www.phizzylager.com - website that is not pro

phizzy_lager · #1 (**permalink**) 11-11-2003, 04:17 AM

The people that took care of it are non professional website designers, but know about websites...
What do u think of it? General idea?
www.phizzylager.com

info202 · #2 (**permalink**) 11-13-2003, 11:09 PM

First of all, your intro is too long...
when I got to the home page, I had no idea who or what you were... this information should be on the home page... let visitors know about you... If I did not click on the biography, I'd have no idea... text is the most important factor in a successful, professional site... text is what the search engines read... not graphics...
when I clicked on the bio page(s), I found no way to navigate elsewhere... your site should have consistency throughout.. that includes site name, logo and navigation features... professional sites never have the visitors use the "back" feature.. you need to make your site easy to navigate.

freelancemom · #3 (**permalink**) 11-14-2003, 10:22 AM

Well, for not being designers, they do know some tricks :)

One of the first improvements I would make is to clean up your logo. It's a bit jagged.

I also agree that the intro is too long.

Add more pictures of you guys!

It's a good starting point. There is a lot of potential.

Lori

voodooboy · #4 (**permalink**) 11-14-2003, 01:35 PM

OK, let’s start with the basics. I work on a 1280x960 resolution 21" monitor. Your site is HUGE! The text, the links, flash, all too big (large in scale). I switched to 800x600 to check for resize. OH, MY GOSH! Everything is fixed size. The Flash at least should have been set to a percent rate so it would size itself based on resolution and browser size. You could have a really clean site if done right. And I agree with info202 and dewachen, that the intro is too long for what is there. If it incorporated some photos and a little more music like maybe a vocal piece, the length wouldn't be so bad. It just takes too long for what little bit is there.

I am not one for promoting myself in the forums, but I have always wanted to do a band site. If you would like to discuss options, please PM me.

I also was not able to listen to any of the clips, could have been my firewall, but I normally don't have that problem.

Best of luck.

tikanet · #5 (**permalink**) 11-14-2003, 03:51 PM

Now, these criticisms are intended to be constructive. They may sound distructive, but some times you have to tear something down to build something worth having.

Even when Flash intros were all the rage, the best of them were snappy, quick-paced and engaging. That they have passed into oblivion, for the most part, I much relieved. I can only implore you to get rid of yours. It is painfully slow and fails to grab attention, or in any way signify what it is that Phuzzy Lager is all about.

One of the first things you learn about creating a website is that every page should have a link to the home page. While this has been mentioned, it bear repeating.

The second thing a website designer will typically know is that every page should be branded. Let's take your contact page as an example. Even the email addresses don't give us any clue to where we are. Oh, I see. If I scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, I see a copyright notice.

HTML provides a handy code for the copyright symbol, ©. While not completely necessary, it's one of those things that should be taken advantage of.

Some sort of site navigational interface should be present on every page, and ideally there should be at least to types. If you have a grapical nav area, a textual links area is needed, for reasons too numerous to itemize here.

Scaling issues have been addressed, but it is perhaps important to fully appreciate why. For pages with text, such as your Reviews page, a viewer is going to be more likely to actually read the material if it is presented in line of seven to ten words each. On a high res screen, your lines could consist of twenty-five words or more. Very fatiguing to a reader. Constraining the text area into a fixed-width table and applying style sheet declarations to the text will greatly enhance the readability of the page.

It's a good start. Even though a lot of first-timer mistakes were made, there's clearly a dedicated and enthusiastic mind behind the website development. Good luck.

venezart · #6 (**permalink**) 11-14-2003, 05:17 PM

Hello phizzy_lager,
I would suggest star the whole project from scrash, make a list of all the comments you just received, and star a new project keeping in mind to keep it simple.
I suggest star with a peace of paper and create a Hierarchical Structure, havin your index on the top of the list. On a seperate peace of paper, write down all the website sections and their subsections. Add the list to your structure. On your index, create a simple txt navigation, and do not add any content or graphics. connect All your sections as you see them in your structure. Make sure that from any section you could link back to index, and that from every section you could link to all other sections. After you have a smooth link skeleton, add your content, but remember keep it simple and clean.

Hope this helps you out, didnt really critique much the site since everything I would had to critique about was already mention above.

By the way cool music... d-.-b [ Salsa#4 ] a must listen to song d-.-b

Steven Glover · #7 (**permalink**) 11-14-2003, 05:42 PM

Hmmmm.. Happy belated Birthday to Troy and a Happy upcoming Birthday to Lili.

Its good to have a website. I think the biggest issue is your flash. I think I would drop all the flash do a template redesign and host my galleries on your own pages versus using a gallery hosted elswhere. Let me know if I can help you with that. I have done many galleries so I may have some suggestions for you.

See look at this gallery: http://www.brionpricephotography.com/ Something along that lines would look good.

suzn · #8 (**permalink**) 11-14-2003, 07:33 PM

I must agree with all the constructive comments that have been posted before me.

I viewed the site using IE6 and at a resolution of 1024/768 and 32 bit. At this setting the site was absolutely huge but at 800x600 all the jaggies and overly optimized images were very apparent. Most important, the page did not resize properly.

I also ran into a problem with your intro. I clicked on skip intro and had no choice but to sit and wait for it to load anyway which took about 4 minutes on a 56k dial-up.

All in all, I believe you are definitely on the right track. Your Flash effects are smooth and well-done if not slightly over-done. I'm not sure I would trash the design as has been suggested but work with what you have developed and clean it up. Read every tutorial you can find on Web development, Flash, CSS and put them all to good use.

Lastly, I believe one thing must be kept in mind when developing a Web site. Most of the time, less is best.

Suzn

spiderbait · #9 (**permalink**) 11-14-2003, 11:01 PM

Hi all,

It's true that this site is pretty good for a newbie. It's got most if not all of the right elements and now it's a matter of finetuning them to make them work harmoniously together. Much like what you probably have to do as a band.

All of the previous comments are pretty much right on and I won't quibble or reiterate them all. But one thing I haven't seen mentioned is to avoid using underlining to provide emphasis on your pages. Since the standard for links is to show an underline, this can confuse visitors who'll try to click on something that isn't a link. After that, the same visitor may miss clicking on real links because they assume that underlining doesn't mean hyperlink on this site. It would also be good to avoid having too many of your links open in new windows. This can be confusing and annoying.

In terms of addressing the next step in developing this site, I'd probably approach it like this. Find a simple .css stylesheet somewhere from a site that you feel has an attractive font and heading size. "Borrow" that .css stylesheet (you can modify it later) and then attach it to a copy of your site's pages (a fairly simple process depending on what html editor you're using, or else you'll have to read up a bit). You're already using .css on each page, so referencing a separate sheet should be fairly simple. Once you've applied the stylesheet, go about stripping all of the font size and face tags from the copied site and use your editor's style selector to apply styles from the style sheet. In no time at all you'll have learned how to use the style sheet to achieve consistency and you'll start to get an idea about how to create your own stylesheet for your own needs.

If you mess up, you're working with a copy and it won't matter. But the chances are that you'll become happy with the new look and feel and in particular you'll be pleased with the ease with which you can change things. Then you can go over each page and clean up the placement and widths for text and other things as has been suggested. You might even want to create a text-based navigation bar for the bottom of the page and then you can just copy and paste it onto all the pages so it's consistent.

All in all, you're off to a good start and you've received a lot of great advice from all the good people here.

Best of luck

deamothul · #10 (**permalink**) 11-15-2003, 08:33 AM

hiya peers, i dont just wanna destroy this site, but this has gotta be said.This kinda stuff is really bad!!!. that intro i cant even believe that someone would make that, very ugly and unneccesary. very unsharp too those edges

why did u misuse a beautifull app like flash for this.you have the enter part flash and when i click on a link like biographie it just wips up an very ugly html part. and a txt is flickering a bit. That is not what flash is for. this site also could be completely html.

i really dont like it i i cant imagine there are peeps that do, sorry about this but its really how i feel. a bad mis usage of flash and flash gets a bad name by this kinda stuff :D

even for a newbie, which we all are in a certain way, this has to be said.

chefpoe · #11 (**permalink**) 11-16-2003, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phizzy_lager

The people that took care of it are non professional website designers, but know about websites...
What do u think of it? General idea?
www.phizzylager.com

I am no great expert but my first impression is that the intro is just to long and people tend not to wait or loose interest.

The other is need image optimizing to speed things up. I find that takes to long between pages or what ever comes next.

Just my thoughts.

ChefPoe

phizzy_lager · #12 (**permalink**) 12-09-2003, 09:34 PM

One of the webmasters did these tests

Flash intro and menu only

http://www.stevehart-news.com/test.htm

I noticed that the first time I open it, until I load up the whole flash intro it takes some time...

Then the times after that it loads quick.

Thanx for all your feedback, that's really nice ;)

copywrite · #13 (**permalink**) 12-09-2003, 09:44 PM

not much to say here but VERY good job!

You might consider removing the animations, or not use so many, they kinda deter the professionlism from the site.

but to conclude:
Your navigation is easy, colors are perfect and the upload was fast. I especially liked the song "gotta
go now" nice beat :)

Once again, outstanding!

phizzy_lager · #14 (**permalink**) 12-09-2003, 09:48 PM

Are you talking about the new test (i just gave the link)

The menu on the new test links to the old site (current site)

voodooboy · #15 (**permalink**) 12-12-2003, 01:28 PM

You see a quick reload on the flash because after the first loading, the Flash is cached on your computer. I think the enter screen would look better if the three images where one complete image.

After hitting enter and getting the new navigation, the animation above the links is not in sequence with the links. I.e. everything is shifted to the left (biography shows the news animation, gallery shows the music animation, etc.) A suggestion: The main navigation and page should be separate from the intro. When you hit a link to go to a page, and you hit the back button, you have to go through the whole intro again. I know this is just a test, but it looks like the person doing this is layering elements within one movie when they should actually be separate.

Much, much better than the first site.

mruser · #16 (**permalink**) 12-12-2003, 02:19 PM

I really like the little menu page. You could have a description there about what or who or where but I like the concept and the way it works it's kind of kewl and artsy. The text swap is a good effect. The intro I would lose it. The intro just doesn't serve any real function other then throwing the names up. But for a bunch of noobs I think you did a very good job. Keep working on it it's a very good start. :)