"Reigntastic" (reigntastic)
04/24/2014 at 10:58 • Filed to: Web Design
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"Reigntastic" (reigntastic)
04/24/2014 at 10:58 • Filed to: Web Design | 0
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Who here has a fair amount of experience with website design? Yesterday I started work on a little project for myself, I'm curious to see what you guys think about where I can improve.
Today I knocked out a contact form and updated some content, and I definitely agree it needs more graphics; more design to come.
bcstech.us
505Turbeaux
> Reigntastic
04/24/2014 at 11:01 |
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way way too bland. It would be hard to make that pop even with a different palette. Graphics are needed. Are you hard coding or using a CMS?
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Reigntastic
> 505Turbeaux
04/24/2014 at 11:04 |
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I'm using a CMS, just wordpress. I am not skilled enough with CSS to make something beautiful by hand yet.
I was thinking about flipping the color palette to a white background, for now it's mostly placeholder. I think once I add a proper header it will spruce up the place a bit, but I'm not opposed to just replacing the theme all together. I'd have more content but I don't have CS6 on my work machine, which kind of limits me.
What would you suggest to make it more appealing?
MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
> Reigntastic
04/24/2014 at 11:05 |
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like you said, needs graphics.
One thing that could use a little improvement is your top right nav bar.
This is what we call your "call to action" buttons. Especially the submit button on the contact form.
My suggestion would be to find a way to highlight what you're hovering over that doesn't match the "selected" page. This can lead to confusion especially when you hover a link right next to the selected page. I would also make the Nav Bar more noticeable/a bit larger.
A website like this is really going to be driven by services offered and information gathered, as in your contact form. The easier it is to get the contact form filled out the better it will work for you.
I didn't do a test on the contact form, but I recommend building in rules that require an @ symbol on the email line, and 10 numbers in the phone # line.
Maybe some selectable options in the "your service needs" segment.
OPPOsaurus WRX
> Reigntastic
04/24/2014 at 11:11 |
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keep the same size grey line at the top, home is small/not there.
see if you can make all the black page sizes the same and so they dont require scrolling - this will require home and blog to get bigger and service and contact to get smaller. service might be tricky but you can reduce the space between fields to help contact.
Mattbob
> Reigntastic
04/24/2014 at 11:11 |
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Don't go with white, go with bone, or pale nimbus.
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505Turbeaux
> Reigntastic
04/24/2014 at 11:11 |
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yeah it looked like wordpress to me, but I didnt want to hurl insults if that was you doing the coding :)
Do you have a logo? I would make a static header and footer incorporating this. Pull out that text under the company name and incorporate it into the body copy on the home page, and create an "About us" page where you can expound on your experience. Graphics in either a rotator/carousel would work ok with the design across all pages touting any specials or services. Overuse of italics on services page to make up for lack of engaging graphics. send me some contact info and I can help you on the side. Back and forth on Kinja would be tough. You on facebook?
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Reigntastic
> MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
04/24/2014 at 11:12 |
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Some really superb advice, I appreciate it. A lot of the design elements are taken from the theme, so I'll figure out what I need to modify in CSS to reflect those changes. I did notice the colors matching on hover being slightly distracting on the menu.
The contact form definitely could use some work, I just made it about half an hour ago so it's kind of rough draft. I will definitely need to work in some form rules so that it rejects bad input. Selectable options will be a bit more tricky, I'm not sure what I'll have to do to implement that. Might take a little bit longer to figure out. That will definitely speed up the contact form though, which I agree is imperative. The easier it is to use, the better. Otherwise I figured I might add a captcha if spam becomes an issue, but that complicates things even further so I am going to try to avoid it.
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MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
> Reigntastic
04/24/2014 at 11:14 |
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I'd avoid the captcha. People find them obnoxious, and definitely cuts out the older crowd.
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MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
> 505Turbeaux
04/24/2014 at 11:15 |
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He got responses from both of us instantly LOL.
At least he hit his target market of advertising/marketing guys on OPPO!
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Reigntastic
> OPPOsaurus WRX
04/24/2014 at 11:15 |
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Yeah, I think that has something to do with how the pages are natively set up, I'll have to look into it. Seems a bit redundant on the index, but I'll see if it's feasible.
I don't think I'd be able to crunch the services page much, so I would need to expand the rest. Can you explain your intent behind wanting all the pages to be similarly sized?
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505Turbeaux
> MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
04/24/2014 at 11:16 |
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haha yeah we just both happened to be on at the time! Arent you on vacation though?
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Reigntastic
> Mattbob
04/24/2014 at 11:17 |
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I'm definitely partial to Bone myself. The tasteful off-white finish always does it for me.
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MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
> 505Turbeaux
04/24/2014 at 11:19 |
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nope got back to my office on Tuesday. Was just a 4 day break. Friday, Sat, Sun, Monday.
that's why I posted the Montego article yesterday.
And I know you're ecstatic that it starts with a key, even if it's not exactly the "legit" way. Only took 4 tries to wire it right too! lol
Try 1= key does nothing (oh shit mode engaged)
Try 2= Key starts it but starter won't turn off (oh shit still engaged)
Try 3= key does nothing (yep, still oh shit mode, wondering if I shouldn't have done this at this point)
Try 4= works perfect! (oh shit mode disengaged lol)
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OPPOsaurus WRX
> Reigntastic
04/24/2014 at 11:22 |
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maybe you can do a double column for the service prices? It makes it feel like its only the content changing on the page instead of the page itself. think if you were reading a book and each page you flip to was a different size.
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Reigntastic
> 505Turbeaux
04/24/2014 at 11:22 |
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No offense taken! As far as web design goes I only have experience with Dreamweaver and Wordpress, my coding experience is unrelated unfortunately, so I am going to start getting more practice with it.
I have made a few rough designs for a logo, but I haven't settled on anything. I will use a header to replace the title/subtext on the current header, I think it will make it look cleaner. About us is definitely a page I was planning on putting, since it makes the business seem more homegrown.
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Reigntastic
> MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
04/24/2014 at 11:23 |
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I hate captcha myself, so I'd rather deal with potential spam than push away our target audience.
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505Turbeaux
> Reigntastic
04/24/2014 at 11:24 |
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sent you an email. Yank yours out of the post so you dont catch spam!
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Reigntastic
> OPPOsaurus WRX
04/24/2014 at 11:24 |
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That's not a bad idea, double column would use that space much more efficiently. I definitely wanted to right justify the prices as well, since they kind of bounce all over the place. That makes sense, makes it seem more natural.
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Reigntastic
> 505Turbeaux
04/24/2014 at 11:25 |
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Junk email! I'll make an edit.
BugEyedBimmer - back in the Saddle Dakota Leather
> Reigntastic
04/24/2014 at 11:35 |
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Do you offer Managed Services? Do you need a backup and DR solutions? lol
Seriously though, that' my verticle at work, so I see plenty of sites like yours. And even though the site is plain, it's at least modern and cohesive. Some of these guys put any old thing up there.
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MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
> Reigntastic
04/24/2014 at 11:37 |
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wise choice!
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Reigntastic
> BugEyedBimmer - back in the Saddle Dakota Leather
04/24/2014 at 11:46 |
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I tend to prefer minimalist design, since it seems much harder to mess up. I can offer all sorts of services! I just haven't put them all on paper yet. I just threw this together yesterday morning while at work, so I've been making changes here and there as I have time.
I had been tossing around the idea of making this sort of business for about a month now with one of my friends, and I figured I might as well get the ball rolling. The business isn't established yet, but we both have a strong background in IT; once it's good enough to make official we'll move from there. Can't wait to have a business location with actual bench space.
Meatcoma
> Reigntastic
04/24/2014 at 12:37 |
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the red hover color is pretty bad.
I created this one - www.ksdot.org
Tim (Fractal Footwork)
> Reigntastic
04/24/2014 at 13:35 |
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You site looks like it was made for mobile, but not scaled up for proper desktop/laptop use.
Here's mine:
Let me know if you have any questions.
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Reigntastic
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
04/24/2014 at 14:27 |
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It's incredibly basic at the moment, that's probably why. Looks fantastic on mobile though, so it's a minor victory.
Love your site. Not how I want to design mine (serves a different purpose), but I'll definitely borrow some of the elements. Any advice for learning CSS? I have a good understanding of php already.
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Tim (Fractal Footwork)
> Reigntastic
04/24/2014 at 14:42 |
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I basically use Stackoverflow any time I run into a problem.
Definitely use media queries . That should help the mobile to 1080p transition and separation.