Helpful Information
 
 
Category: Web Site Critique Area
Honest opinion please.

I recently started a new site about nature photography.
http://www.unnecessarybeauty.com

It has a gallery powered by fotopholder and a blog powered by wordpress. What do you think about the design and general usability?

I'm using Flash for navigation, but it should show text links if Flash is not available or blocked.

Very nice work. I like how everything is nice and integrated.

John,

As a rule, I don't like flash navigation. Thank you for placing text navigation at the bottom so I can right-click and open the pages in a new tab.

Besides the obvious artistic merit of the site (and the photography), it was smooth to navigate. I especially liked the speed with which the images in the gallery loaded. I must check out photopholder. I believe someone else here has recommended it.

If I may comment on the (only very slightly) neative side, The main text area of the blog is a bit harsh to my eyes after reading with the soothing blue background on the other pages. The background colors and images for the nested tables on your main index and about pages are, in my opinion, quite a nice combination. Although the gallery page has white background, the many images bring it some living color.

Not being a wordpress user, I can only assume wordpress runs like other php-driven blogs, and that the backgrounds for the various parts of the page could be changed in the appropriate css file for that page. I guess I have a major 'thing' about site consistency. UB is very good in that regard, but dilloscape is better. I was about to make a comment about dilloscape, but realized it would be off-topic! Maybe best for a PM anyway.

Howard

Thank you very much for your opinions.
I agree on site consistency, as you noted my other site is consistent.

I didn't give the gallery and blog the same background treatment as the main page to make more room for content. The nested div's I use to create the framing take valuable screen room.
I agree that it would look better though and will look into creating more consistency. Maybe adding the center background without the framing to those other pages.

If/when the Flash does not load it should have been replaced by text links in the same area. This works when IE's security is set to high, and I'm hoping it will work for those without Flash or with anti-Flash apps.
Can you see those text links without the Flash?

As you said I do have text links at the bottom as a backup.

John,

It works fine when flash is disabled. So you may not need the line:
"If you can't see the links above (it's a Flash app.) there are text links below." in the text of the page. I think it is common good practice to code text links at the bottom of the page when the nav at the top is flash or images. You've done that, it should be enough.

Howard










privacy (GDPR)