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Critique of hand coded website, please

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Markjayman

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I have been posting to find constructive critisism on my first hand coded website. I had a little help with "tables" but that's about all.

I find it's functional and fairly straightforward but... I'm no expert by ANY means!

Thank you in advance for blunt, constructive critique.... you can't hurt my feelings, you can only help me learn so dont be shy :-)

Thanks!
Markjay
--
you can't always get what you want
 
I have been posting to find constructive critisism on my first hand coded website. I had a little help with "tables" but that's about all.

http://brightsidestudio.com

I find it's functional and fairly straightforward but... I'm no expert by ANY means!

Thank you in advance for blunt, constructive critique.... you can't hurt my feelings, you can only help me learn so dont be shy :-)

Thanks!
Markjay
--

--
you can't always get what you want
 
I would like to see the same buttons that are availible on the home page on the subsequent gallery pages. I realize that most of them are the same, maybe in the same order or something. I like consistancy. Just mho.
--
Nicole
 
i like the banner a lot but the buttons look a bit clunky.....could do with refining.

the gallery sections seem to take a long time to load on my pc and im on a broadband connection.

For a hand coded site i think you should be pleased. However, i dont think a client really cares if it is hand coded or not, just that they have a good experience.

Kind Regards
Paul
http://www.pauledwardsphotography.co.uk
 
Since you pointed out that it is hand-coded, I hope you don't mind some suggestions for your HTML code:

It is usually a good idea to close tags again after you open them. While most browsers don't care, you never know what happens after a few more changes. On your home page there are open <p>, <body>, <html>, and possibly a couple of <table> tags.

Another thing I don't like are all your <span class="subtitle"> tags. There are HTML tags for just that: <h1>...<h6>

And finally, I would like to see some meaningful page titles, e.g. "Still Life Gallery" instead of the "Breathtaking photography to decorate your home or office" on almost every page.

The design is simple and nice, and everything seems to work just fine, but I could live without the java scripts. But maybe that's just me...
 
Hi Mark,

Kudos for handcoding. It can be a slow arduous process but I think anyone interested should learn this way first, then move on to more productive software if needed. Its makes one a much stronger coder I think...

On the site. I think the simplicity is great. It's fairly easy to "know what to do" next to get where you want. I might have added some type of "back to menu" or "go to home page" type of button up with the Back Gallery and Next Gallery buttons to help visitors intuitively navigate through all the galleries quickly.

The only other things I see is the header at the top has a nice design set in red, gold & black. However once below the header none of that theme is repeated. Maybe take the "Abstract & Still Life Gallery Notes" section at the bottom, make the title dark red and the text dark gray or black instead of using the colors from the view cart button. Just a few tweaks to pull everything together into one complete statement. I would lose the lavender colored scrollbar IMHO...

I'd also kill the "no-right-click" script as it irritates 90% of the people vs the 10% it impedes. If they can see it they can grab it anyway....

Best regards and great pictures-

Karbo

--
'Great minds talk about ideas, Simple minds talk about people'

http://karywall.com
 
You've done a pretty good job overall. Some minor suggestions:

1) Add a warning if the user doesn't have javascript turned on. More and more users have javascript turned off by default, and if you don't get a warning, you think the site just doesn't work.

2) Avoid "keyword stuffing" in the keywords metatag. For example, don't repeat the word "photography" in each phrase. This will never help you with search engines, and may end up hurting you.

3) Since you've gone this far with "hand coding", take the next step and learn CSS. It'll make your site MUCH more maintainable and consistent from browser to browser.

4) Some of your images are awfully small, barely bigger than a thumbnail. Selling images from the web is a crapshoot as it is, but if they're that small, you're killing your chances.

5) I agree with the comment about disabling right clicks on the site. This is just aggravating, and does nothing at all to protect your image.

6) Your "gallery notes" are mostly copyright information. I would make them more about the gallery.
--
http://www.tomoscott.com/
http://www.ordovergallery.com/TomOScott/
http://www.ordoverproject.com/TomOScott/
Canon EOS20d
Mamiya 7ii
 
Markjayman said:
you can't always get what you want
Click to expand...
Not a good way to do business. Of course you can get what you want. It may cost the earth, but... :-)

Two handy references that I considered a MUST when I was hand-coding were the W3C validator service:

http://validator.w3.org/

and TidyHTML:

http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/

Your home page didn't pass validation, sorry. Good news is that most of the errors were on line 37. I'm not sure I understand the error messages, at least the discription of them, as they refer to the use of "strict," suggest "transitional," and that's what you've done. You'll need to research those error messages a bit farther.

I know all your print options make it difficult, but I found it unnerving to put a photo in my cart before knowing how expensive it was. Maybe if you just use a different phrase than cart. Something like "photo of interest."

With so many websites to manage (2, with my church asking me to do a 3rd), I've given up hand coding and gone to Joomla! Digital Content Manager for my web site, and Gallery 2 to handle my photos. It's truely amazing how quickly a website can get out of hand. My second site was inherited from someone who used Yahoo!'s site developer, and the contortions I had to go through just to get the code to run on a non-Yahoo! service were enough to drive me nuts.

With Joomla!, I can change the look and the content quite easily by changing the templates or modifying the css. Best of all, it's open-source, and free!

Here are the two sites so you can see how they ended up:

http://www.I-Do-Photography.com
http://www.ClayCountyBand.org

More on Joomla!:

http://www.joomla.org/

More on Gallery and Gallery2:

http://gallery.menalto.com/

Hope this helps,

--
  • Arved
'Take only pictures. Leave only footprints.' - Photographer's creed
 
THANK YOU!!

Your information (same for everyone else who posted replies so far) have been really valuable to me and a learning experience!
-

Since this is the first website I have EVER "done" on my own, I knew I was going to learn quite a few lessons...... and I wasn't mistaken.

I think the site is very functional and easy to navigate but, I think my home page buttons are a little clunky.. maybe a menu bar will be more clean and fitting for the page?

Well, I have a great deal of "fixing" to do in the code, mostly in a few lines but please...... keep the suggestions coming!!

Thank ALL of you!
Markjay
 
I dont' have time to reply to ALL of these posts today but I wanted to thank you very much for your taking the time to "do this"

Your info was very valuable to me!

Markjay
 
Great start! I agree with several of the comments made above, so I won't rehash them (except for the buttons: I agree, they could use some work. Possibly just personal opinion)

The next step to think about is a more powerful language. If you are set on coding your own pages, then take full adavantage of that power. I use Microsoft .NET's web dev tools for my coding. Very easy to figure out and very power. And it is now free: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vwd/default.aspx

I am totally sold on this concept. All of my pages are build using asp.net. But what I am most pleased with is the ability to build all of my menus and page information into a database. This way when I want to change my structure, I can do it without changing code; just edit the database, which can be done from a web site on any computer on the internet. If you are interested in learning more, let me know and I'll shoot you some sample pages of mine to use as a reference. I'm by know means an expert, I am able to build my own tools to run my business.

--
--
Josh
J. E. Greer Photography
http://www.jegreer.com
Markjayman said:
I have been posting to find constructive critisism on my first hand
coded website. I had a little help with "tables" but that's about
all.

I find it's functional and fairly straightforward but... I'm no
expert by ANY means!

Thank you in advance for blunt, constructive critique.... you can't
hurt my feelings, you can only help me learn so dont be shy :-)

Thanks!
Markjay
--
you can't always get what you want
Click to expand...
 
Great post!

Thank you for opening my eyes to a new idea...

I'm always open for learning, as long as the curve is not too steep because I'm not a man with a ton of free time on my hands. Geez... if you know how many hours I put into this website! :-O

Now I know what designers get the big bucks! he he

Thank you for directing me to the development page, I downloaded one of the apps to tinker when WHEN time allows.

In the meantime..... I'm back to the grind of the website "fixing" tonight!
I would MUCH rather be taking pictures :0

Thanks again and please..... anyone else who would like to contribute ideas or suggestions and constructive critique is more than welcome
http://brightsidestudio.com

Later!
Markjay
 
Thanks to your comments and a little more smart thinking....

I think things are starting to look a little more sensible on the site!

Especially my top nav menus (which are not completely finished).
I'll be creating separate pages for mouse pads and coasters etc.

Thanks and keep the critique / comments coming!

Markjay
http://brightsidestudio.com
 
Markjayman said:
Great post!
Click to expand...
Hmm, why pay top dollar for a development environment when you can achieve the same functionality with php or perl or python ....

remember, when you go the .NET route .... youre stuck with everything Microsoft .... operating system, webserver .... the works....

I would go with open source, apache running on windows or windows (whichever you prefer) and a good scripting language like PHP..

just try to avoid vendor lock in, because .... Microsoft will change their stuff eventually ... they almost always do... mostly it will be just a rehash of the latest and greatest hype, now it's .NET but it used to be ASP and COM and DDE etc etc .....

just my two cents..

Remko
 
I agree with you Remko2. However, the bottom line is, you have to use what makes you the most productive. I started with HTML, and I later went the PHP route. I spent several months learning PHP and dev'ing my pages. Then I re-built the entire thing in 1 weekend using asp.net; and added some stuff I could never figure out in PHP. The .NET stuff just makes more sense to me; and am therefore more productive.

--
--
Josh
J. E. Greer Photography
http://www.jegreer.com
Remko2 said:
Markjayman said:
Great post!
Click to expand...
Hmm, why pay top dollar for a development environment when you can
achieve the same functionality with php or perl or python ....

remember, when you go the .NET route .... youre stuck with
everything Microsoft .... operating system, webserver .... the
works....

I would go with open source, apache running on windows or windows
(whichever you prefer) and a good scripting language like PHP..

just try to avoid vendor lock in, because .... Microsoft will
change their stuff eventually ... they almost always do... mostly
it will be just a rehash of the latest and greatest hype, now it's
.NET but it used to be ASP and COM and DDE etc etc .....

just my two cents..

Remko
Click to expand...
 
elcray said:
I agree with you Remko2. However, the bottom line is, you have to
use what makes you the most productive. I started with HTML, and I
later went the PHP route. I spent several months learning PHP and
dev'ing my pages. Then I re-built the entire thing in 1 weekend
using asp.net; and added some stuff I could never figure out in
PHP. The .NET stuff just makes more sense to me; and am therefore
more productive.
Click to expand...
Hmm, you seem to be falling in the 'I can create a great prototype with xxxx' trap.

When developing software ( and a website is software), don't just look at how easy it is to create you initial prototype ....

lots of tools a geared towards this approach, the trick is to pull you in, untill you're stuck with their tool.

Maintenance of software is just as important as the initial development costs ....

IMHO all the so-called rad tools tend to bite back in the maintenance stage, then changing things becomes .... tedious (read expensive).

and bottomline is ..... initial development is in the complete lifetime of a product necligable, maintenance however .... never really stops ..

Remko
 
Thanks for all your help!!

Still have quite a bit of work to do but.....

removed the clunky buttons from the home page since I have a galleries drop down on the menu bar (was redundant)

made the center image a simple flash image changer to add a little more interest.

now I'm going to add a light background texture to the background so it's not so... bland and it will likely have a tinge of color matching the header.

Also have not yet separated the mouse pads and coasters into to separate more visually attractive pages and a list of code fixes / corrections too.

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a bunch!
 
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