Right. Currently working on a new site, which will have lots of pix and stuff.

Arguing with webby codey bod (with no taste or sense of aesthetics), over what content to bung on home page.

Me: simple, refined homepage, with just a logo/simple image, and an ‘enter’ button. Kind of like a ‘front door’.

He: ‘Just keep it simple don’t overcomplicate it just have a menu of different sections which lead to the right bits it looks more professional’.

What think youse lot?

This is an arty site, not a bizniz one, so I think aesthetic appeal is of great importance. I’m also thinking, that a ‘front door’ page might have a nice little slideshow animation at some point; a tantalising glimpse into what lies within…

Your onions are all welcome. I’m more the designymakepretty type, whereas my steamed colleague is the forgetprettymakeyworkpropply type.

Thankee!

‘ENTER’ buttons are unreservedly shite!
They’ve already clicked to see your s(h)ite, so serve up some content NOW!

Personally, I agree with your colleague, websites with ‘front door”s just annoy me for some reason. Also do you mean homepage as in the one you get to when you hit ‘home’ on the site, or an entrance type page that you only see upon initially loading the site?

chvck; the latter. IE, once you’ve entered, you get to the homepage, and all other pages navigate back to the homepage, not the front door.

I had the idea of making it like an art gallery, with different rooms, but my colleague (unimaginative boring git) is more of a mind to make it look like a news website!

I think that sometimes ‘entrance’ pages do work, if there is something stunning on the entrance page then I’m more inclined to click around the main site a bit more. Otherwise they just irritate me!

I’m with SFB on this, enter pages just waste time, especially ones that insist on doing a little dance…

enter pages just waste time

more than that, they are based on a flawed operational model – most people don’t navigate to a site through its home page, they follow a deep link of some kind

Your idea would probably not do very well on search engines either.

Personally I don’t like entrance pages as they serve no purpose other than to make me download a load of images before I can click a link to take me to a page I wanted in the first place.

What you’re describing is called a ‘splash page’. General consensus in the webmonkey community is that they’re a bad move:

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/splash/

http://stairwellblog.com/2008/02/splash-pages-are-rarely-a-good-idea/

What Barnes said

Agree with what everyone else is saying: forget a ‘front door’.

Get some good, short, content on there, that both customers and search engines will like.
Make the links to what you want obvious and simple – I don’t even like drop down/animated menus – text n simple.
You can get to (I think) 95% of our website in 3 clicks from landing – its a few long articles that are more clicks.
Then work on deep links into your site, so as barnes says, people ‘land’ on the right page having ‘deep linked’ in from a search engine or other web page.
IMO, you have 10-30seconds for someone to find pretty much what they want – and that includes a couple of clicks to new pages…

Your onions are all welcome. I’m more the designymakepretty type, whereas my steamed colleague is the forgetprettymakeyworkpropply type.

You’re not a proper designer then?

Thanks folks. Some really good, useful repsponses here.

This site has some fantastic examples of how it should, and shoon’t be done.

The brief is; ‘create a small, easily-navigable site that showcases the artist’s talent and ideas, through the use of their work. Maintain the artist’s style throughout the site, with a consistency of design. Make it fun, relaxing and enjoyable. Make it unique, and avoid cliches.’

Or something like that. You get the idea.

You’re not a proper designer then?

Not really. I just makelookpretty. And I’m fairly new to it all, so I’m learning all the time.

I do like these:

Because they are simple, striking and original. That’s what I’m hoping to achieve.

How about a compromise: Seeing as how a splash page that just allows you to enter the main site, and serves no real practical purpose (unlike one that allows you to select a language, for eg.) is, as you point out, rubbish, how about a homepage that has a simple graphic in’t middle, and some simple buttons that link to relevant pages?

We’re not talking about loads of fancy Flash stuff here; that just puts people off. Simple, quick to load, and effective. No **** pop-up menus…

antennae; thanks for those links. very useful. That first one is a horrible looking site, mind! My colleague would have all websites looking like that, if he had his way…

If anyone’s got any examples of really good looking homepages, I’d be happy to see them. The more the merrier! I want to produce a selection of different ideas.

Means I get to look on interwebs at pretty stuffs! Woohoo!

Personally i think you should have an unskippable flash intro. Everyone loves them.

http://www.cssdrive.com/
http://www.csselite.com/
http://www.cssheroes.com/

Fill yer boots. Note that most of these sites look pretty and manage to be flash free, text based and simple to navigate… (most!)

Pretty does not mean animation, pretty does not mean slow, pretty does not mean poor function, pretty does not mean crap content, pretty does not mean poor menu’s.

Personally i think you should have an unskippable flash intro. Everyone loves them.

LOL! What, ones that take ages to load, and end up crashing yer browser?? 😀

Have you considered something like this?

Lovely, BBSB; but not really the ‘style’ we’re looking for! 😀

Nice consistency of style, though…

Only time I like ‘front doors’ on websites is when they ask if I am over 18 😉

More seriously, they can be useful to get language or location.

I hate, loath and detest web sites with ‘click to enter’ buttons.

I was thinking more career advice than style content. I think they like irritating child-speak like is not it and steamed colleagues.

I’m with Barnes. I hate those enter pages soooooooo much!

How about make pretty and function well also? easy to design the homepage to be the welcome bit also. Although it doee often end up being what the client likes also… ho-hum

Right. So, we’ve decided; no ‘front door’ (no need for it), and a simple centrally placed logo, with some simple buttons underneath, with a 2-frame rollover, and images within a viewer window, with a slide-show option. Possibly. All content resizes according to how big the open browser window is.

And it needs to be mobile friendly, or have a mobile ‘phone option. That’s annoying.

No Flash or owt that requires special plug-ins. Compatible with all browsers within the last 5 or 6 years.

Simple, really.

Thanks for all yer help and advice!