A favor

[vixalicious]

Hi guys! My sister has been trying to learn web design and has just put up her first website. Could you give me feedback on it, things you like/don't like, things that she could do to make it better?

http://joannlacey.com/

Also, the site showcases her artwork. ISN'T SHE TALENTED OMG????!!? *stage-moms*

Comments

[aubieturtle.livejournal.com]

A couple of things that could be improved:

The navigation needs to stay in one place. It changes location on almost every page.

The design changes too much from page to page. Is she switching between designs for the site and just hasn't finished yet?

The flash animation takes too long to load. If some sort of preview image came up along with a percent loaded bar, it would let viewers know something is loading and how long it is going to take.

The slideshow of paintings has lots of empty slots in it. If they're going to be filled later, the slideshow control should be altered to not have as many slots.

Other than those items, the design looks clean. One of the biggest mistakes new web designers tend to make is to get overly fancy and try to cram in every trick they've learned. She appears to have avoided that pitfall.

[vixalicious]

Thanks for taking a look! I'll pass it all along to her. She's trying to do all of this with trial versions of programs, so this was a rush to get done before they expired.

[http://users.livejournal.com/saura_/]

wow! She's totally an artist!!!

[vixalicious]

I am always in awe of her talent. And my brother's as well, he's a designer. I missed that gene somehow.

[justeeyore.livejournal.com]

I found it really slow to load - that could be my computer - the first page took a couple of minutes and I'm still waiting for the next page I chose. My concentration is short and if it wasn't your sister I would have moved on by now.


The painting I got to see looks good though :)

[vixalicious]

Thanks for taking a look!

[purple-hazed.livejournal.com]

I can't see anything!! A white blank!!

[vixalicious]

Did you try refreshing the screen? If it still doesn't work, could you tell me what browser and version you're using, and your connection speed?

[(Anonymous)]

wireless network connection 4
speed 36mbps
Internet Explorer 7

Starry Night (beautiful!) took about a min to upload

another page is taking over 2 mins

xx

sorry, that was me! xx

[purple-hazed.livejournal.com]

I'm on my cousin's comp not mine

Re: sorry, that was me! xx

[vixalicious]

Thanks! Connection speed is so weird - it loads faster than that for me, but I'm only at llmbps!

[jivetalkinmama.livejournal.com]

Very cool designs!
I'll echo what your first commenter said(aubieturtle?)...
This is what I'm going to school for, as well you know. I'm not sure what programs she's using but there is the option on most software, photoshop, illustrator and flash that is save for web. She can make the files smaller for web interface without losing much of the quality. It takes some playing around. I have DSL and it took a while for the images to load.
I'm bookmarking it so I can have another look when I have more time.. I love the designs!
If she wants to e-mail me I can try and answer any questions she might have.

[vixalicious]

Thanks so much for looking! I'll make sure she knows about the 'save for web' option, and thanks for the offer of help!

Sister of Vixalicious

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you all so much for taking a look and giving feedback. I didn't even think about file size while I was creating because each page loaded immediately in Dreamweaver. I've put the trial version on another computer so I have another month to edit. I think I can reduce the file sizes, but I don't know how to create the loading preview image. But I'll work on that. Thanks again. Joann