Website - Views and Reviews

WitchDocIsIn

Elite Member
Sep 13, 2008
5,877
2,945
First thought: I hate it when a website has music I can't turn off.

I'm listening to my own things here. I don't want your music overlapping what I'm listening to, and you don't have a way to turn it off. If I were just browsing, I'd close your page the second I realized I couldn't kill the music.

Second: The design is pretty, but my eyesight isn't great. The font you're using is difficult to read, so I won't read it.

The pages load slowly. Maybe I'm just really impatient, but when I have high speed internet and I click on a link to a page full of text, I want it to load pretty much instantly. However, your pages take a little while to load, then I see it's still in that skinny font I can barely read with that music playing and I just get pissed off.

Why are your pictures crooked? That bugs me, too.

So, I apologize for sounding harsh, but this entire site basically makes me think, "Pretentious d-bag." It's artsy and pretty, but I can't read it and everything's aligned all weird and jesus christ I WANT TO TURN OFF THE MUSIC.

Ahem.
 
thanks

Christopher,

Many thanks for your views, this is exactly what I need; honest opinions to help me improve the layout and design of the site. I'll go about adding a music player to the bottom of the site. In regards to loading times, roughly how long did you have to wait? As the site is flash, it does lag a little longer than basic sites but this is a compromise I am unable to change. Do you think adding a loading bar would make much difference? So at least you know the site is doing something!

Scott
 
Sep 1, 2007
378
0
UK
Hi Scott.

I really like the header.

There are two main issues I see at the moment. The first is that some of the animations of the pages feel a bit slow. It feels like it's extra loading time and I have to wait for the text to slowly fade in before I can read it. I think it would still look good if you sped it up a bit.

The other issue is a little harder to fix. Currently, the entire website is done in flash. In the web development world, this is far from best practice and for two main reasons. The first problem with an all flash website is that any modifications take significantly longer to make. Even if you spot a typo and just want to correct it, you have quite a long process to change it compared to an integrated website. The other issue, which is especially important for promotional websites, is that search engines cannot pick up any of the text from an all-flash website. This means that you have practically just lost a large chunk of your market.

The modern way of having such animations on a site is using javascript, but also taking care to ensure the site is backward compatible with older browsers, and won't just break if somebody has javascript disabled. There are several open source libraries out there for creating dynamic web pages using javascript, such as
.

Also, I like the photos :)

All the best,

Joe
 

WitchDocIsIn

Elite Member
Sep 13, 2008
5,877
2,945
Christopher,

Many thanks for your views, this is exactly what I need; honest opinions to help me improve the layout and design of the site. I'll go about adding a music player to the bottom of the site. In regards to loading times, roughly how long did you have to wait? As the site is flash, it does lag a little longer than basic sites but this is a compromise I am unable to change. Do you think adding a loading bar would make much difference? So at least you know the site is doing something!

Scott

Put the player button at the top please. Make it easy for people to find and use.

In the grand scheme, the load times aren't very long. Maybe a few seconds. The problem is people are used to instant loads. You also have the problems that Huruey mentioned, which I completely forgot about. Your website is a big hole to Google search. Also, people on phones won't be able to do much with your site. That's something to keep in mind as we move toward a mobile-centric world.
 
loading times and flash

I'll be quickening up the transitions this evening, and transferring the music player. I am currently in the process of designing a text based website that will be available for people who cannot view flash. My flash website is currently advertised using google adwords, and as such, there is no problem in it being not picked up. However, the recent introduction of the ipad/iphone 4 has led me to begin creating this text based one.
Joe, thanks for the info, your example of javascript libraries, didn't show on my computer, could you please repost it. Can javascript (with animations) be viewed fully on ipad/phone?

Many thanks for both your help,

Scott
 
Sep 7, 2007
92
0
Hey there,

I currently run a large magic website myself. What the others have said are spot on. I wanted to give you a quick blurb of advice on the "lack of" being searchable in search engines (also known as SEO aka search engine optimization). If you want to maintain an all-flash site, get all your text and write it in html. Then use comment tags so the text doesn't display. Search engines will pick up the uncommented text and index it for searches.

Google "comment html out" and you should be able to find a few examples.

Cheers & good luck with your website
 

RickEverhart

forum moderator / t11
Elite Member
Sep 14, 2008
3,637
471
46
Louisville, OH
Scott,

I have a website similar to yours that is completely flash based as well so I have the same problem.

I love the style and feeling of your site...actually enjoy the background music but yes have the option to turn it off for those who do not want to hear it.

The text for the clients to read including the comments section for sure is very tiny and difficult to read. I immediately did not want to read through it all due to the way it looked.

It did take a little long for things to load but I am not on the fastest version of internet either so hard to tell.

The pictures of yourself being crooked is weird...definitely change it if you can. Also...you need to start getting photos of the spectators reactions when the magic happens and post that on your site. See my Event Photo section and you'll see what I mean.

Anyway....like I said, I truly like the site. Just work on getting the SEO figured out so it can be picked up by search engines. I am in the process of doing the same thing.

Looks like your clients loved you. Nice work my man.

Rick www.everhartmagic.com
 
Last edited by a moderator:
updates

I have changed the font across the entire site, making it now more visible and easier on the eye. The music player has been moved to the top right hand corner and the transitions across all of the pages have been quickened.

Rick, thanks for the advice, you have a beautiful website. I love the Philip Glass music in the photo section. Have you tried Search Engine Optimisation by using comment tage as Alexh mentioned? If so, how well do they work out?
 

RickEverhart

forum moderator / t11
Elite Member
Sep 14, 2008
3,637
471
46
Louisville, OH
I have no idea. I am contacting a few people to see what my different routes are.
Right now my website is hosted by a company. I can access my site to make real time changes and they do happen instantly which I am happy about but people cannot pull it up on phones or search engines.

My business card has my website on it really big and bold on the back and at every gig I leave about 20 cards for the guests. That is all I have been doing for advertising and it is working moderately.

I also have a deal with the local brick and mortar shop that for every gig they send my way I give them 15% of my pay. Sort of like an agent would.

I'll let you know if I find out any way to get a flash site to pick up on the search engines. Alex is checking into it for my site as well.
 
Searching...
{[{ searchResultsCount }]} Results