Harsh critique needed! (Frost Conservatories)

I personally like the site. It's clear, clean, easy to navigate - good. So I just have two comments:

1. The fade on the home page is annoying after the first few times. It's cool - but have it stop or get rid of it.

2. The whole site is made in flash. That will be unaccesible for many people. All flash sites are really cool - but not reccomended in my opinion.

Good luck!

The design is appropriate for your type of site, but yes as the others said, flash is poor for SEO purposes, especially if you build the whole site with flash. Flash is good on special occasions, but your sites design (including the annoying fade background) can easily be implemented using html and css... Design-wise though, looks pretty ok...

I take your points fully - was very torn with the whole fade thing which I'm still concerned with.

I will chase to see if the front page can be turned into non-flash, and probably a link page for reciprocals.

Cheers guys

Reciprocal links aren't that good for SEO anymore either. They don't like fake links basically. Getting related sites to notice you and link to you because they like you is key.

Flash IS very bad for SEO. You probably don't want to do a site in flash. The spider needs to be able to follow the links through your site, and if they're in flash it can't do that. They also need to be able to read the text on your page which they can't do if it's in flash. All the navigation needs to be non-flash. Looking at your site, there is nothing particularly special here. You could easily duplicate the same look in regular HTML. The photo gallery can be as it is in Flash (although make that fade a little faster so people don't have to wait to look at the next photo).

The design itself looks quite nice. Nothing wrong there. The text can be a little long and formal at times. Using fewer words is generally a good idea on the web, and I think this could do a better job of selling the product, especially on the introduction page. People are impatient - they don't want to read a lot of stuff, although I like idea of having an introduction from the company owner. A photo of him would be a good addition.

No comment looks great, maybe the text needs to have headings or less text altogether, i really dont want to read all that text.

Hey guys, cheers for all you input - will definately have a look to see if I can get some more non-flash pages up and running.
Glad you like the structures tbends - doing alot of kitchens these days.

Am also considering the text content - I can see that it is a little distracting but as a resource for a newcomer to the topic I do think that a bit more than 'they are lovely and will make your life happy and full of roses' is a good thing.
No-ones commented on my current lack of contact form, so I guess that's not a critical thing... My brother has been having problems getting one to work in Flash so will push him into doing one that is more simple (unless anyone out there has a quick fix!!)

Again, thanks for everyone taking a look, hope I can return the favour along the line!

Toby

yes, yes! the fading is contencious - you know what I just did to increase the responces for my site BY THREE TIMES!!

simple - I added a little text on my contact page saying; for a brochure call this number ...... or click here for emailing.

This may sound like the most obvious thing but it highlighted that design and swish graphics make up only a small amount to a web site. I will be looking at guiding people through the site (how i want them to) rather than just having content and letting them go around as they want!

once again, thanks for all the critique - it all helps

Toby

i like it although the whole fade in fade out thing on the home page takes attention away from the words and puts it on the animation, also in the gallery the next and previous buttons could be a bit more visable

i agree i checked out the great homepages really suck article lol i love it

I will definately have a good read of those articles thanks Megan - sorry, I meant really that if you want someone to notice to do or go somewhere within the site you need to state it explicitly. I didn't mean I want to lead them round on a course like an ikea store, just make everything super-easy and obvious to do. (I hope my site does have good content that people can pick up or put down as they wish)

I think the more you look at your own designs the more you can miss some really obvious ommissions - another reason why this forum is so useful! all input is good input.

allwayse here to help dude

I have that Great Homepages article saved as a browser note because I post it here so often. It's a must-read.

sweet, i love thease things i get sooooo many article emails its kinda scary lol

wow. this site is awsome. the flash is perfect and seems to fit the site fine.

-ajp

Ok Frost I am sure you are tired of hearing this but I have another angle on why the Fade is not a good thing ... I have spent so many years on computers I have to wear antireflective lenses in my glasses now. the Color fluctuations gave me a headache (really ... not being facetious) when I was trying to read the text. The starting color was probably the best for reading ease since it kept the text standing out the best. I have coded some flash before and if he has the original project file the changing color thing is easy to remove.

On the bonus side I really loved the Layout. Although I would consider a script that allows for a static page if they do not have flash or do not want to view in flash. A static page can be designed to show the exact same thing as the flash, just without the cool animations. Even the Technical page can be done with graphical mapping. and there are java based scripts that would allow the slideshows to be viewable as well without having to lose the overall compositions.

Another bonus of having static versions is that the SEO side will be much better for you.

Overall though the site is absolutely beautiful.

Hi i'm currently an internet Application Programmer student here in Ottawa, and based on the knowledge (not quite enough yet) garnered from my courses specifically my E-Commerce course, i would say that this is a beautiful and well thought out site.

The glitches for me are:

1. The load time is not very good.I do not know how that can be solved since you definitely are using flash player, but something should be done about that.

2. The incidence of the screen changing shades is not very professional since all you really want is for people to see what you're about and hopefully hire you to do some work for them.Professionals do not have time to wait for screens to change shades in order to see what they have to see.

Apart from all that, your site is very beautiful indeed.

As the page loaded I thought - this looks really good. Then half way through reading the first page the sky dimmed and I couldnt read the text until "daylight" returned. Hoping this was just a sad gimmick I tried another page - same thing. Not very clever - a lot of your target audience are going to need some large amounts of spare cash to invest in what looks like an expensive product - they tend to be a bit older (having had a chance to earn it first) and so wont be impressed by such flash (excuse the pun) tricks. Unless you want to restrict your market you should make the site easier to read.

A text only version would be a useful bonus, as flash is not something that can be easily interpreted by screen readers (for visually impaired) nor adjusted to make it easier to see the text due to a restricted font size.

Not bothered to read the other posts so excuse if I am repeating. Cant offer more, as I just couldnt be bothered to read the site due to the fade effect (which I suspect will be a common reaction)