A quick review of a quick website

**si@ld** · Mar 30, 2008 06:39

Hi guy,

I have helped my brother out after months, if not years of asking me to do him a small website that he can then use as mini portfolio. So I finally spent an afternoon and cobbled something together.

The site is built upon the MooTools frame which I find enjoyable, it will change theme/style at four key points during the day or if the user selects to change it. There is also an admin section allowing upload of images (once I set it live).

I just like to know your thoughts and your findings should you encounter any errors. While any improvements recommendations would be brilliant. It would also be interesting to what operating OS and browser you have viewed the website on.

Website: http://www.toby-roberts.co.uk

Thanks,
Si

**kiranganta** · Mar 31, 2008 01:38

change the font. You need to work hard to gain hits

**si@ld** · Mar 31, 2008 01:44

Originally Posted by kiranganta

change the font. You need to work hard to gain hits

Which one? There are three on the page??? Also the site is not about just creating hits, so not sure what you mean by 'You need to work hard to gain hits'?

Si

**OwainGDWilliams** · Mar 31, 2008 03:52

I like the site, nice and clean. Not sure if there is a need to tell people the background image will change at different times of the day. It might be nice just to leave it and allow it to change without informing people. It almost feels that this text takes something away from the clean site design.

The logo is nice and clear and all the colours work well together, including the fonts. I would maybe change the colour of the submit button.

Im using Win 2k and IE6, just noticed one problem with the site, the photo that is changing all the time in the slide show is of to the left by a fair amount...oh wait. It seems to only do this if you resize your browser window, if you click refresh the image then sits back where its meant to be. Very odd.

Looks good and professional.

O.

**si@ld** · Mar 31, 2008 06:58

Originally Posted by OwainGDWilliams

I like the site, nice and clean. Not sure if there is a need to tell people the background image will change at different times of the day. It might be nice just to leave it and allow it to change without informing people. It almost feels that this text takes something away from the clean site design.

The logo is nice and clear and all the colours work well together, including the fonts. I would maybe change the colour of the submit button.

Im using Win 2k and IE6, just noticed one problem with the site, the photo that is changing all the time in the slide show is of to the left by a fair amount...oh wait. It seems to only do this if you resize your browser window, if you click refresh the image then sits back where its meant to be. Very odd.

Looks good and professional.

O.

Cheers fella I shall have a look at the issued you've raised.

Si

**JustRyan** · Mar 31, 2008 14:02

First impressions is that it is really well structured and put together. Well done.

**cheesedude** · Mar 31, 2008 15:29

I think it looks nice.

**wiggsfly** · Apr 1, 2008 19:46

looks good in IE7, IE8, Firefox 2.0.0.13, and Opera 9.26 all on Vista and Firefox 3b4 on Ubuntu.

**mmelen** · Apr 1, 2008 21:20

grr, I hate reviewing your site... which is a good thing.
I hate reviewing sites that are really good; there's nothing to critique on.
Okay... here's the only thing I found. The logo (TR) could be better. Looks a little generic.

**saskwatch** · Apr 1, 2008 21:48

I really like the layout, but perhaps unfairly, I thought to myself "What? only 30 photos?" I also thought the photo widget was kind of slow.

**si@ld** · Apr 2, 2008 03:59

Originally Posted by wiggsfly

looks good in IE7, IE8, Firefox 2.0.0.13, and Opera 9.26 all on Vista and Firefox 3b4 on Ubuntu.

Cheers fella

Originally Posted by mmelen

grr, I hate reviewing your site... which is a good thing.
I hate reviewing sites that are really good; there's nothing to critique on.
Okay... here's the only thing I found. The logo (TR) could be better. Looks a little generic.

Thanks mate, agree with regards to logo but given the time I couldn't do anything better

Originally Posted by saskwatch

I really like the layout, but perhaps unfairly, I thought to myself "What? only 30 photos?" I also thought the photo widget was kind of slow.

Cheers fella, my thoughts exactly with regards to the number of photos. The problem is that he can't use 99% of what he produces on the website

Thanks
Si

**Mike911** · Apr 2, 2008 23:37

I viewed it with FireFox with win XP, I must congratulate you, this site is very professional. Just love the slideshow. Good Job

**iwonder** · Apr 3, 2008 00:44

Superb design ! The idea of theme changing and welcome message in header, nice !

.

I couldn't find anything wrong except for the gallery loading icon having a weird white border when its in black/dark background. You can try changing that

.

**tanya1177** · Apr 3, 2008 06:22

I like this site. It's great to see interesting fotos and professional work. I wish you luck with your site.

**freelancesam** · Apr 3, 2008 19:23

its a great site with a nice design. As mentioned, the logo at the top doesn't quite gel with the rest of the site, and everytime I scrolled down to select a picture, I had to scroll back up to view it. Got quite annoying after a while :P

other than that its a thumbs up

**skunkbad** · Apr 3, 2008 20:37

**si@ld** · Apr 4, 2008 11:13

Originally Posted by skunkbad

I like the overall look of the website, however, the page load time is extremely slow. I am on a 5MB fiber connection, and load time was ~ 10 seconds.

Total 524 KB (536 KB uncompressed)

Cheers for that fella, I'll have a look at it.

Si

**si@ld** · Apr 5, 2008 11:23

Just done a bit of image file size reduction.

Si

**sydneyaus** · Apr 6, 2008 01:43

Nicely done, good colorscheme, nice pics.

**ccRicers** · Apr 6, 2008 11:01

I like the darkened look, it seems to be the norm for many photo-related websites but it's not necessarily bad.

There's not much to criticize, but I do have a problem with some of the fonts. The different parts of the page don't go as well together because one area is all serif fonts and the other is all sans-serif. Maybe if you made headings serif and the body text sans-serif type, it would look more orderly.

Aside from that, the rounded "Send" button doesn't fit in as well with this kind of site.

**vitalous** · Apr 6, 2008 11:06

Originally Posted by si@ld

...cobbled something together.

Surely you jest!

VERY decent indeed.

**si@ld** · Apr 6, 2008 12:46

Originally Posted by sydneyaus

Nicely done, good colorscheme, nice pics.

Cheers fella

Originally Posted by ccRicers

I like the darkened look, it seems to be the norm for many photo-related websites but it's not necessarily bad.

There's not much to criticize, but I do have a problem with some of the fonts. The different parts of the page don't go as well together because one area is all serif fonts and the other is all sans-serif. Maybe if you made headings serif and the body text sans-serif type, it would look more orderly.

Aside from that, the rounded "Send" button doesn't fit in as well with this kind of site.

Yep agree with those points so I'll add them to the list

Originally Posted by vitalous

Surely you jest!

VERY decent indeed.

It sure was cobbled together, spent more time on sorting things highlighted on here than I did actually putting it together

which is cool

Si

**jdprgm** · Apr 6, 2008 16:26

The very first thing I noticed is that your background picture isn't large enough! I am on a 1920 by 1600 resolution and can see the edges. At least make it scale bigger.

I think you could balance your logo and title a bit better. I feel like "a life in pictures" should be moved to the right a bit.

Last thing is the font on the contact form is honestly to small to read. Just make it like 1px taller. Good site overall!