New Hunting Site

greeneagle · #1 (**permalink**) 08-26-2006, 04:57 AM

2 Weeks and 30 pages later!

Help me out here…If you have time.

This client and I made initial contact 2 weeks ago, before their most major annual trade show…

What was up…was amateurish at best.

Yes, I know that I haven’t made it around to CSS and XHTML cleanup yet! – Please don’t even comment on that… We had to get something competitive up fast to help fill this season’s bookings and meet post trade show queries.

If you are squeamish about dead animals, you really don’t want to even follow my newest client’s link:

www.pintailfarms.com

I know the routine and no… I can’t even grind the php news pages through the W3C XHTML validation without removing the php – RSS calls.

We had to slam dunk this one out there – NOW!

I am more interested in comments on personal appeal, aesthetics, ease of navigation, competitive value and other substance of value…

If you want to tear me apart forget the code validation and accessibility – No, we haven’t even had time to take care of the alt tags yet…. I know that, that’s not what I am looking for at this stage of the premature release game though..

If you can play with me here, I would appreciate your comments.

On top of that, I am backlogged between 8-10 Sites right now. IMO - The reality is, in all of our discussions here about validation and accessibility... the fact is, sometimes immediate ROI for the client superceeds many technical details in the interim, like it or not.

Forget the "afterbirth" still on the delivery table, a sinister little midget with a mop and a bucket will come around and clean that up... Core focus on short and long term ROI and Competitive value would be greatly appreciated here.

Thanks,
ken

brettgodfrey · #2 (**permalink**) 08-26-2006, 12:16 PM

Ken

I had a quick look (and ignored all the things you asked me to ignore) and have 3 immediate comments

1. I had a bit of difficulty knowing where I was at first. I am more used to the page header title being more promenent on the page.

2. On the Hunting news page the main menu suddenly asppears down the page after the hunting news menu.
This threw me for a moment.

3. The text is too close to the left edge in many places. This sometimes make it difficult to read especially if the border is the same colour as the text. Also black text on brown background is not easy to read.

Hope this helps

greeneagle · #3 (**permalink**) 08-27-2006, 06:12 AM

Thanks for your comments Brett

I understand it is a bit inundating criticizing a MOD's new Site, that's why I posted the exclusions.

I almost agree that I should either lighten the "Mocha" colored background in the H2 headers in the table body or go to the golden color used in the background in the large text of the hunting news pages. That's a 2 minute job since every table element is CSS controlled. That's right, I still use tables because all CSS just hasn't played out on all frontiers yet - IMO.

I don't want to go back to the table background color (lighter) for H2 text though because of the CSS Spam issue.

Regarding your comments on my throwing up a new menu that superceeds the Site Navigation... My thoughts there were at least 2-fold:

1. Once a visitor enters the News Section of the Site, they are more likely to want News as first choice.

Special SEO Note here: Placing CSS navigation on the right hand side of the page places the "textural" links in the middle of the code on down a ways so that content take preiminence. On top of that the Site is a "Living" entity in that it will have multiple pages added in different categories going forward. And on top of that, I assumed that once a visitor determines they want "Hunting News" - Let's go ahead and shovel it out wide and deep.

That decision was made on the fact that during the due-diligence and discovery phase of the Site.... There was just not enough "Authority" in "Hunting News" out there to feed the visitors appropiately.

Another reason I slammed it above the Main Site Navigation for that section is just raw SEO ----- I want the News Pages to stand out every Way possible, while not superceeding the main Site. That's an SEO "trump card" here - IMO.

If you look deep, this is a textbook example of how RSS feeds are to be used in Web-2.0 - IMO:
http://www.pintailfarms.com/Hunting%...ing%20News.php
They aren't meant to propogate Faux Adsense Sites! - The GOOG has moved fairly efectively to shut most of those down already!

IMO - Valid Code and Accessibility aren't top issues for some sites in some circumstances... Let's try and drag our arses away from that a bit and understand the value of immediate ROI for our clients.

Immediate and Long Term ROI (Return on Investment) are what we should be rating sites on in this forum... Not so much code and accessibility sanctimonium!

When approaching a new Site for a client we do do do do do do our due diligence and commit ourselves to a competitive analysis, don't we?

Ken

Tubby · #4 (**permalink**) 08-27-2006, 08:44 AM

Ken, I think I would prefer to find the hunting packages and membership - at the top of the links. . sort of more proudly displayed. I think on this site get the price up front and let the visitors realize what they get as they wander through the web pages.

I would also prefer to see more re-assurance to first time hunters - I would hate to think a couple of visiting excecutives missing out on the season because they did not know if they needed to arrive with their own gun, and waders.

Could a large company take out a membership that could be used by different execs? - excutive gift (membership) FAQ

Very nice Ken,

Tubby · #5 (**permalink**) 08-27-2006, 09:24 AM

P.S.

I think I would use photos like this -
http://www.pintailfarms.com/Upland%2...irdHunt-11.jpg

as a selling the image (desire) opportunity.

just some text like - "brandy" is not a fully trained Golden retriever, because Golden retreivers do not have spots. she is five years old and loves working. Some people are suprised to find that little training is required bla bla.

Ken I think working with a working dog is in itself an amazing experience. . I think pointing things like this out could be a great 'desire' creater.

I think not placing the larger photos on 'Pages' (of sorts) with some text is wasting the veiwing opportunity and SEO opportunity.

'Presenting' a photo - can sell! You have a great chance to create desire here..

greeneagle · #6 (**permalink**) 08-27-2006, 03:20 PM

Tubby:

Quote:

I think I would use photos like this -
http://www.pintailfarms.com/Upland%2...irdHunt-11.jpg

as a selling the image (desire) opportunity.

You did see how I clipped her out of that image and slapped her into that home page collage of 8 or 10 photos... right?:

http://www.pintailfarms.com/

I "walked" her again over here:
http://www.pintailfarms.com/Upland%2...andHunting.htm

She is a beauty isn't she!

Ken

Tubby · #7 (**permalink**) 08-27-2006, 06:48 PM

Yes Ken.

scanmonkey · #8 (**permalink**) 08-28-2006, 08:01 PM

The firearm safety tips on the bottom of each page are a nice touch.

noel_x99 · #9 (**permalink**) 08-29-2006, 11:54 AM

Nice job in a short time.

Aestetically, it seems very appropriate to the company, but there are a few things that bother me.

The logo is a little messy. It looks like it is still aliased to a white background. On the tan it looks a little less sharp than it should.

There also seem to be a few too many blue shades. There's 009, 003, 00F, and a totally unrelated blue heading up the weather section.

How about picking up on the nice reddish brown that you used for the header (936655) under the picture. Use that a little more often.

I'd also suggest a darker version of that brown for the background. The greenish-brown backgound doesn't seem to tie in as well as a dark reddish brown would.

Clicking the logo should take me to the home page.

I also agree with Tubby about moving packages memberships up higher on the page.

It feels like this line: "Our goal at Pintail Farms is to create the best hunting experience possible, one that you will never forget." should be right below the picture in large or bold type. That's what they are about and the first time visitor to the site should know it.

Betty123 · #10 (**permalink**) 08-29-2006, 05:15 PM

Hi

I don't post here much. But I coudn't resist this one.I am professional web designer who does a lot of work for small buisness who are only concerned about ROI.

So here is what I would do.

Check the site in firefox. The text just runs to the edges.( all the links as well) The mocha background & black text is not readable. Try a tint of that mocha or white.
If I am a prospect and wanted to join up I would want to know the different packages up front & the prices More information on the first page.

The logo definetly has to go to home page. As a prospect I would like to see links about hunting news etc on the home page.

In my experience uability always increases the ROI.

Betty

Tubby · #11 (**permalink**) 08-29-2006, 07:56 PM

'Clicking the logo should take me to the home page.'

Yes!,
I did think of mentioning that - but I got carried away chatting when I saw noticed photos being displayed without text.

jeffposaka · #12 (**permalink**) 08-30-2006, 02:39 AM

Ken,

I think having links in the text underlined (rather than in bold) is a good usability move.

I really like site with a favicon or I got used to them, if they are missing it looks like the site's fly is down. ;)

On the rules page, the bulleted points seem to have too much space between them and the signiture is not aligned in Firefox.

When I sent a page to a friend, I got this message:

Quote:

Thnkyou for referring Pintail Farms to your Friends!

Don't forget to bookmark or save our site as a favorite so that you can find us easily next time.

Simply close this window to continue your Visit.

Need to fix that typo and the formatting error (Friends capitalized).

What was the logic of having the links to GoArticles rather than the GoArticle published on the site with a reference back to the author at GoArticles?

Anyway I like the site just needs a few passes to get some of the wrinkles out.

Good luck!

laverto · #13 (**permalink**) 08-30-2006, 04:23 AM

Agree with the others that...

laverto · #14 (**permalink**) 08-30-2006, 04:24 AM

Sorry :)

Agree with the others that...
- your site is good
- your logo must be a link to homepage from all pages (not only from homepage)
- you must replace the invitation to be a member to you right menu because I can't sign up from others pages, for example, from the Photo Gallery section

My best regards,

Annet
Project manager
SavvyBox Systems - web-based and digital solutions
http://shareberryproject.com
http://spinpike.com

greeneagle · #15 (**permalink**) 09-12-2006, 02:08 PM

Sorry it took a while to get back with everyone...

Thanks for your comments.

I believe we have implemented most of the recommended changes along with many more.

The stats and visitor response indicate we are in the throws of a very successful launch.

Ken