My website - work in progess - feedback needed

[poshgaffer]

Dear All,

Please have a look at this website which is unfinished work in progess. Any initial feedback would be appreciated.

www.theallens.co.uk/aa/home.htm

Kind regards,

poshgaffer

[mrbusiness999]

First of all, what I am saying is my opinion and is meant to help.

Right maybe it's because I am in the industry myself but I would advise you to hire a good web designer. The scope for this project is huge. There are so many things that you could do and I think that a great design would really help improve business for you and reflect your professionalism. An example of this would be to create a French version of the site and to be honest this would only increase the level of professionalism in the eyes of your clients.

I like the colour scheme that you have gone with, I think that the basic layout is there, but this is where a professional web designer will excels as they would add that little extra something to your site that just pulls it all together. I feel that you are moving in the right direction but with that little extra something it could be a great site.
Anyway, keep up the good work.

[sarahpatience]

Being a web designer I would have to agree with mrbusiness999 ;-) or I'd be out of a job! However, I personally don't think there is a lot wrong with your site. One thing I would suggest though is to move the right hand column with navigation over to the left of the page as viewers will read the page from left to right and are more comfortable with navigation elements being positioned on the left. By doing this, and perhaps centring the site in the page I think you have a pretty decent site there.
Hope this helps,
Sarah

[multilingual]

Personal opinion is:

You should move the nav bar and the logo to the left as Sarah suggested, but I don't like the over-use of red in the colour scheme. Red is one of natures repellants and as such will instantly put some people off sub-consiously. Red means stop, danger, warning, etc. Blue is good as it is serious and trustworthy, which is how you want to be seen.

The basics of the site is ok, but you don't have any meta tags at present, which may be because it is still being put together.

Offering the site in other languages would certainly impress and add that sense of professionalism, but make sure it is done by a native linguist who understands the subject.

Being able to speek French, and being able to write fluently in that language are very different things. You can do more harm than good with a poor quality translation.

If you want any advice about website localization feel free to drop me a line.

JB

[JoyDivision]

The logo text might be better done in CSS as I am not really sure why an image as been used when all it is text.

Other than that there is nothing I can say that others haven't.

[ChrisSallis]

I do agree with everyone else that the menu needs moving.

Although at the bottom right and corner you have 2 buttons for logins which do not show up clear enough.

** I also think you should get a web designer and would you believe it I am one to. lol

Mouse overs would be a good little effect to use especially on your 3 buttons at the centre of the page.

Hope this advise helps if you need any help feel free to PM me.

[MichaelG]

Navigation position: Left or Right?

Although it's common to have the navigation on the left, I really think it makes better sense to have it on the right. We put navigation on the left mainly because that's the way it has always been.

It make sense to have the navigation on the right - bcos

01: most people use their right hand to move the mouse.
02: scroll bar for vertical scrolling is positioned on the right.
03: its easier to move mouse from scroll bar to nav (if on the right)
04: having nav on the left, means moving my mouse pointer across the screen and back again to scroll down a page.

If navigation bars are positioned to the right - It will save your mouse around 19km travelling time a year ;)

[webdesignguy]

If navigation bars are positioned to the right - It will save your mouse around 19km travelling time a year ;)

lol, good point. Think my mouse travels further than I do

[poshgaffer]

Many thanks for your input people.

To the more commercial responses: What could you propose & what are the costs?

[NS-Icon]

Hi,

I would agree with most of the comments already made here by other members.

I would just like to add, there is a lot of white space which seems to make the site appear very plain, and you can work with this space to make the site more appealing.

Furthermore, the text could be improved a little, especially size and clarity along with the login buttons at the bottom right which are hardly visible clearly at all.

We do offer competitive web site development services and tend to cater to your actual needs, if you are still looking for a professional to help develop aspects of the site get in touch and we can discuss your needs.

You can view our portfolio at our website, http://www.netspaceonline.net

[NS-Icon]

Hi,

I would agree with most of the comments already made here by other members.

I would just like to add, there is a lot of white space which seems to make the site appear very plain, and you can work with this space to make the site more appealing.

Furthermore, the text could be improved a little, especially size and clarity along with the login buttons at the bottom right which are hardly visible clearly at all.

We do offer competitive web site development services and tend to cater to your actual needs, if you are still looking for a professional to help develop aspects of the site get in touch and we can discuss your needs.

You can view our portfolio at our website, http://www.netspaceonline.net

[babybiz]

www.hillmcglynn.com/index.asp

This is one of the competition and shows why if you want to be taken seriously you really need to get your site designed for you. I see you're in southampton, small world :)

For what it's worth I think your site looks nice it's just that in your industry your competition is fierce and if you are going to compete for online business you will need to look the biz so to speak. I agree if you specialise in English and French speaking candidates you need to have a French language option on your site.

HTH Tashxx

[poshgaffer]

Thanks again for your comments.

Regarding the website appearing in French, this is currently being created by both Rob & I along with a French national.

[Enigma121]

Hi,

To add to the argument about why to look for professional web design, the site has accessibility problems.

You need to add a site map in plain text format. This aids accessability for disabled users (blind / partially sighted), but also gives you a bonus in that it helps the site get completely trawled by the search engines.

We can offer consultancy services to give you an accessability review on the finished site. It's important in the field you are in to ensure that you provide equal opportunities to all applicants.

We have dealt with multiple language sites in the past and know how to code it so that the user is presented with the version of the site appropriate to their language without having to manually select it.

Again we could offer top notch multilanguage support if this is of interest, including making it easy to add additional languages if you want to do this and support regional variations such as French Canadian.

[EclipceCreate]

It make sense to have the navigation on the right - bcos
...
02: scroll bar for vertical scrolling is positioned on the right.


My only concern with this is that if I accidentally click off the scroll bar, normally nothing goes wrong. If the navigation is sat next to the scroll bar and I miss, I'm gonna click on a link!

So if you do stick your nav on the right, I'd recommend not putting it hard up against the scroll bar - give a 10-20px border somehow.

Russ