WIP website

[sami1337]

You may already noticed by reading my blog, or by the topics i made, but i am working on (my first) company website. I've spend about 4 weeks on this layout now i think, and this is the last week i will work on it.

So, what i would like is feedback on the current state. Anything at all is welcomed. Seeing something odd, or have a suggestion on improving? Tell me please! I am out of ideas, and as soon as i am convinced i am done i will add the remaining content.

The url:

Van Veldhuijzen Boxmeer • Begin pagina •

Thanks!

Edit:

Oh a little background info on the site.
I have internship at this company. They asked me to make a company style + websites.
When i first came there i found out that they used yellow and blue as company colours. There is just no way i wanted to keep that. So although everything got painted yellow and blue 10 or so years ago, i managed to make the boss change his mind. Red and white. White for style and simplicity, but also because it's clean. Red for danger and attention, because this company uses hazardous stuff to deinfect ****. Rocket science!
Oh and websites became one website. Just not enough time to make 2 sites plus editing 2 personal ones within 10 weeks.

[U'ziel]

I like it alot! However I'll try and be as detailed as I can on the pro's and cons (for me) as an example end user.

Pro's:
* Quick loading
* Navigation is well thought out, You have a lot of data to display to users but don't want to flood them with a long list of options, this collapsible menu fits perfectly and grouped into sections is easy to find what you want.
* Color scheme is good, yellow and blue would have been antiquainted so good move!
* Banner adds along with the nav some dynamics to the site.
* Increase/decrease font size.

Con's:
* Too much white space. After the banner at the top there's little left to draw the eye. I appreciate this is a functional site but the better and more "web 2.0" it looks to the eye the more it will be perceived as a modern company, which is good cheap advertising.
* Logo could stand out a bit more. It looks a tad alienated up there on its own try a drop shadow or something of the like to make it stand out a bit more.

Suggestions
* Add some icons, perhaps in the navigation before each subject word. Definitely for the font size + - I would represent this with some spy glass type icon.
* You should designate some area in the layout for advertising company promotions. Rather than get a promo later and have to try and fit it on the page somewhere.
* Bump the page top margin by 5 or so pixels so you can see the top of the image.
* Experiment with different background colors.

Just my 2 cents worth feel free to ignore it

[sami1337]

wow thanks! That's really useful!

The white originates from the idea of making a bright clean layout with lot's of white and little edges, but that quickly fell apart when putting the menu in. I have an idea for this. there's a background image from their old site. Some photo of a couple vans. Noone will know they are actually vans, just some texture. I'll try that.

The background colour is random. Perhaps that's why you say i should try different ones. I just picked a colour i liked while my boss was watching, and he told me to keep it. Not that it keeps me from changing it, just keeps me from caring. Low priority thingy now as i also used it on a news letter.

I wasn't sure about the + and -. Elderly people will visit, but not on a regular base i think. Elderly people look for text size options and i figured they will understand a simple + and -, while the common folk doesn't notice it. Or just doesn't care. But i'll take your advice into account, see how it looks, get bosses aprovel, or not. Probally will as he never asked for it, but really liked the functionality of it.

Chances for a promo are almost nill. These fellas don't even advertise their company. they have a simple advertising board on wheels standout outdoor, and send newsletters to interested parties. They only advertise some hardware and show off that they are certified, but there's room for that at the bottom of the page. They told me they don't want that though. And the next site make over will most likely happen in 5 or 10 years together with a complete restyle of the image.

I dislike drop shadows, but i see what you mean. I'll go try that out.

Your 2 cents are golden

oh and on a side note. I added a HR (horizontal ruler thing) between every section ID and a link to go back to top.

[U'ziel]

You could try and advertisment for "click here to sign up for our newsletter" or something of that sort. I'm suprised they don't do advertising or promo's. I think if you had the certificate logo on the bottom or in a footer for all the stuff they were certified in that would look pretty good on there!

The key thing is that the client is happy with it and that its functional and if its doing both then its a winner for you as an individual. All you can do is advise and at the end of the day you have to adhere to their brief.

I do like that the site does not feel clumsy or assault you with too much information which can be off putting on some ecommerce sites. Your also probably right about the elderly but you should definately leave that feature in.

[sami1337]

Yes
The client feels like i know best, but also suggest things and tells me what not to do. He will be the person to maintain it as well, so everything i put in has to be understandable for the client too.

Their old site isn't assaulting, but links are scattered everywhere and has way too many pages! So i figured i could put all of the same category on one page. Easy to edit, even easier to build and maintain. Their site will have like 4 pages to take care of now, instead of..let's see. Nearly 40 pages, maybe more in the future. Which is something, as i said before, benefits me, the client and visitors.

[U'ziel]

Just noticed that the images are dead on this page Van Veldhuijzen Boxmeer • Desinfectie • but if they were live it might look good if you floated them left or right of the text

[sami1337]

Hmm yes, didn't bother fixing. Just a copy paste from their old site. From the sound of it i'd say they are going to review and redo most if not all content.

But really, i'll see if can pretty things up, but the content is up to them!
For some reason i can't quite put my finger on, the lists look odd. Perhaps i should just ditch the (old) bug bullet. It really adds nothing, and it doesn't even go well with the page.

[unleash]

Hey Sami,

coming from the Netherlands too hu? Well there is one thing about that list that I think is best when changed It is too frigging long! Maybe add sub catagories or add more spacing between each line....

I think that there is simply too much content on that page....I lost the overview in less that a second

The rest of the site looks pretty neat too me!

[sami1337]

Yes

I agreed with it not being very easy to browse through, so i added links to go back to top and a hr. Screenshot here: http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/7407/plaatjedp3.jpg


the idea of navigation is that you return to the top of the page after you're done reading and click a different sub category.

[unleash]

Yeah,

you know I think that it would really help if you seperated the lines of text, with a bit of spacing..... It looks like one huge chunk of text right now. So seperating the lines will probably help to make the whole easier to read

Just an idea, why not make an sort of expandable menu. So that if one clicks on "low-threat" that they will see the list for the "low-threat" thing, and if they click it again the list will disappear....

[sami1337]

That's a nice idea, but i feel like that would make the main menu obsolete, which means the menu will be simplfied, thus bringing you to a page you do not know the content of beforehand, on which you can expand and collapse the stuff on that page.
And i think it's a bit too complicated. Should try to keep it simple for less experienced users.

And aside from that, i don't have time to do that, only if they decide to hire me as freelancer.

[U'ziel]

There are a number of solutions but if they have to manage the content on the pages then theres no point doing something clever with that one page because when they upload other pages it will look out of place.

You should probably try to aim to leave them wanting more so that they do hire you in future. Not so much that its unfinished but that fine balance where you suggest things you could have done had you had more time/money.

[sami1337]

Yeah i see where you're going there. I however am not looking for a job, but i would not mind finishing this site for a fee per page. Not going to do that for free..This has been a learning experience, it's not when i am at home working.

I am unsure how they will handle things after i am gone though. I am building a template page they can mess with (as requested), but i can still forsee simple problems that they would run into because of their inexperience with the whole idea of building websites with a wysiwyg editor. One of the things i am pretty sure that will go wrong, is making tons of divs to align around every line of text, or making too many paragraphs.
I'll just leave my details here incase the website blew up in a mysterious manner.