SITE REVIEW: Daniel Gilbey homepage

Like me I see it you are at the early stages of web design. I liked the changed headers and like me you have stayed away from using too many cells and tables !!!

ok i think u should get a border a round your header pic change background color change link colour and maybe put a little more information on your homepage i love the cat on your pictures thats cool lol

I love your homepage header and I think your welcome not is very very good and it makes people want to see the rest of your site. I also like the way you organized the pictures on the photo album page. The wallpapers are really neat.

I think the header needs a border , otherwise it looks really good. The FF button is the best OTherwise the site looks simple and clean.

The pictures on top are really cool, you should definitely keep them just as they are, even though you could safely reduce their size from 55k to at least 15k without much degradation in order to speed up navigation.

The lower part of all pages need some rework in my opinion.

First of all, why not radically condense your text on the entry page?

"Welcome"
Sounds a little bit old fashioned, doesn´t it?

"Thanks for stopping by my corner of the web"
You already welcomed me, this should be enough

"please take your time to have a look around my site"
Oh, if time is needed to see your site, I might just leave...

"I think you'll find it quite interesting."
I will decide this myself.

"I'm currently trying to get a page devoted to random pictures"
Now this is finally the first real information!!

See what I mean?

It seems you have very good pictures, but very little to say. So why don't you try to switch to a more graphical, artistic site scheme instead of trying to fill the empty space with words? If your website is about pictures and artwork, use them! Get rid of these favorite website logos at front and make a series of cool looking small preview bullets of your own content, that invite to be clicked.

Good luck!

Martin
Asterisk PBX-Manager
web-coach.org

Okay - check this out now...
DG images

Hi Daniel,

Congratulations, this is a huge improval!

These new navigation icons are really cute, well ordered and meaningfully named.

There are still some issues that could be improved, however, and please don´t get me wrong, I don´t want to be overly picky, but just giving some hints to make your site even better!

1.) This entry page is a severe search engine blocker . If you want to be found on search engines you should remove this entry page completely.

2.) You seem to assume that everyone is viewing your page in a 1024x768 resolution. Even though it is safe to assume that 95% of all visitors have this monitor capability, many professionals prefere not to maximize their browser window in order to preserve desktop space, especially if the have very large displays Try to set your browser window size to a 800...900px screen width and look at your site: see what I mean? I would try to limit the minimum viewing area to about 800px width and automatically center the page when viewed with wider browser windows.

3.) On most subpages the navigation can only reached by scrolling down, which violates basic usability principles. If you want to keep the navigation in the lower part of the page (which is non-standard but acceptable in your case, because it looks less boring and because the navigation icons are catching attention due to their attractive design) you might decide to have a fixed-length page, so that navigation is still possible on 800x500 windows without scrolling. If this is not possible, I would strongly recommend to put navigation on top or on the left side, at least on all subpages.

4.) Correct your numerous HTML syntax violations. This helps to have a more consistent presentation on different browsers and improves display consistensy in general. See validator.w3.org/check

Greetings from Berlin and good luck!

Martin
Asterisk PBX-Manager
web-coach.org

What is the purpose of your site - is it just to show off your images? You only really seem to have one informational page (stock.htm) which is basically a links page to stock photography agencies. Are these your agencies? The reason I ask is because here are lots of references of "we", "our", etc.

The photos are good, yes but to be honest after seeing them there is nothing to keep me hanging around. You could perhaps tell us a little about what inspires your photography, how you got started and why you have this website? Give it a personal touch.

The front page is rather pointless to be honest. Clicking an Enter button on any website is one mouse-click more than is necessary.

Finally, do you offer services? If so, tell your audience what they are and how far you can go to accomodate them.

You have made very good improvements.

I LOVE it! I really like the idea of putting the pics in on the rollover of the blank polaroids. You take gorgeous photography shots, too! The only thing I can see wrong with the site is when you are viewing one pic, then click to view another, the transition is off at times. I really like that last picture on portraits. You absolutely do amazing work. I definitely appreciate the photos since I, myself, have taken up photography.

All in all, your site is simple, clean looking, and easy to navigate. I like it.

Thanks for the comments since my last post - at the time of uploading this to the web I was working on a 'bio' page to tell a little about me & my photography etc, this is now live.

As for the purpose of the site... Well, as it's a photography site (you may have noticed this) is pretty much to show off my images & work.

Most other photography sites I've looked at have very little text - and I was aiming for maximum simplicity (hopefully making the images stand out more).

The transition period of changing images is like toothache to me at the moment - I'm currently working on a flash script for the galleries so that the images scroll in a loop along the top & when there is a mouse over an image the 'full' size will be displayed (hope you know what I mean?) below.
Thanks again for the comments & taking time to look.

[I feel] The best way you can do that is with actionscripting. you can find codes online such as actionscript.org or friendsofed.com. Let me know how you make out.

I really like the DG images website for it's sheer simplicity. The only thing that I do not like is the fact that you have to scroll sideways on the "edible" page (I never like to do that). But the website is well laid out, nice navigation.

Photos on a site do not necessarily make it a photography site and there is more than one type of photography site mate

I only experience this effect when using FF browser - is this the browser you're using? Working on a solution currently, hopefully I'll have flash galleries up & running in a short space of time.

Thanks for looking

Thanks for pointing this out - much appreciated