Website Critique

i find the top most buttons a little hard to read. i know your going for a reflection thing, but the line cuts the text in half. small white letters on black are hard to read. i've always been weary where i sign my name, i could lift that name and sign things for you since it's up there.

i find the front page kind of cluttered. there's a short paragraph that sort of explains what the site is about, but not why. i think you should start by explaining what kind of art you make, what you specialize in. then go on to tell people that this a showcase of your work.

galleries would look better side to side and not stacked, it's a little hard to read and figure out since you went right into it. if possible i would have just a gallery page, and maybe a small icon of the different things you do on the main page. it doesn't flow well, since it has those large images and then pops into a tutorial and so on.

any tutorials you have should be made into html - with the option to download it as a strip. those strips are hard to read when following along. and google can't pick them up like that.

posting each item like a blog entry is distracting. especially when things jump around. you have a welcome at the top, and another welcome further down

the gallery is ok, but only shows titles. it would be better if there was a description under each. it would help the viewer know what they are looking at, and google is more important.


the whole site comes off as a big blog rather than a webpage. users shouldn't really be commenting on it because to me it doesn't look professional.

your about page should be your main page, just the about you stuff not the resume. i'm not sure why you would have both an email and an email box thing. when i click on the email to you, it doesn't go to anyplace, it should have a mailto: command in it.

the commission status makes no sense. or at the very least say when it would be open if it wasn't. actually i wouldn't list it at all, just know how many you can do.

you have a link to a blog, but it's also your main page, seems silly to have 2.

make sure to add meta tags, i don't think i saw any.

---Mike Savad

I didn't delve into it as deeply as Mike but a few quick comments ...

I like the buttons at the top and I can easily read them.
I too would remove your signature for the same reason Mike stated.
I also agree that it looks more like a blog than an actual "website." I think you added way too much on the home page - it's overkill. I think a homepage should make the viewer want to explore the content within, and you appear to have most of it right there. It did not make me want to look deeper into your art.
I like your About Me page and I think your resume works fine there ... after all, it is about you!

--Donna Proctor

I agree with Mike, best "blog" I've seen! But confusing as a Web site,

Rich

the about me is fine - it's just that intro of yourself - should be your front page. the resume stuff that stays on the about page.

---Mike Savad

@ Mike, OK, I understand what you are saying. I disagree in that I think when people click onto "About Me" they expect to read about her. I do agree that some of what she has on the about me page could be put on the homepage... I specifically think her 2nd paragraph would work nicely if she moved it to her homepage ... and got rid of most of the blogger type images etc. I want to be drawn into a website ... and I lose interest in clicking onto links if it reads like a blog.

Fact of life, you get ONE chance to make a first impression.....make it good. Make it clean, not cluttered, easy to follow and tell me everything i'd want to know about you as an artist, on the home page.
I'd suggest some sorting out and prioritizing...make that home page rock!

There does seem to be a lot of content "beneath the crease". I am not sure if you can trust people to scroll down through all that to find what they are looking for.

I do tend to agree with Mike that the buttons are a bit hard to read.

Sometimes simple is best.

I would suggest the link Philip provided as you will get the opinions of a complete stranger about your site. The people that have used that free service were, for the most part, given some good feedback.

the problem with webpages are - you need to tell people right away what the site is for, and how you plan to help them. people won't stay long if it's just a gallery. if you have tutorials, then it's a learning site as well, and you'll rank higher in google.

if you do want shiny buttons, soften the line in the center and make the text yellow? some other color so it's lost in there.

---Mike Savad

Thanks for taking the time to give me feedback... much appreciated.

The site is supposed to be a blog site as well as my gallery.

Every week, I will be posting new pieces with a story/description with them, so that is why I went with a 'blog' type site.

I might remove the blog entries from the front page, and just have them in the 'blog' section from the menu on the top, and then put more from the 'about' section on the first page then, since you all seem to think that would be better.

Had submitted it to the free service that Philip wrote about, but we didn't get too much out of it. After I watch the video, I changed a few things to make it different, and help navigation... but maybe i need more.

Again, thanks for taking the time to comment,

Kat.

There is too much redundancy. Keep the latest works on the blog, maybe add the images to their respective galleries and leave them off the home page. Just update the links with a blurb on the home page and leave it at that.
You have two links for social media sites like facebook, in the galleries and on the home page. Get them off the galleries since those do not show up individually on the social media sites.
Your "digital scrapbook" images are confusing. Do the purchasers get a single pattern or how it's presented, with 5 squares? If each square is sold separately, show them as such. As nice as the tiling of them is, I wouldn't know what I was getting.

Hi Louise,

Thanks for your feedback.

Going to do something different with the front page I think, and probably move the blog part off the front page.

Not sure what you mean about the FB and G+ buttons.

The ones on the front page are the main ones for the site (and also linked to my main FB profile page, it uses the same URL), and the ones on the gallery are for people to show that they 'like' certain galleries. They are linked to different URLs, so they have different counts and are individual.

With the scrapbook images, if you click the link in the description through to Etsy which is where I sell them, then it describes in detail what you get. I don't really want to duplicate all that on my site also, as it would be alot of text, and I'm trying to keep it clean. This is just a 'preview' of what you get, to 'entice' people to click to Etsy, and to also show that I have done that kind of thing before.

Thanks.

I like the introduction to Phone Cases in the Sidebar, great idea... I hope you don't mind if I follow suit.

Overall, I would say that you site grabs the attention of the viewer with your images inviting people to stay around and peruse your work.

Can you share the video from your critique on that other thread. It helps people understand what makes a good website.

@David, thanks :)

Visited your site, it looks extremely nice and clean, and some lovely photos. Will keep an eye on your work :)

@ John... Sure ... Link: http://peek.usertesting.com/result/229916622419?autoplay=true

Interesting FireFlux how what your reviewer said echoed some of what was said here. She seemed confused.

I would take note that it took her 3:30 minutes to find out she could buy prints!

Also, she ended up in the "general" site where should could have ended up buying someone else's prints instead of yours? You don't want to market to get people to your website only to have them end up buying someone else's work!

Your work is fantastic, no doubt about that. At least you don't have to work on making your art better!

Thanks :)

Yes, I saw she was confused.

To be honest, I'm not sure what to do at the moment. Most, if not all my traffic comes directly from social sites FB, deviantArt, Tumblr, Imgur and those users are used to the scrolling down blog type pages.

But, I do realize that isn't for everyone, so I'm having a think about it now.

I realize I link through to Pixels.com rather than the artistwebsites.com site. I kind of like the design slightly better at Pixels.com

However, I'm going to be integrating the FAA Shopping widgets into the site soon, so they don't leave my site at all :)

Just waiting for hopefully a few things to get fixed with the widgets first.

You have fantastic work, FFS.

"However, I'm going to be integrating the FAA Shopping widgets into the site soon, so they don't leave my site at all :)"

Or, link your images directly to the corresponding AW image. That's incredibly time-consuming but works the best. The current FAA widget drops them into the front page of your store, which means they have to find the image they want all over again.

Also, reconsider the use of the social media icons across the top of your site. They look great but they're deadly. You work very hard to get people to your site, every one of those takes people away from your site. Why would they return? Once they get there, sell 'em some art!

Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online