally I always like these parts. I like seeing people's faces and reading a bit about them.

Hmm, and your site keeps trying to open pop ups... I think the link popped up in another window and now it keeps having that annoying warning at the top even if I close it.

Sometimes it takes a while for the pictures, or text to show up on the page

I don't like forced sound, but that could be just me.

Your site looks really really professional and sells you very well!

I agree on the forced sound (I guess I had my speakers off last night!).. in my opinion it should be off by default with an option to turn it on. Make it opt-in not opt-out.

Just incase you web people didn't know or were as ignorant as me, if you don't register you site name as a Ltd company i.e
FLAME OZ ltd
or Chimaera circus Ltd
Someone else can register the name at companies house and demand your domain name. I found out this obscure legal loop hole last night. You don't have to trade under your ltd company but if someone has your domain name as a company name they can demand the site address or that you change your name or both. Or start legal preceedings to change your name which is why I lodged our domain and festival names last night due to another fire troupe we found using an almost identical name.
This was made law due to when the internet started people bought domains they thought big companies would pay large sums for. it costs £15 a year and gives security from another troupe registering your name taking your site and possibly your work. espescially important for you full time chaps.

Hey,

Excellent feedback

Easy ones first:
Natasqi - typo amended and defunct website unlinked and owner informed of lapsed website

Forced Sound - I shudder at it also and it's in my next set of updates. Believe it or not there were people in my group who wanted the sound for *every* time a nav link was clicked. Can you imagine? The fact taht you only hear it once was a compromise. It's gone, don't worry about that.

Bios/Meet the Performers - we used to have them. We dumped them because we didn;t like the pics/text and our group changed who was in it. Also, for a corporate booker, do they really care about the background, personality of the performers? Surely they just want a pro show. I can understand that seeing the professional background of a performer might add to the weight of a group but I think our Past Performances/CV says enough.

Slow Loading of Pix and Text - true. And I don't know how to get around it.

Pop-Ups - I know. It never used to but my web designer tells me it's the only way to have something download with Flash. I'd welcome someones clever coding around this issue.

Pictures vs Words - A picture speaks a thousand words right? With what we doing being sucha visual art I find it hard to capture it accurately in text - I find it hard enough trying to explain to someone what firetwirling is verbally and still ge tthe wow factor across. Rather than write lots of text I'd prefer to have good video and pictures. That's what the internet is the perfect medium for right? Why write about making circles of fire when I can visually show someone? Also, if someone has found us, surely they already understand the basic premise of what we are about? *huge assumption I know*

Navigation - hmmm... I always wondered if it was clear enough, hence why we have the "Click here to navigate" animation. My thought for next update was to change that to a blue text colour to attract attention even more. I think once you understand it though, it's not too hard to figure out. I agree with not knowing what is available until you hover, but a)it encourages exploration and b) you only have to hover for 1 second.

Resizing - the site is built so that the smallest monitor can view it. Higer res screens will just have to make do. When the site was first designed flash was pretty primative and our designer not so experienced. To make it resize all cleverly now would be a costly change that we could better spend our money on. It would be well good to have a site that resized cleverly, I agree.

Flash or not to Flash - hard question innit. Our designer made it in flash. It's a bit too late to turn back now! We used to have a HTML only site as a link from the Enter Here page, but I ditched it as i thought it was ugly and not required in todays age. Maybe I'm wrong. I see our web designer left the link there....

Entry page - kinda related to the HTML stuff above. Also used ot have a *Flash Required - Download here* blurb. I guess she took that away when i asked her to ditch the HTML. We also keep this page for the HTML text "hidden" at the bottom of the page so that search bots can find our text content.

Wow...that turned out to be a much longer reply than I thought it was going to be...

Hey and I really do appreciate feedback from you all, don't get me wrong. I take on board all that you have said, I'm just offering reasons why things are the way they are!

Nice one

Re HTML - thinking about it...it defo needs to go back on for all those mobile/iPhone types who can't see flash... damn.

I've long tried to get people who get paid to do this job. Somehow (miraculously) it was not possible to get anyone reliable - lucky me I wasn't loosing money on anyone.

Okay, so here it is: Version 1.01 of my first ever, self-designed website...Website for the Indian Juggling Convention

Let me know what you're thinking about it... Whatever it is - take it apart if you like... I know I'm just a very beginner - nothing can hurt me... errm, "almost" nothing...

I'm now scouting for a gallery template, where I can reasonably and optically embed pictures, as well as videos...

Next will be my personal website and then (or parallel) I will work on two more projects: One for Maiuki and one for my company...

Some comments:

1) In firefox (3.0) when I get to the site I get the banner which appears in Internet explorer as a splash screen when I have to click on to get to the first page... and that first page doesn't have a banner
2) Some broken links in your first page; '~See you there~' points to http://www.injuco.org/www.injuco.org/where.html (note the bold emphasis on the error). Same goes for the contact link.
3) Personally, I'd do the navigation which you've got on the left using style sheets rather than images (although they're pretty small at ~500bytes each).

Apart from that, looks like a refreshingly clean design - well done!

needs moar hamsters in bikinis

Just a few points.

The first page (the link you provided) has a very small picture (less than 40& of the page) which is in the top right corner. Probably better if it was bigger, or at least central.

Next page, the banner is not central.. maybe you could make it wider...

HAHAHA.. I saw INR 10. and in medical terms.. if your INR was 10.. you would be very badly dead... anyway...

Other than that - looking good!

Thanks guys, I just l.o.v.e. how helpful this society is

@Nat: the picture could be centered, instead of the upper left - true. Haven't really found the way to put it there (and staying with different screen resolutions). Just thought (as this is the 'official' flyer) that people will recognize.

The banner.... yes, certainly right. Hence I haven't found a way to turn the background color of the header completely black without loosing the blue afterwards... will work on it.

@Hyper: don't get it...

1) "splash screen" ???
2) The 'broken/ goofed links' - I checked on dreamweaver and the code of what I uploaded is definitely correct (http://www.injuco.org/where.html) NO IDEA why it appears like that. Will try to upload again.
3) I like rollovers and the fact that (example) "Home" is in a different color when you're @ "Home" (makes navigation more easy) - but maybe I just don't understand what you mean... ? (syntax-err)

It'll get better, the more I work with it. It's kind-a fun but I notice I need to know more about "action-scripts" and especially FLASH (*aa-haaa*).

When checking web-design awarded sites, most is in Flash and with action-scripts... So many opportunities

@Bender: the trick is to attract more hamsters by posting more crispy guys