CRITIQUE: www.aclstudio.com

[acluckhardt]

Hi! My photo website's aclstudio.com and I really need your opinions! If you have time, give me some feedback - any you have would be very appreciated. Note that the forms on the website (like contact forms, ect.) don't work right now because I'm changing web hosts; however, these play a very small role in the rest of the site which is fuctional.

Thanks,
Alex Luckhardt
ACL Studio

[Finepixdude]

Very Nice Alex.. looks very professional ,, I would only hope someday I could have one half as nice as yours...

[LadyShutterBug]

Okay, here I go. You may want to hit me while you're reading this, but like I tell my children-- I'm telling you these things because I want you to be successful, not because I don't like you or because you are doing a bad job. Editing used to be a big part of my professional life, so take it with a grain of salt ;)

Let me begin by saying that I love your colors anf fonts for the most parts, and I find your site "pretty", and easy to navigate. Nothing about your site leaves me feeling like "i suck at the internet". The flow is great! The ease of use is great! It's clean, simple, and looks fab.

And now for the critiquing...

the mirrory looking font for "View All, Categorized, and COllections" is difficult to read. also, you don't seem to really have enough images to be having three different ways to view them.

I would remove this sentence:
All you need to do to start browsing, is to make a selection on how you'd like to browse because it makes for too much reading. People are just going to look below to see how they can browse next, anyway.

what is with the big "GALLERY VIEWER (see below)"? Is there a way for you to get rid of that, and make it to where peopel can just see the images? Or make an image pop up there and not hte "gallery viewer" thing? Your images are so visually stunning, it's a shame to see a blahdy-blah "image gallery" filling the square.

You have selected to "View All" the thumbnails for photographs currently in my gallery. As in all the gallery sections, when you click a thumbnail below, the corresponding photo and information loads in the frame above - where you may view and enlarge the photo, view frame samples, and purchase prints. Note: All online sales are made from ACL Studio's authorized retailer - 2CO, but the physical order filling (production and shipping) is made by me. Prints sell for $35 (8x10 framed) and $25 (5x7 framed) plus shipping and tax (if applicable).

Blah blah blah. I just made the selection, I know what I selected. You don't need to tell me.

I don't even remember the rest of what I just read, except that there were prices involved. I don't need to hear all this. just tell me how much they are. i don't really care if you fill orders or of some man in kalamazoo fills orders :) your images need to be closer to the big window where they'll pop up. I have a huge screen and I can't choose an image and see it-- I still have to scroll all the way back up tot eh gallery viewer to see it.

When viewing an image enlarged in the gallery viewer, can you list the price there, and just cut out that whole big paragraph that separates the viewer form the thumbnail images?

And this line:
> The rest is pretty self-explanatory, but if you have any questions be sure to ask!is just cluttering your page and making people read more instead of getting to view your images more quickly. As a consumer, I do not want to be told that somethign is self-explanatory. If indeed, it IS self-explanatory, then woo hoo. But if indeed, to me, it is NOT self-explanatory then you have just insulted my intelligence and made me feel incomeptent at understanding your website.

ACL Studio, as you may already be aware, is a small but creative photography and design company located in Ennis, Texas. ACL Studio was created in early 2005 by Alex Luckhardt, now fifteen year old student and photographer, to market and sell photographic prints. This website was redesigned in March 2006 to better serve our customers and provide an easy to use and more visually appealing option to view and purchase Alex Luckhardt prints online. We plan in the near future to start offering design services.

"as you may already be aware" makes me feel very outside of your circle. plus, for people who are already aware, they don't need ot be told that they might already know this. extra words that i would delete if I were you.


don't tell us you are creative. we can judge that for ourselves by viewing your creative and beautiful images.

i don't really care when your website was re-designed. as a visiting consumer, this is extraneous information that i could really do without, and will have absolutely no bearing on whether or not i purchase from you.

The whole "i'm 15 and can't have my own business legally" thing is also extraneous information that you really don't need to repeat so much. On one hand, it's great that you're 15 and doing all this and you're a student and you can handle a camera na dtake pretty pictures of flowers and plants. But on the other hand, now I feel that I'm doing business with a 15 year old and it feel way less professional.

You also mention your name, and tell us that you are Alex Luxhardt, and you personally do this and that, about 15 times on the "about" page. The you use "we" for every pronoun. Pick one! Otherwise, you're sounding really superior/proud.

DO NOT put a link to somethign that is "coming soon". Just amend your website to link to your personal homepage once it's built. That's very cart-before-horse to me.

On this "About" page, you basically have "About" with a paragraph, then "About ACL Studio" with more info. Combione those, and make a paragraph about how you're formed out of the candle company and then make a bulleted list of the services you provide.

Don't tell us why the website is here-- we're here, on the website, and we can clearly see why the website is here. Content on a website needs to be designed to inform, but not give too much information, and certainly not to give the same information 15 times on one page or state the obvious.

I realize that you are 15, and do a great job of creating a website with an overall appeal-- don't get me wrong, the website looks great and is organized very well. Your images are beautiful as well-- but I think in your attempts to look professional and capable, you're overdoing it. As a 30-something ordering from you, I am much more impressed with a great website that's set up professionally, easy to use... WITHOUT your mentioning that you're 15. If I find this out later, then I am even more impressed. But if from the outset I know you're 15, I'm not expecting much and I'm going to look at your work with a preconceived notion that you're some 15 year old using dad's camera.

DESIGN:

While I'm not currently accepting design clients, if you might be interested in these services (based upon the content of this site), I would greatly appreciate it if I could hear from you. Please contact me either via the contact form, or fill out the design inquiry form. Neither method is the equivalent of accepting services or agreeing to ANYTHING; I just would like to know if you're interested so that I can contact you at a later date.

I don't know who your target audience is, so i will say this from a potential-client point of view. why do you have this contact form here if you aren't going to take my business? instead of "oh, and i'm not agreeing to do anythign i'm just agreeing to listen", why not just let people send you a design inquiry? just reply to them with "thanks i'm unable to accept your project at this time" or something? No one in their right mind is going to think you owe them a design because they filled out a web inquiry. this comes off as very defensive and makes me not want to waste my time.

And again... there's your name, three times in one field of vision. Alex the founder, photos copyright of alex, design copyright of alex. Combine the copyright stuff, and know that if we are reading your site, we know it's the collective "you" who is "speaking" to us via the website.

Your whole entire design page could be summed up by "ACL looks to expand its services to Design in the near future".

PHOTO OF THE MONTH
You don't need to explain to us what a photo of the month is, we can figure that out. I like the little description-- cute! But again, with the who processes-what order info... I doubt anyone wanting to purchase your bluebonnet pic will care.

[Duffy Pratt]

Too much text. Too much scrolling. I have to scroll back and forth from the thumb to the larger view, and then have to click on the larger view to get to a picture that I can see in another popup window. I will stay with a site like that for about a minute or less. The thumbnails and the pictures need to be on the same screen, and the pictures need to be big enough already -- no popups.

Also, don't have a Category like Collections and then only have one collection in the category. That leads to pointless navigation. I stop looking at sites that make me navigate for no reason.

Duffy

[matwey]

LadyShutterBug
Very long and very accurate description:huh

[janetg]

what they said, but mostly what didn't work for me at all was the having to choose thumbnails that are farrrr below where you can see the picture. that does NOT work for me on a 21" in monitor (although not expanded) - but if i were on something a bit smaller i would have clicked out quickly and went on to find another site to look at.

also, are you sure that clause about being a minor owning a business is true?

[sebbomar]

Hello:

I like the overall look. However, There is too much stuff on one page.
I think the first section of the page could be increased in height by about 100 megapixels and the width increased by about 150 megapixels.

Anything below that line under photo of the month should not be there. Only because it is not easy to view.

Steve Bomar

[Clayton Wallace]

in height by about 100 megapixels and the width increased by about 150 megapixels.

careful with those mega (million) pixel measurements, sebbomar, we don't all use wall-mounted arrays of HD tvs!

Nice site, I generally agree with LadyShutterBug. Great color scheme!

[sebbomar]

I got my array of HD tv's last week. Or everything looks mega sized at mid night.

Steve