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Hello All,
I just put up my new webdesign site and would love to get some opinions on how I could make it better. Please keep in mind when you ware reviewing that I am starting a design company geared toward a female niche (mom bloggers, etsy shop owners, local home business in my community run by women). I need an all over perspective. http://msdanielledesigns.com
I would say the site needs a 'story' of some kind. Upon visiting it, I felt a little unsure what to do, where I was, whether to trust this site or not. I always advise a welcoming introduction that explains what the site is for, why a visitor might want to use it, and a suggestion of what to do next. Without that, it's too easy to think—Ah, I don't really get it, so I'll move on. (You have a only a tiny window of opportunity to hook most people.)
The pages are also a bit slow to load with all that JS. Ideally I would do away with all that.
The design itself is nice and attractive, I liked it.
I agree with Ralph that it's not very obvious what do to once you get to your page.
It seems to be really lacking in content, the premade list is very short, the "do it yourself" and "privacy policy" are place holders. It's harder to review an incomplete site.
Also the FB buttons everywhere seems to be pushing it a bit, I totally understand the desire to get likes, but you are over doing it in my opinion.
I hope this helps.
Thank you so much both of you. It is a work in progress I have mostly been concerned with the overall design and more of code side to see if anyone can point any mistakes I may be making that type of thing, or even is it to dark or should I lighten it up. The content has not been filled in yet I am currently writing the intro page and the DIY part is going to be the blog. I have started doing these things yet I wanted to solidify the deisgn before I starte rearranging it and moving it all around like have done about 50 times now. I actually had all the content filled in but wanted to do a complete site redesign. I am not officially launching or reopening until July after I graduate from college but I work on bits and pieces of it as I get the time between course work, actual work and taking care of my son.
your banner and text color looks great.I checked it from my samsung mobile default browser and it was bit slow to load.I would suggest you add a search box on main page to help visitors
The only thing I'd say here is make sure you have the content worked out first, as that will inform the design and layout. Doing it the other way around is not the best way, I find.Originally Posted by msvip213
Design wise I think its great, the colour scheme is simple but effective and you've got all the social buttons fitting nicely within the website (a pet hate of mine honestly).
The graphics are truly gorgeous, this is without a doubt in the top 1% of websites for visuals.
However, the site does not really have much in terms of content or communication. It doesn't say anything about what your company is or what you do, and while you may already have a lot of customers who won't mind that, new customers who stumble onto your site will likely click on through to the next one without ever buying anything.
Thank You sooo much...
I actually made some changes to the graphics and have slowly been transferring my content over to the new site. I have added an page with my photo as well as information about me and the site and what it is I do. I am slowly getting the content in but have to added in between little breaks I have from doing school work and entertaining my 4year old.
It's pretty obvious that you're a one-person shop, but you try to be seem bigger by talking about yourself in the 3rd
person..
"Design Faerie should be your first choice in web customizations Danielle is easy going and down to earth. She is willing to work with you every step of the way and no question is ever left unanswered."
Don't. Just be you. Talk about design and your passion.
"I started Design Faerie with the goal of helping people getting their personal and small business web sites and designs off the ground."
"Web sites and web development is not easy. But I'll work with you to create a site that fits you and your needs and your personality, and above all I'll make sure that no question is ever left unanswered."
Lead in with what you do, and what you'll do for you customers. Make being small work for you. Focus on your personal interaction. Take the bio stuff off the home page and move it to an About page.
Don't forget to ask for the order. Make your self easy to contact.
"Got a project? Just drop me a line and I'll be happy to discuss it with you!"
It is funny that you say that I have to catch myself all the time. It think it may be a mom thing because I am constantly saying "mommy" doesn't want you to do this and that instead of saying I don't want you to do this and that. I have to separate my mommy talk from my more professional talk. Thank you for the further insight into how I can make my site better. I am definitely not trying to make myself seem bigger than I am.
For me the design is OK, it's not my style. But I see that a lot of people like it and that is a good sign for you.
I like the site's business model. It is straightforward but I think it will be effective. You just need to add more and more items and services. I like also that you are not greedy and that is very smart for start. The 0.01 pricing strategy is brilliant, it will teach your customers to pull out their credit cards and make a payment. So I think you are in the right track. Good luck.
*** WARNING *** I'm going to give you the Simon Cowell treatment. I'm not trying to be harsh, I'm trying to be honest with you.... Truth hurts, so BOHICA.
That animated "banner" thing looks like it's filled with random garbage -- don't know what that's supposed to be or what purpose it serves, but it's horrible.
In several places you have element placements -- like the titles for the three who/what/why columns that look more like rendering errors than intentional design. The color contrasts on those headings are far, FAR below accessibility minimums meaning it's effectively useless to a large portion of the population, the fixed width isn't big enough for netbooks and is uselessly small on my workstation. You have several other areas of text -- like whatever that blue blob is below "shopping bag", or the yellow "contact information" that are also effectively illegible.
The lack of paddings on a lot of the elements make them hard to read, the page falls apart miserably with images turned off since apparently large swaths of your text aren't in there as text, but as images; and then of course it's even WORSE if you turn off CSS... which also seems to give that annoying scripted banner a rikki fit... The endless loop of it trying to load and reload things that are already on the page is a serious whiskey tango foxtrot, and indicates that the script is also disastrously flawed.
This is a new site, right? If so, what's with the tranny doctype -- that's basically saying your code is in transition from 1997 to 1998... looking deeper we can see the typical jquery bloat, absolute rubbish classes on EVERYTHING, static CSS inlined in the markup, and nothing remotely resembling semantics gives it everything I'd expect from an off the shelf wordpress template -- and that too is not a good thing... which would explain the 14k of markup for 787 bytes of actual content on the page.
Which of course, with only 787 bytes of actual content, it begs the question what's the point of even making that page in the first place?
Thank you for your honesty it is much appreciated. Here is the thing though I am going pieces doing things a very little bit at a time. I don't know if you read some of my other post but I stated that I work full time, am a single parent and currently am in school full time. This site is nowhere near complete the links aren't even active this is for a reason its an ongoing project and it won't even be going completely live until like later in the year. I am just working through ideas and getting input along the way so I can get it all just right. I need comments like yours so I can keep making the changes and getting it up to par. The design has changed 3 times since I first did the post. I am messing around with the CSS currently doing positioning but since I have other responsibilities I can do it all in one day. I get about an hour a day to work on things.
Your design is nice. In terms of art and eye catching, it lacks of colour attractiveness
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