www.clairemackaness.co.uk re-launched - Please comment

[clairemackaness]

After a couple of months of development and listening to all of your advice. I've taken it all on board and re-launched!

Please criticise constructivly.

Many thanks

Claire

www.clairemackaness.co.uk

[creative-keyrings]

Claire,

very well done to you! The site is easy to use and i have to admit is very sleek.

One idea would be to get a logo done as you are an artist you need to have an image, i could have a go at one if you liked?

Once again well done for the obvious hardwork you have put into this website.

I wish you the best of luck,

Regards,

Callum Slade

*just noticed a spelling error "An fun piece that was based around bubbles" i think it should be a.

[RockLinks]

Yes nice job Claire and nice Pay Pal buttons :D i think we may have to organise some link exchanges :D

[clairemackaness]

Thanks guys. Changed the typo now and just realised my avatar no longer works on here as the original imae has gone LOL.

I think thats due for a change now too.

Callum, I do have a logo but it was yet another box that clogged up the page, I think it's a bit more streamlined this way. Thanks anyway

Claire

[Ravenfire]

Is that a picture of you on there Claire?

[clairemackaness]

dont start that again !!!!

Yes it is

LOL

[Ravenfire]

Has anyone told you that you look like Sinead that was on Fame Academy

[clairemackaness]

Cool, I love her! Her album is always on when I paint.

I guess I can see the similarity.

Now then.....what do you think ofd the site, any ideas/changes/comments/horrible bits?

[Asteeleleith]

Certainly an improvement.

what this space, mine will be re launched next week!

Al

[MarkPearson]

I love the new site claire.

A lot less busy than the other version.

Wish you all the best!

[clairemackaness]

Thanks guys, I'm just waiting for my silly jokes review now!!

[Ravenfire]

Claire when your newsletter goes out is everyones emails addresses visible to others, only I have received two emails today from people I have never heard of before associated in some way with your site?

Thanks

Toni

[creospace]

Looks like these people have hit 'reply to all' on their email client rather than reply to sender. If I’m not wrong Claire you need to BCC everyone when sending a newsletter and that should stop that problem (I could be wrong) or use a mailing list manager, there’s plenty of free ones out there I think maillist king was a good one.

Gary

[clairemackaness]

Hi guys, your right I do usually put people in the BCC, but I got carried away with the excitment of letting the world know my mission was finished!!! Wont happen again

[Richard]

Now then.....what do you think ofd the site, any ideas/changes/comments/horrible bits?Hi Claire

Try using a 90% width to the first table on the page and set the cell properties to 'nowrap'. Also the cell properties of the navigation cell to 'nowrap' then you wont need to specify a width.

This'll make the page more 'scalable' for different screen resolutions. It'll also look presentable to people who set accessibility options to ignore screen font sizes. :wink:

Try using h1, h2, etc tags to stress the important headings.

Richard

[SillyJokes]

Huge improvement Claire.

make your logo a home button and put home at the top of your menu where people expect it to be.

make visited links colour up - trust me, it is a good think.

give menu titles some meaningful alt text so that visitors know roughly what they will find when they click the link. This is also an accessibility requirement.

You have good descriptons and images of the work, the price is clearly indicated, I think your delviery should be part of the main menu as that is a big concern to me - how will i get the work undamaged and how much is it going to cost me?

You don't have to issue a refund on goods made to order - you need to check the distance selling act on this but I'm almost certain of it.

I still think you have a case of the verbal diarrhoea
on your home page but you won't be told!

At the very least won't you left justify it? Who learns to read with centred text? and maybe consider turning it into two easily scannable columns? If a narrow column is good enough for the BBC it's good enough for me.

Just do something to reduce that huge block of natter. Honestly, people won't be bothered with it, they will go straight to the left hand menu, check your work and only if they like it will they stay. This will take approx 15 seconds.

However if you don't see improved sales from this site I'll eat one of my Silly Hats.

[clairemackaness]

give menu titles some meaningful alt text so that visitors know roughly what they will find when they click the link. This is also an accessibility requirement.

Leave all to me, I'll take it all in to consideration. Not sure what you mean by the above quote?

[SillyJokes]

When you hover your mouse over the menu item a little box should appear in which you can add meaningful text about what the people will see when they click the link. For instance Gallery alt text could be "Examples of my art work,"

This helps people navigate because they make more informed clicks. If they make fewer errors or are less miss-lead when making a click they feel more comfortable with the site and ultimately happier to buy.

Search engines also like it

and if someone with a disability is using a reader to access your site the alt text will really help them to navigate - this is now a legal requirement for public sites although no one has yet been taken to court over it.

Why bother making your site work for blind people when I make visual art? With respect, your paintings could work really well for the visually impaired as many of them are about moods rather than fiddly detail.

Why reduce your market when you could be one of few artists accommodating a niche market.

Besides everyone finds a site easier to navigate from this improvement

All this for a simple bit of work which won't harm the site.

Now I really must start charging for these insights.

[Top Hat]

give menu titles some meaningful alt text so that visitors know roughly what they will find when they click the link. This is also an accessibility requirement.

Leave all to me, I'll take it all in to consideration. Not sure what you mean by the above quote?

You need to add something like this to your links
Thing (thing.html)

[duenna]

Hi Claire

You have received some great reviews here. However there is a major flaw with your website that I thought some of these brilliant minded people would have picked up on!

You have no valid DOCTYPE for your front page? You see websites are graded similar to paper 80gsm papers have different applications to 100gsm etc. If your website does not have a valid DOCTYPE it does not really puport to being a website. Browsers will interpret it differently etc.

This is a basic thing. The type of codeing you are using appears to be HTML 4.01? So you need to add the following at the top of each page;

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

Once you have done that visit the W3C organisation at www.w3.org (http://www.w3.org/) and validate your website with their HTML validator (LINK (http://validator.w3.org/))

Then add the correct search engineering and your done! ish. There is more you can do with your website to assist in promotion but I have me free limits!

Good Luck!

[clairemackaness]

Thanks for all the advice. I'll try to get my head round it but I am not into HTML coding. I use WIZZYWIG (the joys of frontpage!)

[duenna]

Front page is fine but you will find that opening your HTML in a text editor as easy!

Frontpage has a habit of adding unwanted stuff.

You can get your head around it!

[Richard]

This is a basic thing. The type of codeing you are using appears to be HTML 4.01? So you need to add the following at the top of each page;

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

Once you have done that visit the W3C organisation at www.w3.org (http://www.w3.org/) and validate your website with their HTML validator (LINK (http://validator.w3.org/))
Hi

Just curious to know why you think this is so important? Lots of Websites don't provide this information and I'm not aware that pages without this are any less visible.

Wouldn't http://www.google.co.uk/ insert this information into their pages if it was necessary?

Richard

[duenna]

Hi Richard

Would you buy a new house if was not covered by the NHBC? or a car without a valid MOT?

The W3C sets the standards for web designers and the programmers of Internet browsers alike. To ensure that a website is interoperable and not discounting any traffic by failing to meet standards, then surely it is a necessity to meet those standards as set by the W3C?

Providing a webpage without a valid doctype to reference to, sends many browsers into a "make do with what it can" mode.

I appreciate what you say about google not having that doctype etc. But in my experience is extensive when it comes to the Internet and in terms of position on search websites, sites that benefit from standards based coding enjoy better results.

Googles code is designed to be as small as possible. The couple of hundred hits they get a second costing less in terms of load and bandwidth, it’s a business sense thing! To be honest with you the page is so small and effective it will work in most browsers.

Finally although some peoples Internet world revolves around Google, it is not the Internet. We have to focus on standards, web standards. That’s where valid source code comes in. Blind internet users can navigate valid XHTML if it is built to standards, even our HTML can be built to standard to help the important people the people who use our websites. Because without them, Google aint going to help you.

[clairemackaness]

It's all a mystery now!

I'll have a go at making my links do fun stuff but I think thats all I'll manage to do without professionals.

Any comments on the site that dont mean techy stuff? Do you like the layout, text, pictures?