[Closed] Please review my new website

2nd image in the portfolio page loads like it's massive.

EDIT: yes, 8.6MB

Looks good so far - though this bit is as cheesy as a very cheesy thing: "Here at Outstanding Landscapes we pride ourselves on providing exactly what you, the customer, wants." 😉

Some rough idea of pricing would be good, just so people know whether they're wasting your time or not.

Looks good (has no knowledge on this subject and will judge it against this site: http://www.lingscars.com/)

First observation – it takes too much reading to understand what you do (and I knew what you did before looking at the site due to your posting on here about it in the past).

Try to get some text further up and in a much shorter description - something like:

[b]'Taking the landscapes around us and turning them into beautiful sculptures'[/b]

Good to see it is responsive though.

I like the layout, it's very clean looking

Is there a difference between images 3 and 4? They look to be the same

The little diamonds look like they should be clickable, I would get rid of those
Otherwise looks good to me

and you've put a photo of a liteville 601 up on your site. And your postcode 😉

You need to add better page titles for SEO, see google's advice here:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35624?hl=en#3

All points above plus... You should make more of a feature of the finished product on the home page, the other images are a bit rubbish and don't help sell it, these should come into play on the "how it's made" bit. Is it just you, because there is a load of mixed language, "we" is used a lot, but in about it only mentions Steve. If it is just Steve then big that up, use I, not he or we, and explain that you craft each one personally. This will also mean that people understand it is one person doing everything and won't be expecting a reply in seconds if they email.

From a design point of view I find the line length on the homepage a bit uncomfortable, can you split the text into columns, or better still just make it shorter lines and a bit more white space either side. The spacing seems a little odd too, the line height is not far off the line break height so paragraphs blend into one another. This copy on the homepage should also be shorter and snappier IMO and use the other pages to go into detail. I think listing events that someone might buy one as a gift is pretty redundant.

The social links are so small they are useless. Images are too big so load very slowly.

Like the clean layout, love the concept, like that you have kept pages and info to a limit and not gone mental.

🙂

johndoh - Member
First observation – it takes too much reading to understand what you do (and I knew what you did before looking at the site due to your posting on here about it in the past).

Try to get some text further up and in a much shorter description - something like:

plus 1

easygirl - Member
The little diamonds look like they should be clickable,

plus 1 to that too. I initially thought they were 'next page' arrows.

Google also have a tool for testing your site performance:
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.outstanding-landscapes.com

They mention some things that you might not have any control over but one of the things you can do is optimise your images (as mentioned above)

Thanks guys, that was quick 😀

Altered the portfolio photo sizes, should be loading faster now.
Pricing is being worked out so will update when I've got it sorted
There doesn't appear to be any images the same.
Diamonds are part of the template. I can get rid of some but not all.
Wording does need some work 😳
Will look into the page titles

Postcode will be removed 😯

Generally good. Now being picky (and trying not to repeat what others have said)

- Don't understand, or admire, the home page left hand photo, but like the other two.
- Can't see some of the portfolio as it won't download quickly enough before the slideshow scroll on (even here with fibre)

Good luck. I'll be checking back for prices as I can already think of a couple of people for whom they'd make nice gifts

My feeling is that the one used in the Portfolio doesn't show the same level of detail as the other one, possibly due to lighting but I think it would help if it was larger. Would be really helpful if you showed the different finishes available.

Layout good and uncluttered with the text easy to read. You've done a good job. 🙂

Sorry, there is some repetition in these points with posts above that appeared whilst i was typing.

The menu: sits too close to the logo, needs more space between "Outstanding Landscapes" & "About"

The CGI image on the home page doesn't really mean anything to me. Ideally you want your opening images to evoke an emotion so beautiful landscape shot is good as is the product shot but the first one is a bit mleh!

Your product shot that you've used on here of the work mounted in the wooden frame is better than the one you're using on the home page of the site. The framed one looks more like a finished product which is what you want to see on the first page.

Portfolio isn't really a portfolio it's more of a description of the process/options. I asume this is because its a new direction and there isn't a body of work to pick from yet. Maybe rename this section and add a portfolio proper later on.

Options and pricing looks good. Clear and easily understood. I like that you've included the options that are in the pipeline as well as those that are current. other than filling in the blanks I wouldn't change it.

Contact Us: I agree with the post above and i would lose the first sentence as it's a bit cheesy and not strictly relevant to the section.

Looks like you're using cookies, so best double check if you're fully legal for user consent.

Nice clean look, but if I were to be critical the logo looks a bit Comic Sans alongside all the sans-serif text

Looks like you're using cookies, so best double check if you're fully legal for user consent.

Please don't. It was irrelevant about a week after the 'issue' first raised its head, it's just more pointless crap to click on.

Please don't. It was irrelevant about a week after the 'issue' first raised its head, it's just more pointless crap to click on.

How about a cool time-lapse video of a piece being made - get some love for the craft involved. Something like this...

I've had a play with different templates and the wording, images etc so please let me know what you think now 🙂

http://www.outstanding-landscapes.com/

Please don't. It was irrelevant about a week after the 'issue' first raised its head, it's just more pointless crap to click on.

Doesn't matter if he wants to, or you want to, sadly it's EU law

Doesn't matter if he wants to, or you want to, sadly it's EU law

No it is not.

[url= https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1545/cookies_guidance.pdf ]From the Information Commissioner's Office[/url]

[b]Implied consent as a basis for compliance with the Privacy and
Electronic Communications Regulations.[/b]

Much of the debate around the so-called “consent for cookies” rule has focussed
on the nature of the consent required for compliance. [i][b]Implied consent has
always been a reasonable proposition in the context of data protection law and
privacy regulation and it remains so in the context of storage of information or
access to information using cookies and similar devices. While explicit consent
might allow for regulatory certainty and might be the most appropriate way to
comply in some circumstances this does not mean that implied consent cannot
be compliant.[/b][/i] Website operators need to remember that where their activities
result in the collection of sensitive personal data such as information about an
identifiable individual’s health then data protection law might require them to
obtain explicit consent.

I get:

Site Offline

I'm surprised ling hasn't been on here already...

Her site is brilliant for what it's designed to do - selling contract hire to people. People misunderstand what all the noise is about and say it's a poor design, it's not just, errm, non-traditional.

Site offline for me too. I presume you are fiddling with it, but if not then might be worth checking.

Offline still.

Back online for a few hours now.

Done some tweeking over the weekend so, hopefully, somewhere near now 🙂

[quote=johndoh ]No it is not.

From the Information Commissioner's Office

Implied consent as a basis for compliance with the Privacy and
Electronic Communications Regulations.

Except. From the same doc, in the section marked as "The Law"

Those setting cookies must:
tell people that the cookies are there,
explain what the cookies are doing, and
obtain their consent to store a cookie on their device.

Implied consent in this case practically means you display a message saying "By continuing to use this website, you agree to some blah blah about cookies". Implied consent doesn't mean doing nothing (again as the document says), the user has to do SOMETHING in order to implicitly agree. So yes, it's the law.

The OP uses Analytics so he has to do something along those lines

How would I go about adding it atlaz?

You're using jquery so something like this would tick the box:

http://www.primebox.co.uk/projects/jquery-cookiebar/

It doesn't work on iPad, just 2 images (very poor ones at that) and no menu.

Edit: if you leave it alone it eventually loads a menu, it's very slow for some reason.

Those images are very big, as a proportion of the page.

Each and every piece IS made to order (not "are"). But why not "each piece is made to order".

"I will work with you to produce your vision for your unique piece". I'd say, "I will work with you to realise your vision ... ", though that sounds a bit pretentious.

On the about page you say "timed served". It should be "time-served".

I'm looking forward to seeing what they look like in wood.

Atlaz I continue to disagree with you. As long as the website has information pertaining to the use of Cookies, there is no need to make users tick a box - that is explicit consent. Implied consent cannot be the same thing as explicit consent can it.

johndoh is quite correct; there is no need to explicitly request permission to set cookies on a browser. You are required to list somewhere easily accessible (a “privacy” menu item?) the cookies you do set and what they are used for.

It’s good practice to point people towards their browser’s documentation for how to not accept the cookies.

As far as the website itself goes I like it but:

- The transition between the (large) images in the carousel is a bit blinding with that white background.
- it’s a carousel (very 2010)
- I have to scroll to know what the website is called - take a look at https://www.airbnb.co.uk and notice how you can always see what the website is for and what do do next (the call to action).
- also on the AirBnb site, notice how they use a static image as background and then, if no action happens straight away, they change it to a background video. You could do something very similar and it would work well.
- your menu names don’t match the paths they point to - change the paths to match

Hope that helps

Rachel

As long as the website has information pertaining to the use of Cookies, there is no need to make users tick a box

What I mean is that there needs to be SOMETHING on the site which shows at least once to the user to say they are agreeing to accept cookies by continuing to use the site. You don't need to show it more than once and you don't need to have a user interact with the cookie statement. Read the ICO document a bit more and you'll see that their guidelines say as much. As I said they're pretty clear that doing nothing is not the same as implied consent.

johndoh is quite correct; there is no need to explicitly request permission to set cookies on a browser. You are required to list somewhere easily accessible (a “privacy” menu item?) the cookies you do set and what they are used for.

Sorry, it's just not the case if you read the source EU directive and UK rules. You can't hide consent in a T&Cs page for example. You can get around it if your site NEEDS cookies in order to operate (Amazon do this). I've worked on some large scale ecommerce sites and have had opinions from a variety of legal sources and all agree that you can't bury the implied agreement. Admittedly most sites where ecommerce is the revenue driver tend to have explicit agreement but mostly because once you've put the popover/bar on you may as well have an "I agree" button.

Thanks for the continued input.

Made a few changes to the front page images etc and, hopefully, changed the menu names (?)
Will look into the cookies/privacy thing a bit more.

[s]Each and [/s]every piece is made to order so you[s], the customer, [/s]can choose the location sculpted, size, definition, finish, colour and framing.

I don't like that you said "I'll try to have it with you in four weeks" - sounds a bit teeth sucky

Producing highly accurate and intricately detailed 3-dimensional works of art using state-of-the-art digital mapping and CNC machinery

"Wouldn't it be great to be able to have a memento of where we'd visited" was the topic of conversation after one biking trip...

I think your brand heritage is appealing: he's a guy who used to make parts for aerospace but he loves the outdoors so much he's turned to this.

Is outstanding landscapes a company? If not, I wouldn't put (c) outstanding landscapes at the bottom, as presumably its you that owns the copyright not the non-existent company.

Sorry if this sounds negative - I'm just pedantic by nature. You have a tangible product clearly presented. It's not my thing but at least I can work out what it is you're doing!

...

Some good points KB, changes made 🙂

OK, I've got the logo sorted (thanks jamesfts 😉 ) and made some changes, simplified things so I think it's good to go..

What's the verdict?> http://www.outstanding-landscapes.com/

The verdict is "you should fix that link to your site".

Link fixed by throwing it away and just typing the address... 😳

that black dot on the wood at the R/H end of the aluminium piece would annoy the hell out of me and looks sloppy #OCD
would have a separate title for the ‘hand polished’ etc rather than awkward type on top of the images, they jar especially when they just touch the tip of the item.

The black dot is a knot in the wood.
point taken on the text on the images, I'm looking at a better way of doing it.