Please Review PierceCabinets.com

Hi Chris.

This is realy not bad for a first effort. You've got all the basic elements in place, and it works reasonably well. The front page is very well done, it shows what the company can do and explains all the key points in a introduction.

The first thing I want to comment on is that a lot of the images look really distorted. Like they've been resized in the HTML or over-optimized in photoshop. This site really needs to show off the company's work, so the photos need to be of good quality. The logo also looks mishapen because you've used HTML to resize it rather than resizing it in photoshop and putting a smaller version on the site. I think this would look better if the logo was at it's regular scale, perhaps smaller and then the images placed next to the cruve at the same height (so they wouldn't be smaller and inset like they are now - it's impossible to see anything of value at that size).

The navigation buttons could also use some work.

Weird things are happening in the gallery when you click on some of the sub-navigation links. Links are opening in the wrong frames. You will want to move away from using frames like this. Look into ways of including standard files without frames. This thread might help you:

http://www.webmaster-forums.net/showthread.php?t=32574

Hope that helps,

How would i optimize the full size images and still get them to load quickly. I resized them in photoshop then optimized. I need them to load fairly quickly on dial up.

As Megan says, i'd play around with images. We are in a Broadband age, trying to make pictures as small as possible isn't as important anymore. Some of your smaller buttons are quite hard to make out.

I remember when i first started out i tried every little toy i found but things like the ticker tape will annoy users over time. Especially when they move so fast!

I'm not sure a serif font works for the content but other than that, it's a good start.

-Rob

Good Job on a first site, although Ill repeat some of the points above...

-your image compression shouldnt be so drastic, the site needs good quality photos
-news tickers are just not needed, use a news box instead
-the font looks a little jagged, maybe you can do something about it...
-should indicate that thumbnails above are mouse-over images,
-buttons could be redone
-also the blue is too dark, but it works, maybe i just dont like deep blue

All in all a good start, minor tweaks does the trick...

I just thought I would add that on my 800X600 screen, I am not able to view the entire picture, maybe about 80% of each picture is viewable. They are going off the screen and there isn't any horizontal or vertical scroll to move around to view the entire picture if I wanted to.

Think of this as a practise site... If this is the first site that you have done... Hurry up and build a new one. This was what you did to learn how to build websites. Go with CSS, that is a smart move. Also, I would use text links instead of graphic links... The image buttons that you are using don't really add anyting to the page. If you look at the links on this page they are designed to be iconic...

The most important thing as has already been said is cleaning up your photographs. Are you using a digital camera? Photoshop? It is ok to make your images 360pixels x 252, just make sure that they are crisp and clean. I would also consider hiring a photographer... All the pictures are taken from the same perspective... This could be done a little bit more creatively.

Finally, as has been already mentioned... I would work the logo a little bit.

Just wait till you start using CSS... I have just begun redoing our site using it, it is a great tool.

Quote:
Just wait till you start using CSS... I have just begun redoing our site using it, it is a great tool

CSS is not a tool...

Well... I would argue that.

CSS is actually a style sheet, a set of standard code to make better designs using an html and css combo... a hammer is a tool.

Yep... And CSS is a tool to help you design the look and feel of a site... Like a paintbrush is a tool... so is CSS.

hmmm... lets see, ok i get it, depends on your interpretation anyways, so my bad...
i usually consider programs as tools, and codes as a system of standards... if codes are used in a different context, it will be a tool... The usage in the sentence is just plain and vague for me...

Lol... i see your point. I will do a better job of clarificatio in the future.

I have made some changes to the site. Please let me know if Im on the right track. As far as the pictures go they where taken with a cheap 3MP digital with no thought to composition. I am in the proccess of getting new photos for the site. Also I wanted to add a contact page where people could send me messages and I would store them in a MySql DB but my code is not working. I have posted about it in the other forum. Thanks for all of your opinoins and help.

The site looks nice and clean to me. The only suggestion I would have is to perhaps work on your text formatting a little. It seems rather heavy and the alignment doesnt flow with the image to well I find. Perhap try a serif font, as for longer groups of text, it makes it easier to follow. Other than that, very pleasing color scheme.

Good Luck