Trashed my web site for a rebuild...comments?

[Bill Davis]

Came to the realization that my original self-constructed .iWeb web site was a bloated, self-indulgent, general mess.

So I trashed it and re- conceived the entire thing.

Looking for comments or criticism.

Thanks for your time.

www.newvideoaz.com

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

It's a good clean design. However, on Chrome, I got mush (see attachment). Worked fine in Firefox though.

Maybe you have this covered:
1. Why don't you get a professional domain name?
2. The 'flow' of the site isn't clear. On the main page there are two videos - I think only one should be present - your best one. It might be better to club 2, 3, 4..etc into one link like Past Work or something
3. I would keep the Contact Us button with the main links - that's where they are traditionally kept and that's where I looked for them first. If you have to keep it where it is, at least change the color so it stands out more.
4. It's missing an About Us link. You do you have a tag line of what service you offer, but it's too vague for a non-video person to understand.
5. A few photographs of yourself, crew, production, equipment, etc might help.

Hope this helps. All in all, I wouldn't fault a simple layout on white background. Good job.

[Bill Davis]

Many thanks Sareesh. Good comments and exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for.

I'll keep refining,

[Dave Blackhurst]

Bill,
Not to be negative, but it loaded so slow (and I'm on fast broadband) I almost gave up... that right there will kill your views faster than anything! Maybe it's where you're hosted, or Flash seems to be a real "slow load" I've seen before, but you first page at a minimum should load like lightning, or the client will never see any of your site...

And for how long it took to load, I would rather see some more stunning graphics/stills/SOMETHING...

[Burk Webb]

No love on Chrome.

[Keith Dobie]

You have a very nice looking edit suite & studio! I think a traditional looking website would work better. Regular heading and menu. I found it a bit confusing. Potential clients will feel more at home looking through a site that has a traditional look & feel and doesn't take any effort to "figure out". The videos are a great selling feature, but need to have a thumbnail if possible.

I like the font you used... is that Eyeglass?

Not sure how you're building it, but have you considered creating your site with Wordpress or Joomla — a CMS based site seems like the way to go these days. You can change content on it without having to go to your web designer, or dig into the HTML, and even change the whole look/theme easily. I'm in the process of re-doing my site, which was created in iWeb (which seems to be dead).

[Adam Gold]

Nice work, Bill. A couple of random thoughts, keeping in mind that I am a cranky old contrarian:

--It's very clean. Maybe too clean... verging on austere. A nice no-nonsense approach but depending on the client, perhaps could be made more inviting. But it absolutely reinforces the notion that you say enough to get your point across and then say no more, which I think is a great paradigm.

--I've never been a fan of the light-grey type, or any of the recent trend of low-contrast typography. My old eyes started to bleed when I tried to read the text formatted this way. I personally like punchier contrast levels, but that's just me.

--The numbers along the top give no clue as to the content they lead to, which doesn't give me much reason to click on them. I think I get what you're going for here, but if it were me I'd group the clips by content type and indicate what they are in the links.

--I agree thumbnails would be good. But I also happen to think Quicktime is evil, and I don't think much more of Flash. But that's just me. Not even sure which other formats would be practical/possible.

But overall, very nice job.

[Bill Davis]

To all,

Thank you all so much for your time and comments.

This is HUGELY helpful for a design rookie like me.

Back when I decided to go the "do it yourself" route I did so understanding that I was pushing into realms where I'm woefully ignorant.

The only justification I felt assured about is that in my current business model - a really "good" web presence isn't mission critical - at least not yet - so I can indulge in some personal exploration and learning at little risk.

These comments have been valuable, thought provoking and EXTREMELY helpful.

And I truly appreciate them all!

[Bill Davis]

Oh,

On the Chrome issue.

Any strategies for this knowing that I appreciate that iWeb is really just a Baby site builder and I can't invest in the time to learn a REAL dev tool?

Or perhaps I have to accept being stuck in Candyland knowing that moving on to Chess requires a LOT more mental investment than I can presently justify?

[Brian Brown]

Hi Bill:

My take is that it's too "Mac-like" in appearance, which makes sense considering how you built it. I'll warn you that Quicktime does not play well on many PCs, so I'd encourage a platform-agnostic player like LongTail (the JW Player), which now comes in HTML5 versions as well as FLV.

Easier still, why not just find a Wordpress template you like and embed YouTube or Vimeo videos from your channels? No coding required. Wordpress is free, and installs in one-click on most domain hosts.

HTH,
Brian

[Jim Andrada]

I liked the videos - but I think you should have a more traditional up front home page that says who you are and what you do and then points at videos with (as has been suggested) thumbnails. I second the "too austere" comment - also hate anything other than black for type.

Links to YouTube/Vimeo might be better than using your own embedded videos - but on the other hand, using your own stuff gives you more control over quality. At the possible expense of delay when you click them.

Also agree with the "what the heck are those numbers" comment