Got a New Website

AlanLichty

AlanLichty

Moderator
I haven't gone through everything on your new site yet but I like how this presents your work. Website navigation is intuitive and the graphics are tasteful and not overdone.

Critical points:
On your intro page the grayed out heading tab overlaps the text and image (Safari on a MacBook Pro) - should be an easy fix:

upload_2020-4-26_19-5-33.png


I found the pace of the slide show too quick at least for me. I wanted to linger just a bit longer than the timer was set for - your work is worth it :)

Nice site - congratulations on launching it.
 
JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
A few thoughts...

First off this is really awesome! I mean really awesome!

To Alan's point I thought the slide show timing was perfect, at least for me. Maybe you have adjusted the time?

Also to Alan's comment about the gray overlay, with Microsoft Edge it simply scrolls as the page is scrolled down, so I found nothing wrong with that as what it overlaps depends on how much you have scrolled. It looked like from Alan's screen print it was fixed on Safari?

Now... my thoughts. :)

1. My only nit. The periods in your intro text are so small, I actually can't see them, they are microscopic almost. So it looks like there is no punctuation in that text. Only when I stick my face to my screen can I see the very tiny single pixel of a period. :rolleyes:

2. I thought your use of a Down Arrow over the slide show to let the viewer know to scroll down incredibly smart! What a great idea.

3. At the bottom, I loved how the panels with the categories slide left and right as I scrolled. That... is so very cool!

4. When going into a Gallery, I loved the way the photos filled up the space shooting across the gallery page. Awesome!

5. Very pleasing color theme too. That's often a very hard choice to make when creating a website. Do you go with Black? With White? Some other color? Your choice here is very pleasing.
 
Douglas Sherman

Douglas Sherman

Staff
Jeffrey said:
Plenty of time lately fo finally wrap up my new photography website, months in the making. Besides the content, which I hope you will like, I need feedback about the navigation and site build. I just launched it today, and there's always some stuff that could be better. Your comments are appreciated.

www.jeffreysipress.com
Click to expand...
That is a wonderful website, Jeffrey. I agree with Alan that the pace of image change is a bit fast. I too like to take in the image for a little more time especially when they are as beautiful as yours. Congratulations on a great job. The time you put into this was definitely worth it.
 
Amy Earl

Amy Earl

Well-Known Member
Congrats on the new site, Jeffrey!

I was always impressed by your work here on the forum and now being able to see the best of your work displayed all together like this on your site is really awe-inspiring. Your Desert scenes are breathtaking!

Couple comments on the site functionality for a web developer's standpoint:

1. It would benefit from an SSL certificate - your web guys can set that up. Your site is being served over regular http (the full address is http://jeffreysipress.com) but the now standard, more secure option is https. As it is it's showing a "not secure (!)" message in the address bar of the browser.

2. As Alan mentioned, the header tab that stays stuck to the top of the screen as you scroll seems a little tall, it overlaps 1/4 of my screen vertically and gets in the way of appreciating the content. On a lot of websites using this sticky header, the logo is reduced in size upon scroll so that the tab can be reduced in height.

3. The navigation links, being light in color, disappear over some photos that have a light background (the zebras, for example). No issue with the Rose photo which provides lots of contrast. So I would either avoid light photos for the slideshow or provide some kind of background overlay on the navigation links to distinguish them.

4. The site works smoothly on my phone. The galleries are taking considerable time to load in their entirety on my phone but that could be my connection speed - however it's not happening on my laptop on the same connection so that's weird. This lag happens with no indication that it's still "working" so the viewer wonders whether something is broken as there is a big black space at the bottom of the page (a placeholder for the unloaded photos, I imagine).

The overall design is clean, aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate.

I love the "photo journal" as a new name for the blog. What a great idea, not only for the name but the idea of sharing your trips and stories invites one to want to read them. Looking forward to reading these :)

Your initials as the favicon in the browser tab looks very nice.

Can I ask how much the site cost approximately? Just curious. It's a nice, professional-looking site.
 
Ben Egbert

Ben Egbert

Forum Helper
Staff member
Excellent site Jeffrey. It's really fun to see the images you shot on some of our trips together. I really like what you did at Cathedral valley and it inspires me to take another look.
 
Jeffrey

Jeffrey

Well-Known Member
Amy Earl said:
Congrats on the new site, Jeffrey!
Click to expand...
Thanks so much Amy. That's exactly the kind of feedback I need. The SSL is in progress, waiting for my hosting to engage that. Having any graphics or text over any imagery is always a challenge at some point. Sometimes it just doesn't read well, but I'm trying to keep that to a minimum. By the time one of the lighter images appears, the viewer will likely have already seen my name sufficiently (and be tired of it!). I'm still having issues with the nav toolbar not appearing above the image viewing lightbox in just some of the galleries (when the visitor clicks on any gallery thumb, which starts the slideshow), even though the settings are the same. At least the L/R arrows are working and sharp visitors will use the keyboard cursor keys. I do need to alter the top screened bar when the page scrolls down. The download speed will improve when Cloudflare kicks in, in a day or so. BTW, the logo of my name at the top is actually hand lettered by my wife, a professional calligrapher. Whew, a million decisions and settings behind me...!

I don't have a final cost, but I'm getting a nice friends rate from my web gal, who has done other sites for organizations like the ones I serve on.
 
Jeffrey

Jeffrey

Well-Known Member
JimFox said:
A few thoughts...
First off this is really awesome! I mean really awesome!
Click to expand...

Thanks so much, Jim. I still need to tweak the font size in a few places. The duration of each image in a slide show is always going to be good for some and not so good for others. Impatient visitors will bail it it's too slow. Those that like to sink their eyes into compelling image (like us here) are disappointed. Remember that you can pause the slide show anytime with the top nav toolbar. I'm thrilled that so much of it is working for you.
 
Jim Dockery

Jim Dockery

Well-Known Member
Two thumbs up from me! On my Mac with 28 in. screen the grey header tab doesn't bother me. I love your intro slide show - works perfect on my computer with a fast cable connection, but wonder how it would do on slower wi-fi. I was a bit disappointed in the size of the gallery images - you have so many gorgeous images I would love to examine full screen at my leisure.
 
Jeffrey

Jeffrey

Well-Known Member
Jim Dockery said:
Two thumbs up from me! On my Mac with 28 in. screen the grey header tab doesn't bother me. I love your intro slide show - works perfect on my computer with a fast cable connection, but wonder how it would do on slower wi-fi. I was a bit disappointed in the size of the gallery images - you have so many gorgeous images I would love to examine full screen at my leisure.
Click to expand...

Thanks so much, Jim. I can't do full screen on ALL images in the galleries because of monster file sizes and the IQ variations due to browser resizing between the variously sized monitors that are used by visitors. So I left them for the homepage to provide a hefty impact upon first arrival. You can hit cmd+ on your mac to enlarge them at your will.

I really appreciate your comments.
 
Jameel Hyder

Jameel Hyder

Moderator
Staff member
Finally got a chance to check this out Jeffrey. I am viewing it on a 32" 4K monitor, so some of the comments others have mentioned doesn't bother me. The images are awesome and enjoyed viewing them on a large display. I am sure have many prints hanging somewhere from that collection.
 
Amy Earl

Amy Earl

Well-Known Member
Jameel Hyder said:
Finally got a chance to check this out Jeffrey. I am viewing it on a 32" 4K monitor, so some of the comments others have mentioned doesn't bother me. The images are awesome and enjoyed viewing them on a large display. I am sure have many prints hanging somewhere from that collection.
Click to expand...
That's a huge monitor, Jameel! :eek: Especially compared to my puny 15.6" laptop screen (at least it's 4K). I'm envious of everyone's nice screens. Sometime in the near future I hope to get one myself.
 
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