Opinions & Feedback on my renovated sites

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

Howdy All,

Just being a tad cheeky, but I was wondering if some of you would kindly take a look at my just renovated picture hosting site and blog site? There are no articles up on the blog site yet, that's the easy part to insert. I've just been wrapping my head around using WordPress over the last couple of days to create my blog site from scratch and just completed it, to a point.

What I'm after is feedback on design, ease of use, any problems that may potentially arise on various devices to view it, etc...

Picture hosting site: Plays With Light
Blog site: Alex Plays With Light

My end goal is to have everything appearing on the blog along with a dedicated store for a selection of my images being there also, with that having the playswithlight address and the alexplayswithlight address will then point to the smugmug storage of the images only. If that makes sense?

Thanks in advance,
Alex

 

[Parkin Pig]

Hi Alex

I had a look at your websites, and here’s my thoughts. Only my opinion, and intended to be constructive.

Alex Plays With Light:

On the home page of www.alexplayswithlight.com, the phrase ‘Alex Plays With Light’ has a hyperlink to the current page. Could be worth removing that link as people will expect to be taken to another page.
The ‘About’ button doesn’t take me to the ‘#About-01’ on the page. Is the destination tag missing?

Just a suggestion, but if the ’Store’ button is going to link to a separate site, would it not be better to open the linked site in a separate tab, as is the case when clicking on ‘Blog’ on www.playswithlight.net?


Plays With Light:

This is lovely - the simplicity of the navigation, the presentation of the photographs with no distractions, and obviously the excellent quality of the photographs.
If I were to suggest one change, it would be to think about the categories for the photographs, so that no photograph appears in more than one category. Human attention span is probably at it’s worst on the internet, and if someone sees a photo they’ve already seen, they may skip to another page and ignore the rest of the offerings on the current page.

And now for Pedantry Corner…

…I have attached a screenshot of the description for the photo ‘Infinitesimal’.
mans should be man’s, and is there any way of shifting the final period back up to the end of the previous line?

These are just my thoughts and observations, and offered with the best of intentions. Overall, you’ve prepared a couple of very tasty sites there - and the real stars are the photographs.

 

[Cheese&Apple]

Great feedback from Parkin Pig to which I would add:

- The hyperlinks on both sites from your title/brand that PP mentioned, I would link those to your "About" page

Plays With Light:

- Absolutely love your branding
- Add "Images" to your home page menu for ease of use even though the images that follow are the links to "Images"
- I really like the personal touch of titling an image. To me, it completes the story that the photographer is telling. I would do it for every image.

Alex Plays With Light:

- I'm seeing a minor alignment problem with two (outside left & right) white headings in the dark grey "About" section

These sites have a clean, concise and professional feel to them. Very well done Alex!

~ Peter

 

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

Hi Alex

I had a look at your websites, and here’s my thoughts. Only my opinion, and intended to be constructive.

Woah! That was a fantastic critical eye and exactly what I was after! Thank you so much, Parkin'.

Alex Plays With Light:

On the home page of www.alexplayswithlight.com, the phrase ‘Alex Plays With Light’ has a hyperlink to the current page. Could be worth removing that link as people will expect to be taken to another page.

Gone! Well, sort of... It's there for a split second as the page loads and then hidden from view. That's the best I can manage with the limitations of WordPress. Now to see if I can do that over on the SmugMug site somehow.

The ‘About’ button doesn’t take me to the ‘#About-01’ on the page. Is the destination tag missing?

Rectified. I forgot that I changed the name of that section and needed to reflect it on the menu for this page.

Just a suggestion, but if the ’Store’ button is going to link to a separate site, would it not be better to open the linked site in a separate tab, as is the case when clicking on ‘Blog’ on www.playswithlight.net?

All external links now do that.

Plays With Light:

This is lovely - the simplicity of the navigation, the presentation of the photographs with no distractions, and obviously the excellent quality of the photographs.

Thanks you so much, Parkin'. I'm really pleased with the simplicity of the site as a whole, especially the entry page and I'm slowly getting there with my camera work.

If I were to suggest one change, it would be to think about the categories for the photographs, so that no photograph appears in more than one category. Human attention span is probably at it’s worst on the internet, and if someone sees a photo they’ve already seen, they may skip to another page and ignore the rest of the offerings on the current page.

Sorry, what was that? There was something shiny that caught my eye...

I wasn't sure about that and did briefly consider it when organising the sections to have the images under. I've had a quick look and cleaned it up in a cursory fashion. I'll go through with an eagle-eye in the morning.

And now for Pedantry Corner…

…I have attached a screenshot of the description for the photo ‘Infinitesimal’.
mans should be man’s, and is there any way of shifting the final period back up to the end of the previous line?

My inner pedant thanks yours!

They are now both rectified. Sometimes my fingers, eyes and brain don't sync. The odd pagination with the period being a line lower was for a pagination cheat on the old blog site, to give a touch more space before the next section. Now, I'm trying to learn how to achieve things properly, with back-end CSS, HTML and javascript coding.

These are just my thoughts and observations, and offered with the best of intentions. Overall, you’ve prepared a couple of very tasty sites there - and the real stars are the photographs.

Once again, thank you so much, Parkin'. It really is appreciated.

 

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

Great feedback from Parkin Pig to which I would add:

- The hyperlinks on both sites from your title/brand that PP mentioned, I would link those to your "About" page

Great idea, Peter!

Plays With Light:

- Absolutely love your branding
- Add "Images" to your home page menu for ease of use even though the images that follow are the links to "Images"

Thanks, Peter. I am a minimalist at heart and hopefully the logo and site designs reflect this attitude of simplicity.

I'm not a fan of having massive amounts of pages of images to go looking through and so wanted to try and avoid having a link to "images." On SmugMug, that means all images, which was about eight pages of them after a serious cull not too long ago. I might see about making the titles into text links to the various sections, accompanying the image links.

- I really like the personal touch of titling an image. To me, it completes the story that the photographer is telling. I would do it for every image.

This is something I struggle with, but am making an effort to think about each and every image for a title. I nearly ended up calling my currently exhibited pieces "Blurred 00" through to "Blurred 09!"

Alex Plays With Light:

- I'm seeing a minor alignment problem with two (outside left & right) white headings in the dark grey "About" section

This section has a minor kink in it, of which I am still seeking the answer. The writing flies in from three directions. The left and right bits start from outside of their containers and fly in as you scroll down the page. When it's completed, there is more text and a "more" button for the three parts to read the rest, as well as three graphics for above these texts.

I haven't checked this on my iPad yet, but when I looked on my iPhone, I instantly saw why most transition effects on sites are turned off for mobile viewing! Then promptly turned them off on the blog-site.

These sites have a clean, concise and professional feel to them. Very well done Alex!

~ Peter

Thanks again, Peter. It's been worth the effort of learning the coding as I go.

It's helped tremendously having others eyes give these the once over for me! I was tut-tutting myself earlier, for the rather obvious flaws that Parkin' found!

 

[Cheese&Apple]

I'm not a fan of having massive amounts of pages of images to go looking through and so wanted to try and avoid having a link to "images." On SmugMug, that means all images, which was about eight pages of them after a serious cull not too long ago. I might see about making the titles into text links to the various sections, accompanying the image links.

I'm not sure that we're talking about the same thing. I was thinking that your home page menu could have the same "Images" choice (drop-down) that the following pages have. Of course, it's not necessary but maybe a nice to have feature. Maybe we are talking about the same thing. In that case...disregard.

This is something I struggle with, but am making an effort to think about each and every image for a title. I nearly ended up calling my currently exhibited pieces "Blurred 00" through to "Blurred 09!"

I can relate to this. If I titled mine it would read, "Bird", "Bird", "Squirrel", "Another Bird", "More Birds", ...

It's helped tremendously having others eyes give these the once over for me! I was tut-tutting myself earlier, for the rather obvious flaws that Parkin' found!

Hey, that's what we're here for isn't it? Myself, I know that the harder I work at something and the more I focus on it, the less I really see. That's when it's time for feedback from others.

Good luck and all the best with this endeavour Alex. I hope it's very rewarding and I'm not talking about the financial end of things.

~ Peter

 

[needfx]

Seems that PP & C&A got you covered in great depth and tech detail!

I for one prefer the blog one. I like navigating downwards and having buttons for left and right and info on the photos which scroll at different speeds.

I will look into them deeper later today and revert with any additions & observations, if any.

Best of luck for the new PWL era!

 

[Parkin Pig]

It's helped tremendously having others eyes give these the once over for me! I was tut-tutting myself earlier, for the rather obvious flaws that Parkin' found!

When you've spent hours, days, or weeks developing and staring at the same website, nothing is obvious, even if it's staring you right in the face. Glad we could help.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Howdy All,

Just being a tad cheeky, but I was wondering if some of you would kindly take a look at my just renovated picture hosting site and blog site? There are no articles up on the blog site yet, that's the easy part to insert. I've just been wrapping my head around using WordPress over the last couple of days to create my blog site from scratch and just completed it, to a point.

What I'm after is feedback on design, ease of use, any problems that may potentially arise on various devices to view it, etc...

Picture hosting site: Plays With Light
Blog site: Alex Plays With Light

My end goal is to have everything appearing on the blog along with a dedicated store for a selection of my images being there also, with that having the playswithlight address and the alexplayswithlight address will then point to the smugmug storage of the images only. If that makes sense?

Thanks in advance,
Alex

You have already had a lot of detailed critique from people far better than me to judge, but for what it's worth.
You have two great sites there. Really lovely selection of photos.
The first has some clearly defined categories and is minimalist and simplistic.

The blog is also a nice little site. I'd keep it just B&W as I think it makes for a stronger corporate message.

 

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

I'm not sure that we're talking about the same thing. I was thinking that your home page menu could have the same "Images" choice (drop-down) that the following pages have. Of course, it's not necessary but maybe a nice to have feature. Maybe we are talking about the same thing. In that case...disregard.

Aaaahh.... Got you now! I was confusing it with the "All Images" feature that SmugMug has...

That is something I will incorporate up there, a drop down menu taking you to the various sections of imagery.

Thanks again, Peter.

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Seems that PP & C&A got you covered in great depth and tech detail!

I for one prefer the blog one. I like navigating downwards and having buttons for left and right and info on the photos which scroll at different speeds.

I will look into them deeper later today and revert with any additions & observations, if any.

Best of luck for the new PWL era!

The blog has the appearance that I eventually want across the board, when everything is incorporated together on the one site and it's just the images being hosted on SmugMug.

I'm slowly working through making sure there is information for all images. Getting a good appearance when there are different proportions to the images has proven a small challenge.

Thanks, needfx.

----------

You have already had a lot of detailed critique from people far better than me to judge, but for what it's worth.
You have two great sites there. Really lovely selection of photos.
The first has some clearly defined categories and is minimalist and simplistic.

The blog is also a nice little site. I'd keep it just B&W as I think it makes for a stronger corporate message.

Thanks, AFB.

The greater majority of my imagery is B&W, which has just happened over the last 6 months or so. I did wonder what to do with the other domain when I have everything consolidated into one site, now I know. Have one site for colour and one for B&W. I think that's a brilliant idea!