Forum Moderators: not2easy
I just made my first site, and i have had some complaints with it. On my computer the screen resolution looks fine, but some people have complained that they have to scroll left and right on the first page, how can i change that? Also, some people on dial up have said that it takes too long to load, anything i can do to speed it up?
Thanks for your input.....
<snip>
[edited by: korkus2000 at 2:40 pm (utc) on Sep. 21, 2004]
[edit reason] No site reviews please [/edit]
All my sites are no wider then 780 pixels. This takes into consideration some fairly small monitors. This is a general rule of thumb I follow.
As for the load time of the site, you can use some very good tools on the web to give output on the loadtime and what images are taking the longest. It is my opinion that a well designed site will have small images like bullets and rollovers for menu items, etc, as opposed to a couple of very large images. It keeps your users happy when the page loads quickly. A lot of novice webmasters make this mistake.
I think I read somewhere (please correct me if I am wrong), but the average wait time a person will ait fo a site to load is between 4 and 6 seconds. If the page is not loaded in that time, they will either click a visible link or hit the back button.
It's your call.
Thanks for the input, i appreciate it. What are the tools on the web to determine load times? And i understand what you mean about bullets and rollovers, but if my site is mainly all about displaying the graphics of my products, what do i do?
Also, I had put a link to my site in my first post so that people could go to it and look around and critique it for me, but now where i put that link is says <snip>.
Why is that? Does it only show up like that for me and everyone else can see the link? Were you able to go to my site to see the problems i was talking about?
Thanks,
Goldenrod
PS. I think i just answered my own question. I clicked on the "posting guidelines" link and it said something about not asking people to review your site. Im sorry, i didn't know. Does anyone here know of other forums that have knowledgeable people that will take a look at the site and help break down its faults? Thanks
The moderators take the URLs out of posts to make sure that people are not promoting their sites. There are people here that will review your site if that is what you want. All you have to do is put your website url in your profile and refer to it in your posts. As far as other forums, I tend not to use any but this one.
coho75
Yeah, you better watch out about posting your URL. It may tick the mods off.
Anyway. To answer a couple of your questions.
To find a tool to check the load time, go to google and search for
load time checker
load time check
loading time check
or whatever. You will find lots of free tools that you can use online to check your pages.
As far as the images on your site, I have some suggetions. I have several sites for printers and desktop publishers. They all want large images on their front page. Usually we will try to compromise. I understand those creative types.
You might want to make thumbs of the images that enlarge when you click on them. This gives the user the option of looking at the images more closely, and more importantly --if they WANT TO.
Next, I would concentrate more on the text of the front page and less on the imagery. The load time will greatly improve.
Now I understand that you want to hit the users with your stuff right away, and that is natural, especially for the artistic types. But a couple of thing to keep in mind...
If a person is going to your site to get your phone number (hopefully for some work for you or to but your service or product), if it takes a minute or 2 to load the pages because they are on a dial-up, you are going to lose the client. Same if they are looking for an address or any other type of info. Who knows? Maybe they saw your work or product already and just want some info.
I always leave the onus of the site experience up to the user to control. What does that mean? Make a clear, concise front page with a menu that leaves the user feeling like they are in complete control. In the menu, have "Click Here for Examples" that goes to page that has thumbs that are clickable to larger images. Then if people want to view these images, they can. You might want to also add "Click Here for Contact Information." "Click Here for History." etc etc etc
You get the idea. This puts the user in complete control and makes for a site that makes much more sense. Then your users are getting exactly what they want when they want it!
Granted, I know that you want the site to look nice, but with a little experimentation and smaller tight graphics on the front page, I think you will be netter off.
[edited by: webdude at 7:06 pm (utc) on Sep. 22, 2004]
p.s.
All this stuff is just my opinion, of course, but I am telling you what has worked for me :-)
