palgrave: sitepoint zealot, 118 posts. Time to put up, so here it is:
www.clearhill.co.uk
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palgrave: sitepoint zealot, 118 posts. Time to put up, so here it is:
www.clearhill.co.uk
Nice design, color and layout but it should be use min width because on smaller windows some of the menus are missing
Yes. On 800 X 600 the top nav goes all wrong. This was a concious decision based on research of the target market. However, I have still not convinced myself that this is better than horizontal scrolling should somebody relevant view it in a small screen. You have a valid point.
- Brown, green and orange should never mix. Change your color scheme to something more professional (search up color palettes).
- Your rely too much on gradients, get rid of some like the one on the left side.
- Add rollover effects for your tabs.
- The range section is great and functions well, I just think you could rearrange it, and add "Select a product" somewhere, so the user knows that he can choose between those products.
- Buy me a Candy Cart?
- Shouldn't we be able to buy online? Add a "Buy" button to your products, or link to the contact page.
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I did use a colour picker, but I admit to breaking out of the scheme with the orange box. The brief was to stick to existing company colours, which you can see in the logo. I then minimized the orange as much as I thought necessary and used the green (#197e5e) to base a colour scheme on. Although the orange was not in the colour picker scheme, it is a brightened version of one of the browns that did appear.Originally Posted by Paintingblack
It's not a click and buy site. The customer gets paid rent or revenue share. The equipment remains the property of Clearhill. This is how the vast majority of coin-op/vending works in UK/Ireland.
godXcel, your points are more to do with the copywriter's work. To be honest, I have no opinion on what they do because I can't tell ok copy from brilliant copy. An interesting point about the privacy statement though. It was from a southern Irish copywriter, so no mention of the UK Data Protection Act that would be found in a lot of northern Irish (UK) privacy statements. However, I think it does a good job both sides of the border, and you have no idea how hard a task that is (think politics).
I see what you are saying about the tabs, Jhorra. Maybe a bit plastic compared to the rest of the site?
agent01, the cheque's in the post!
I like it. It flows well, and doesnt bore the eyes.
constructive critism:
a lot of professionals do not like testimonials, due to the fact and question of; "what are you trying to hide"
your mission statement is a little bland and too forward.
good privacy statement
overall:
i really like your theme, and layout. it works well for the Irish and UK hertitage. content wise, it's good, a little too forward, but its good and the message is delivered.
I think you did a good job on the design. The first thing my eyes were really drawn to and focused on was your headline, which immediately lets me know who you are and what you are doing. I think it creates curiosity as to what you have to offer, and made me want to read more.
My only real dislike about the site is the tabs at the top. I couldn't really say what I don't like about them, they just seem to be less professional than the feel of the site.
The site is definitely not a pain in the eye...
I like how you have really maximized the use of space.
And the color combination makes me think of nature... lush greeneries and all...
Nice...
Allow me to be harsh (because the site failed on some critical points):
- What are you selling? your images and photos aren't that effective because I had to read the entire header and some of the text to actually understand. Why isn't there a fairly large banner image of a mall space with vending machines, with the machines highlighted in some way (focus? color? etc.)
You could even take a cue from apple's ipod nano banner - line them up against a neat white BG. Then you could put some better copy in.- Green and brown? Vending machines? Green and brown are for gardening and green grocers. Company colors are wrong. Your boss needs to change them.
- Testimonials on the side are an eyesore - color scheme is wrong, and the text is too small. They also feel out of place.
- Orange box on the left catches one's attention, but in the wrong way.
- Menu isn't flexible. The tabs restrict the words within them, which makes the whole thing quite vague (again, until you read the copy).
In a nutshell - it fails to get the message across on the first go.
Last edited by XLCowBoy; Oct 12, 2007 at 01:54.
Maybe I should do a poll
Lol. Just make a better banner.Maybe I should do a poll
Hmm, seems to me that it's stuck between ancient all-html design and brand new web 2.0-like elements....Logo's pretty nice, though. If I were you, I'd kick up the whole site to sleek looking modern design.
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The content section mucks up for me in Firefox at resolution 1440x900.
The basic design however is nice and simple. Nothing much else to say really!
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Thanks for that emkay. I can't test that so I'll take a look on browsershots and see what I can do.
Hi there
good design and professional layout
the message is not so clear.... it makes wonder what the website 'exactly' is about
the navigation is ok
I will work out on the message and on the banner
Personally I do not like testimonials
Mmm. You're the second person to mention testimonials negatively, wish71.
I was always led to believe that testimonials were good as long as they were genuine. All the ones on clearhill.co.uk are genuine. Do they read as if contrived?
godXcel said that it raised the question "what are you trying to hide?" In Clearhill's case, absolutely nothing. They genuinely are the best in the business at the minute.
Slightly off topic: I don't have a portfolio yet as clearhill.co.uk is the first serious site I have done, but I had intended to go along the lines of "here's what I have done, and here's what they said about it".
Having second thoughts now. I'm off to the copywriting forum to find out more.
On the testimonials, they did kind of sound hollow. Maybe as you gain more, the whole lot of testimonials would be more convincing. For now, good copy could be enough.
I also like the look and feel of the site. Very smooth and professional.
ok, first impression of the site is.... what am I looking at? what does this company do exactly?
The imagery needs to be clearer and I need to know what I am looking at straight away. The third image looks like a kids ball pool which lead me to think it was a shopping center site that had a kids area!
The images in the products section would be better as they give a full picture of the product.
The colour scheme is ok as you were limited to the logo colours - always a problem!
The layout is seriously wonky on a higher resolution screen as all the content is thrown to the right with the navigation over to the left and the final paragraph in the middle!!!!
Regarding the testimonials, I am kind of split really so I will keep out of that one
Markup is valid HTML
Overall not a bad site.
If you want a screenshot of the page at high resolution, let me know
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Only a woman can read between the lines of a one word answer.....
I started out with nothing... and still got most of it left!
From the top of the hp:
I don't care for the tabs. When in their "gray state" the contrast betwix the top highlight and the tab is too small. I might try changing the gray to dark green.
That main headline is too long for me. I might swap headlines with the email sign up box and see how that feels.
The email signup box sure gets my eye, but it has a mix of center justify and left. I'd stick with left.
The testimonial boxes have no right edge, the font is too small and they're a bit too "soft", (they don't speak to money-benefits).
I too think a mall photo with your products would be better, or in addition to, your "detail" photos. Or, a before and after depiction of a "dead space" and a "lively space". Can you get customers to approve site photos?
In your main content area, if you're going to have a stack of photos left of copy, I'd make the headline meet their left edge. And keep all copy right of their right edge.
Your copy needs more work.
hth
A valid point.
This was inspired by: http://www.sitepoint.com/article/bre...out-of-the-box and it has gone down well with Clearhill. Probably won't be getting changed.
It did!
Clearhill is a big brand in Ireland/UK, so they aren't worried about this.
Not good.
Peed off about that. The layout is lifted right out of the html utopia book, so I am not sure what to do about that. I will go to the css forums to sort that one out.
Probably a good idea!Regarding the testimonials, I am kind of split really so I will keep out of that one
Fantastic design. Perfect spacing, color scheme, graphics, etc.
Easy to use navigation as well. I am having trouble to find a single fault.
I really don't like the font you used, I really hate Geneva - but that's not critique. Also, Times New Roman is quite generic, I'd suggest Georgia for headings and Verdana 10pt for text. Also, try and fix the issue where the site goes to the bottom right.
Just my $2.00 - I know how much any little bit of feedback is important
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The logo is good, but the tabs are really sort off subdued and are out of fashion really. They are early 2000 menus and had their day really. If I were you I would have done away with them.
Also the pink font and background colour on the testimonials is out of place. You should have used a colour more harmonious with the rest of the website. A shade of green would have been better for starters. The testimonials themselves are not eye-catching enough partly due to the small fonts used.
The last but not the least, you should have bigger images to get visitors' attention right away. A picture is after all worth more a thousand words. That adage is really true.
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Hi,
Your page layout is jumping around all over the place in larger windows, I'm using firefox viewing at 1440px wide. The same thing happens at around 920px wide.
Also you should remove the xml declaration before the doctype - it throws IE into quirks mode.
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