SITE REVIEW: Deepak Chopra

Hi,

This is the last site from vl-design.com

All the reviews will be welcome.

www.vl-design.com/deepak

Thanks!

first thing that came to my head was summer i dono why, but i like your intro and the site, it looks ver nice and smooth and calm.

I noticed that on some of the pages, if you use the scroll wheel on the mouse, the whole content scrolls, raather than just the text. Looks a little strange to see all of the pictures/text etc scroll off screen.

As I was viewing the intro, I saw that "An one time event in Portugal" should be "A one time event in Portugal". Throughout the intro I thought that better type treatments could be implied as opposed to stretching of text.

The site itself is looks nice, however, the scrollbar is way too small and should be closer to the text to be more conveniant and have a greater effect for usability. I am viewing the site in FireFox and am noticing that as I use the wheel on my mouse...the site scrolls down within the frame....

Overall a well developed site with just some minor adjustments and revisions need to be thought out.

Hi,

Thanks for the reviews...

Yes, it seams there is a problem with firefox about mouse wheel. In IE everything works fine, and the wheel just scrolls the text, but in firefox it scrolls everything. I don't know how to solve this problem.

Regards

firefox rarely ever works with the mouse wheel well for me.. :-\ very nice site, it looks great in IE.

"Optimising" a site for a specific configuration is useless. Also, it is a bad idea to openly tell visitors that you are deliberately discriminating against their computer's configuration.

The opening flash animation is really bad. It is boring, and fails to hold attention for more than three seconds. I would not be surprised if many users left immediately.

The site doesn't work if Javascript is turned off. This aspect is unnecessary; it can and should be fixed.

Also, the scrollbar is not instantly obvious about its function. Use the regular scrollbar that users are used to. Many, probably most, of your visiters will try to scroll with the regular scrollbar on the right of the window, and it won't work. They'll think the site is broken and leave, or they'll feel like idiots because they can't figure out how to scroll, and at any rate, you will leave visitors angry.

It is not possible to make a hyperlink to a specific page. I don't see the need for breaking this basic WWW feature.

Also, the page seems to be in a perpetual state of "Loading...."

Also, sound is harmful. I already have a nice-sounding song that I am listening to with WinAmp, I don't need your site to mix its noise with what I'm listening to.

I like presentation and pictures and colour of your web site.

At the same time home page is full of plain text and to get any information you need to read content attentively. So, I need to dig for the info (what is this one time event, where, when). It will be more convenient for me to read it in short bold phrases. Or, at least to move information in the end to the top.
I need to scroll text and to use for this so tiny scroll bar (1.5 mm) that it is hard to point a mouse correctly.

In the event section I'll do the same. I'll move sentence: "Dr. Chopra explores the full range of human potential including the following themes" down and put questions to be discussed at top. Once again may be in bold. Probably shorter.

All the rest is fine. But your scrolling bar really annoys me,

Olga.

Hi Sam,

The opening flash animation is really bad. It is boring, and fails to hold attention for more than three seconds. I would not be surprised if many users left immediately.

Remember that a site should be done for the client target people and not for us. If some one enters this site is because they are interested in this kind of event, so they will see the intro until the end. Another thing is the fact that the target audience are people with spiritual interests. for whom this kind of intro will be considered calm and relaxing, because thats the kind of things they search on life

The site doesn't work if javascript is turned off. This aspect is unnecessary; it can and should be fixed.

That's true, but 99,12% of the visitors to the site as javascript enabled, so this is not a problem.

Also, the scrollbar is not instantly obvious about its function. Use the regular scrollbar that users are used to.

Some times we should do things that users and people in general are not used to. Creativity works that way... but you are right, in this case I think is to much.

Also, sound is harmful. I already have a nice-sounding song that I am listening to with WinAmp, I don't need your site to mix its noise with what I'm listening to.

You have no reason in this comment. I use sound in the intro and not in the site. And intros are supposed to have sound on it. Saying that is the same that saying that the soundtrack of a movie that you are seeing in a theater is harmful because you want to listen the music in your mp3 player. Movies have soundtracks... the same with flash intros.

Best regards

is this deepak guy the one who set up his own religion?

I realy don't know! I just created the site

The only thing I know about Deepak is what is in the site, nothing else.

Olga... You are right about that, but the Portuguese version is more like you say... We try to focus most on that version because thats the audience for the event.

Best Regards

Hi Virt,

Regarding Sams comments and your reply I agree, it's the clients opinion that matters however Sam is right about the Flash Intro. The client may like it but he strikes me as a man easily impressed by technology it's buttock-clenchingly boring and does you no credit why not try increasing the frame speed of the whole movie slightly, I think it will improve it (... finish quicker ... ).

You appear to use the same 'scrollbar functionality' on your own company site. If you've had no complaints you client probably won't either. I had no problems using it and think most people of avergage intelligence would figure it ot

A nice site to add to your portfolio

Cheers, Primordial ...

PS> ... your client gives me the creeps...

All and all a nice site. Neutral colours, easy on the eye. I'm sure the intro will reach the target audience.

I don't like your little scroll bar either. A bit bigger might do the trick.

Seeing that there's so much plain text to go through, you might want to change the main pciture on the left hand side - with each click. (Him in a different pose?) This should break the monotony.

Just a note: My Java script security settings were set on "medium" and I had to change it to "low" for the site to work.

Nice graphics... a little over-the-top intro, but works for the audience it intends to reach I guess.

I don't like the scroll feature for the main page. Too small on my browser, and in a poor location.

Nice site, I'm not crazy about the scrollbar though.

One suggestion I have - and it's not a design issue- is that the enrollment and map docs are "word" docs, you should offer an alternative for non- word or non-microsoft people... a choice of also pdf and html perhaps?

One other silly comment, if the site is about mind, body, medicine..etc., things that make me think about flowing and curves (I could probably word this better but I an WAY too tired), I think if the main content didn't seem so boxed in it would represent the message better (maybe rounded outer corners to soften the hard edges).