Local site with plans for expansion

Any comments on my site?

Sorry for the delay, Alex.

This site is taking quite a long time to load in Opera. I don't know what the problem is. Oh, it's giving me a Joomla error message. I'll try back later.

Except that it works in Firefox! I don't know what's up with that.

The template looks good. Nice and not too template-ish. Except that you can tell by the logo that it is a template. Try to keep your logo really simple. It's a good idea to introduce a contrasting colour but I don't think red or dark blue would be the right choice here. Orange might work. The font you've chosen for the logo is goodbut the effects are really overdone. Keep it simple simple simple. Also make sure that your graphic is optimized correctly so it doesn't look fuzzy.

Now, the site itself. The welcome message is okay but I think it would be good to have some pictures that immediately tell the visitor that this is a site about food. The blue colour isn't great for the topic either because blue is an unappetizing colour. Seriously - read up on colour theory a bit. You'll never see a blue restaurant because blue is known to be unappetizing. They often use the opposite (orange) to make people feel more hungry.

That front page bit should also be shorter and to the point. Think about what the reader really needs to know. Using bulleted lists is good (and you've done that). When writing for the web it is really important to keep things short. For example "Download the food menu of any place listing with us" could just be "Download menus".

The pop-out menus look okay but the black colour doesn't coordinate well with the rest of the site design. I actually find the animation there to be a little annoying.

Navigating to the directory - this section is quite slow for me in Firefox.

A pretty good job overall. Work should be done on the graphics (get someone to help you if you need to), and building content.

(Just reloaded in Opera becuase I got the same message in Firefox and it works this time. Seems to be a bit of a random problem).

Hi and thanks for your great comments,
I know what you mean about the error messages, I think its something to do with my host being very slow! Although the site is only on a temporary holding host/domain until design is finished! Hopefully things should improve when I migrate!
Following your comments I'm off to change the logo colours and make my intro page more to the point. I have a habit of over-complicating and over-explaining simple things thinking it gets the message across more which simply isnt always the case!
I did have a few problems with designing my logo as this was my first time using PhotoShop- although I learnt some good techniques for next time round.
I'll post back when I've made some minor alterations!
Thanks
Alex

I like the bright color scheme. So far so good. I am looking forward, of course to seeing more restaurants listed here.

I also like the pop-out options menus that appear when I point on a page link on the left hand side of your website. I think overall your site appears very attractive.

One suggestion:

I think that you should have a direct link to the "Eats Directory right in the middle of your home page. You could lead in to it by saying "if you want to find out where you can eat it or take away in hull Click here”.

It would also be great to have restaurant category listings according to the type of cuisine offered. These categories could be organized in a variety of ways. For example, restaurants could be set up according to price, ethnicity, or class (fast food, fine dining, etc) of food. I am sure that this will come with the addition of many new sites.

Also, if possible, it is better I think to always have (for lazy site viewer like me) to have everything instantaneously viewable and printable in html or similar format. PDF is great for selling e-books, but not so great for offering free menus. I think it’s always better to have the menus on a page that people do not have to download. PDF always takes too long. HTML is always better.

I did want to say that I like the way the home page title is laid out. It gives it an old classic look. By the way, I do have one concern, though. Pizza? Why pizza as your logo on the front page? Is pizza really that big of a thing in the UK? I was just wondering. Why not a sea food picture as a logo on the first page instead? Or something that would be more internationally known as something from the UK, such as a country flag or something.

Keep up the good work, though. I especially like the yellow color scheme. I think it is very cheerful and inviting, and surprisingly very easy to read. It’s just right and not too bright. I like that.

Thanks for your kind comments. In reply to some of your concerns:

• Pizza & fast food shops in our area are definitely a major part of the food industry here. In fact, all major cities in the UK have many many of these shops! In Hull alone there are over 280 and some streets have as many as 20 on one street. This is why I chose to market this industry as it could be very lucrative. I hope to have 300+ local food related places listed in my directory!
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• At the moment, the way my content management is set up, the website will not list any categories ("types of cuisines") unless there are any places listed in them. This saves space on the webpage and eliminates any un-necessary information being displayed. I plan to have about 12 categories of places to eat that customers can drill down through.
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• The reason I chose PDF as the format for downloading menus is because each shop will be providing me with a copy of their menu in electronic format. It is much easier for them to provide it in PDF as this is a more universal format and also means that I dont have to convert/edit anything sent to me. Managing 400 menus on a weekly basis could become a tedious job if not handled correctly- so PDF means I can just upload and not have to worry about anything else. If anyone knows of an easy way to display PDF as HTML without any time/effort involved in the conversion then please let me know!
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• There aren't many listings in the directory yet as I am still to contact the shops & restaurants to arrange details and finalisations etc. This will take months!
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• ...thanks for your suggestion of a direct link to the directory on the homepage- I will do that tonight!

Many many thanks for your comments so far!

Anyone else?
Alex

the design is good.
i think the color of the text is not dark enough.
the yellow background makes it unsual. we usually dont find many websites with an yellow background.
regarding the search box on the right column, there is no search button as we see in most websites.

layout is good and overall content is good, but when i click on a directory listing i get this: http://www.jewelrysummit.com/images/eatsdirectory.jpg