CC: Website Testing - Need input

[ttruelove]

Hi All,

We're looking to launch a new site. It's currently in a beta stage and not yet ready for launch, but we're looking for feedback on a few items if you could help us out.

Need feedback on:
- Load time
- Overall feel
- Ease of use
- Does it look like a wedding photographer's site?
- If you were a bride, would you contact us after visiting the site?

Any thoughts and ideas you can provide would be beneficial. (It's always difficult designing your own business' website. I've done it like 8 times, ug)

Link: Weddings by Truelove - Truelove Photography - Dallas Area Wedding and Lifestyle Photographers

[prncfarquad]

I like the feel of the site and the look but here are some issues I am having

1. First image that came up when I clicked on your link was slow to load
2. it took almost 2 minutes for all of the galleries to load and the nav arrows to change images to show up. When I first went to the page none of the images after weddings were even appearing.
3. The description text below the image is a bit to subtle for my taste. I looked down there and could barley see the writing.

I think you are on to something but just a few more refinements and you will be good.

[auddii]

Just a few things I noticed:

Some of the photos did load rather slowly, especially the bridal portraits that I tried to click on. Also, there is a bar at the bottom that indicates 1/9 or 1/11, but I can't figure out how to advance the photos in the slideshow. Just kidding, looks like that just changed.

Your logo has a background that looks odd on the white background. Some of the font might be a little hard to read, especially for the parents of brides. Maybe larger print or in bold.

I really like your behind the scenes videos, it provides a interesting perspective and I think will draw a lot of people in. It also provides a good insight into your personality.

Overall, I really like the website. Between the photographs and the videos of y'all shooting, I think I would. I also like that you have your base price listed.

[Flores]

maybe find a more lightweight display program. It looks like it loads ALL your images into itself before it lets you display. and by all, I mean for every single pull down you have. Yikes!

way too bright, can't read the writing (font is too fine/small)

love the shots, though :D

[ttruelove]

Thanks so much for everyone's feedback so far.

I was definitely concerned with the image load time most of all. The images do load into an array before being outputted to screen. The biggest issue is that currently ALL the photos load into an array before the page completes. I believe that compressing the photos better will help resolve this issue.

I decided to go with Java to display the gallery since I didn't want to use a Flash gallery. The issue here is that the way the home page is designed, all galleries are loaded and then hidden to allow for tabs and the collapsible panel. I really like the idea, but may need to eliminate a few galleries to help with load time.

One of the biggest responses we got from the Pixtus community about our current website is that we were not showing the right photos. We seemed too generic. Do you think the gallery photos seem appropriate and not generic this time around?

Thanks again for your honesty and great feedback.

[John_A]

Darker print........

[Flores]

generic to what, is my question.

If a person wants to see what you can make them look like in a bride's dress, in a classic pose, that is going to come off as 'generic', because everyone does those very similarly. because it's what the customer wants.

I don't see how you can get away with not having those. But if you want to be memorable, the bride changing oil in her dress, with oil on her face and grease on her fingers will stick with people. :D

[Hikin' Mike]

Are you using your website trying to book new clients via the search engines? If so, you may have to refine your <title> element and adding more content on your home page. Your <title> is way too long and you're repeating some of your keywords, which is not needed. You do weddings, but you don't mention that on your home page, just 'Lifestyle'.

Take a look at my SEO for the Photographer article. :)

[ttruelove]

Thanks again for checking out the test site and offering feedback. The term 'generic' is used rather loosely and I apologize for not defining it for this purpose.

During a review our photographs on the current website, several posters on this site mentioned that we were not showing the right kinds of photos to attract brides. Our current site has a lot of detail shots, dress shots, single bride shots and limited 'couple' shots or shots with multiple people. We went through and reevaluated our client-facing portfolio to the ones on the 'test' site. This would be my definition for 'generic' wedding photos. I'm hoping the photo selection now represents more emotion, fun, excitement, etc.

The font color has been an on-going issue ever since I switched to a Mac. Due to the increased contrast ratio and much more vibrant display, I am able to see slight gradations a lot better then when I was designing on a PC. When I set my background color to #e9e9e9 which is a very low contrast gray on my Mac, I can see it just fine when compared to other colors. I tend to forget that most PC monitors do not have the same contrast ratio and therefore can only see these colors at obscure angles. The colors for the testimonials (area beneath the photo gallery) are actually web-safe colors (#999 and #666), but I think it's the light-thickness font that's stealing the color away. Thanks a bunch for catching these issues with the font; I'm definitely going to darken them.

Mike, thanks for reminding me about the SEO stuff. Typically, SEO is last in my development cycle since there is a tremendous amount of work that's put into every other aspect of the site. I just end up leaving a lot of it till last and sometimes even forget to do it right. You're correct about the <title> tag being too long. I probably had too much Heineken when I started coding and forgot what I wrote. I did include the <meta> tags and there's plenty of <p> and <h1> tags on the home page and most other pages. I also plan on changing each <title> tag for the corresponding page; which I still have to do.

Good catch on not having 'weddings' in the main content for the home page. I did include it in the footer area and in all the meta, but completely missed the opening statement. Thanks.

[ttruelove]

Ok, thanks to everyone who offered input on the site. I've made several updates and changes and need to see if your user experience has changes (hopefully for the better).

-Optimized the galleries and seen a significant decrease in wait time during loading (please confirm)

-In process of connecting blog entries into the website via news bar.

-Incorporated breadcrumbs

-Updated SEO content

- Updated font to use a 'book' style that is darker

-Still have the About page to complete and will hook up the blog once the site is live.

Thoughts?

[auddii]

Photos load WAAAAY faster than last time (I didn't experience a lag at all), and I like the new font and navigation bar. I have no idea what some of your other corrections mean, so some web savvy people will need to comment on that. Overall, I like the website; very nice.

[Lightdances]

comes up directory has no index file? humm, humm, ??