Site Review (am I gonna be sorry?)

After posting a question about a wk ago one helpful respondent suggested my
beginner's efforts (first domain) may have some merit.



After hanging around a bit to see if I can help anyone else (newbie graphics
etc) (don't ask questions unless you're gonna answer some.there's always
somebody greener than you.eventually) I'm beginning to feel like I'm so far
behind the rest of the planet in this page building thing that I'm just
kidding myself.



Ergo.please have a look at www.kitchenplans.biz and show as much positive
reinforcement as you like (I know it's not quite finished but it shows what
I have in mind). Could I really expect to supplement my kitchen design
income by touting for web work from my contempories?



Please avoid replies like "You are a talentless dullard with less
imagination than a caravan site, get out of our forum and stay out" just say
"Don't give up the day job"



I won't ask daft questions like "What's the going rate?" but what would be a
typical cost for putting something this basic together? Assume all photo and
CAD images provided by client. Anybody prepared to give a price can mail me
at daftbugger (AT) kitchenplans (DOT) biz



If anybody says they could knock it up in a morning I'll give up now. Took
me twice as long to storyboard it. Thanks in advance and sorry for getting
in the way this past wk or so but this web design thing is just so much fun.

Gene Stevo.

Hi Gene

The best page on that site is http://www.kitchenplans.biz/services.htm it's
clean and looks wonderful considering you are a Newbie. Your nav and
http://www.kitchenplans.biz/images/title.gif needs sorting, they don't look
right. This was a very quick look.

Well done, I'll give you more feedback in a bit but I'm off to the pub for a
few.

Cheers

Pablo



"Gene Stevo" <eugene (AT) kitchenplans (DOT) biz> a écrit dans le message de news:
cn5dfq$n3$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com...

After posting a question about a wk ago one helpful respondent suggested
my
beginner's efforts (first domain) may have some merit.



After hanging around a bit to see if I can help anyone else (newbie
graphics
etc) (don't ask questions unless you're gonna answer some.there's always
somebody greener than you.eventually) I'm beginning to feel like I'm so
far
behind the rest of the planet in this page building thing that I'm just
kidding myself.



Ergo.please have a look at www.kitchenplans.biz and show as much positive
reinforcement as you like (I know it's not quite finished but it shows
what
I have in mind). Could I really expect to supplement my kitchen design
income by touting for web work from my contempories?



Please avoid replies like "You are a talentless dullard with less
imagination than a caravan site, get out of our forum and stay out" just
say
"Don't give up the day job"



I won't ask daft questions like "What's the going rate?" but what would be
a
typical cost for putting something this basic together? Assume all photo
and
CAD images provided by client. Anybody prepared to give a price can mail
me
at daftbugger (AT) kitchenplans (DOT) biz



If anybody says they could knock it up in a morning I'll give up now. Took
me twice as long to storyboard it. Thanks in advance and sorry for getting
in the way this past wk or so but this web design thing is just so much
fun.

Gene Stevo.

A thousand thanks Pablo. Off to the pub? Must be nice to have a life (esp in
sunny Menorca).
"Pablo" <dell (AT) takeoutdellwebsites (DOT) com> wrote

Hi Gene

The best page on that site is http://www.kitchenplans.biz/services.htm
it's
clean and looks wonderful considering you are a Newbie. Your nav and
http://www.kitchenplans.biz/images/title.gif needs sorting, they don't
look
right. This was a very quick look.

Well done, I'll give you more feedback in a bit but I'm off to the pub for
a
few.

Cheers

Pablo



"Gene Stevo" <eugene (AT) kitchenplans (DOT) biz> a écrit dans le message de news:
cn5dfq$n3$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com...
After posting a question about a wk ago one helpful respondent suggested
my
beginner's efforts (first domain) may have some merit.



After hanging around a bit to see if I can help anyone else (newbie
graphics
etc) (don't ask questions unless you're gonna answer some.there's always
somebody greener than you.eventually) I'm beginning to feel like I'm so
far
behind the rest of the planet in this page building thing that I'm just
kidding myself.



Ergo.please have a look at www.kitchenplans.biz and show as much
positive
reinforcement as you like (I know it's not quite finished but it shows
what
I have in mind). Could I really expect to supplement my kitchen design
income by touting for web work from my contempories?



Please avoid replies like "You are a talentless dullard with less
imagination than a caravan site, get out of our forum and stay out" just
say
"Don't give up the day job"



I won't ask daft questions like "What's the going rate?" but what would
be
a
typical cost for putting something this basic together? Assume all photo
and
CAD images provided by client. Anybody prepared to give a price can mail
me
at daftbugger (AT) kitchenplans (DOT) biz



If anybody says they could knock it up in a morning I'll give up now.
Took
me twice as long to storyboard it. Thanks in advance and sorry for
getting
in the way this past wk or so but this web design thing is just so much
fun.

Gene Stevo.

Gene,
ok as suggested here's a run down of potential problems with your site:

.. although you have your overall tables specified as width=100%, something
in your code is pushing the content to be a minimum widht larger than 770
( i estimate), in any case,in 800 X 600 (if the user has a full window) the
user would see left to scroll of about 10 pixels.

.. You have height tags specified in your code on your table cells - this
won't validate with your doc type and won't be rendered correctly cross
browser.

Apart from that (those were just on the front page) everything looks good...

James

Oops! Thanks James. I'll be taking a closer look at my table formatting when
I get the rest of the content sorted. I saw it on a 15" monitor the other
day @ 800x600 and it wasn't pretty. Tried to console myself with thoughts
"target audience specs" etc but I wasn't convinced, doubt anybody else will
be either .
Gene Stevo.
"JamesR" <NOSPAM (AT) patchworkmedia (DOT) co.uk> wrote

Gene,
ok as suggested here's a run down of potential problems with your site:

. although you have your overall tables specified as width=100%,
something
in your code is pushing the content to be a minimum widht larger than 770
( i estimate), in any case,in 800 X 600 (if the user has a full window)
the
user would see left to scroll of about 10 pixels.

. You have height tags specified in your code on your table cells - this
won't validate with your doc type and won't be rendered correctly cross
browser.

Apart from that (those were just on the front page) everything looks
good...

James

On 13 Nov 2004 in macromedia.dreamweaver, Gene Stevo wrote:

After hanging around a bit to see if I can help anyone else (newbie
graphics etc) (don't ask questions unless you're gonna answer
some.there's always somebody greener than you.eventually) I'm
beginning to feel like I'm so far behind the rest of the planet in
this page building thing that I'm just kidding myself.

In no way. Sure, there are rough edges, but the overall look is great.

Ergo.please have a look at www.kitchenplans.biz and show as much
positive reinforcement as you like (I know it's not quite finished
but it shows what I have in mind). Could I really expect to
supplement my kitchen design income by touting for web work from my
contempories?

Absolutely. I know one company in Nova Scotia which designs websites for
fellow funeral homes. The sites are absolute crap, but he's sold his
contemporaries on the idea. And you have a very good eye. Spend a bit
of time in these forums, and we'll have your coding whipped right into
shape.[1]

Mostly minor points:
- You use a .biz domain. ***FOR THE MOST PART***[2], .biz domains are
owned by spammers. Or at least it seems that way.

- You mentioned this in your earlier posts - the overall look of the page
could benefit from some application of CSS. If you're getting
comfortable with html, you may want to start looking at some of the CSS
tutorials for, say, linkstyles. Quoting Murray:

Pseudo-classes and container styles are what you need - here are some
tutorials.
http://www.mako4css.com
http://www.thepattysite.com/linkstyles1.cfm
http://www.projectseven.com/tutorials/pseudoclasses/index.htm

- You use frames in your gallery pages. That's not a bad use of frames,
but in the ones where there are more than one page of images, you get a
scroll bar in the center of the page. You may want to cut down on the
number of images per page.

- You're on an Apache server with PHP. There are a bunch of PHP scripts
out there for image galleries. Some are free; some cost a few bucks.
Some are harder to configure than others. I personally like Singapore
(http://singapore.sourceforge.net/). To get a functioning gallery, all
you need to do is unzip the file into a directory and put some pictures
in a directory under it. However, it's vastly customizable if you want
to dig a bit.

I won't ask daft questions like "What's the going rate?" but what
would be a typical cost for putting something this basic together?
Assume all photo and CAD images provided by client. Anybody prepared
to give a price can mail me at daftbugger (AT) kitchenplans (DOT) biz

Macromedia asks us not to discuss pricing on the forums. However:
- How much do you want to make per year from web design?
- How many hours per year do you want to spend on it?
- £/hours = your hourly rate
- How long did it take you to do this site? I'll assume that you're
still at a point where you'll get more efficient, so knock off some
factor and that'll give you an idea how long
- Rate x time = price

[1] The discussions in the forums about design vs the code monkeys are
legion. My own personal feeling (and I'll freely acknowledge being a
code monkey) is that if you have somebody with good design skills who's
willing to learn how to code, you've got a near-ideal web designer.
[2] Always avoid generalities

--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.net/
Email: http://makowiec.net/email.php

nice job for a first site.
In my opinion the main problem is in the design -even though everything
works as intended, the design looks amateur.
The jpeg in the home page could be smaller but much crisper. Low quality
jpegs are typical of amateur web design: if you're concerned with
download time, reduce the size of your pictures, but don't reduce their
quality to such a low level.
In the galleries, same problem: the thumbnails are very low quality, the
large images don't need to be so big.
The quality of the navigation images is too low too. It just looks bad.
You can acheive very nice navigation effects using CSS instead of
images, in most cases it will look cleaner and more professional.

Your page layout lacks structural elements. It sort of seems as if
things where just thrown in the page. Maybe you could consider framing
the content in one white Table and apply a light background color in the
body, so your content would look contained within a structure.

When you are going to price your work and show your portfolio, your
clients will see the design first, because they just assume that
everything should work technically. So a site like this, I'd say could
be priced at around $2000 or more if the design looked pro, but as it is
right now it looks like a $500 site.

Good luck



Gene Stevo wrote:

Oops! Thanks James. I'll be taking a closer look at my table formatting when
I get the rest of the content sorted. I saw it on a 15" monitor the other
day @ 800x600 and it wasn't pretty. Tried to console myself with thoughts
"target audience specs" etc but I wasn't convinced, doubt anybody else will
be either .
Gene Stevo.
"JamesR" <NOSPAM (AT) patchworkmedia (DOT) co.uk> wrote in message
news:cn5go5$3c6$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com...

Gene,
ok as suggested here's a run down of potential problems with your site:

. although you have your overall tables specified as width=100%,
something
in your code is pushing the content to be a minimum widht larger than 770
( i estimate), in any case,in 800 X 600 (if the user has a full window)
the
user would see left to scroll of about 10 pixels.

. You have height tags specified in your code on your table cells - this
won't validate with your doc type and won't be rendered correctly cross
browser.

Apart from that (those were just on the front page) everything looks
good...

James

Thanks Joe for your much valued advice. From what I've read in the forum
recently CSS seams to be the accepted norm. Thanks for the links, esp the
PHP stuff, I want to get into that anyway as you advised me in a previous
post to use it to rid myself of all those mailto: tags.
Appart from anything else I could harvest much more relevent info from
prospective clients with a well thought out check list in a form. Much
better idea than asking them to read long winded explanations to justify the
info I need.
Re the .biz domain I couldn't get a .com or a .co.uk or anything reasonable.
That's why it forms part of the title gif, so people won't try to type in
..com etc. Was hoping to make it part of the identity. I tried loads of names
for my site but couldn't get any thing .com or .co.uk. It was going to be
called "independentdesign" but thats too long a name to type in (IMHO) esp
if people are as bad at sbelling as I am.
The frames I have to admit weren't written by me but kind Mr Photoshop which
I edited to show my own graphics, text elements etc. For the time being
they'll have to stay as they are coz I've got to finish the content first,
then learn PHP and CSS and earn a living at the same time. I will be sure to
check out the ideas suggested though.
Thanks again, your input is always most apreciated and welcome.
BTW sorry to MM re the money thing, I honestly didn't know.
Gene Stevo.
"Joe Makowiec" <makowiec (AT) invalid (DOT) invalid> wrote

On 13 Nov 2004 in macromedia.dreamweaver, Gene Stevo wrote:

After hanging around a bit to see if I can help anyone else (newbie
graphics etc) (don't ask questions unless you're gonna answer
some.there's always somebody greener than you.eventually) I'm
beginning to feel like I'm so far behind the rest of the planet in
this page building thing that I'm just kidding myself.

In no way. Sure, there are rough edges, but the overall look is great.

Ergo.please have a look at www.kitchenplans.biz and show as much
positive reinforcement as you like (I know it's not quite finished
but it shows what I have in mind). Could I really expect to
supplement my kitchen design income by touting for web work from my
contempories?

Absolutely. I know one company in Nova Scotia which designs websites for
fellow funeral homes. The sites are absolute crap, but he's sold his
contemporaries on the idea. And you have a very good eye. Spend a bit
of time in these forums, and we'll have your coding whipped right into
shape.[1]

Mostly minor points:
- You use a .biz domain. ***FOR THE MOST PART***[2], .biz domains are
owned by spammers. Or at least it seems that way.

- You mentioned this in your earlier posts - the overall look of the page
could benefit from some application of CSS. If you're getting
comfortable with html, you may want to start looking at some of the CSS
tutorials for, say, linkstyles. Quoting Murray:

Pseudo-classes and container styles are what you need - here are some
tutorials.
http://www.mako4css.com
http://www.thepattysite.com/linkstyles1.cfm
http://www.projectseven.com/tutorials/pseudoclasses/index.htm

- You use frames in your gallery pages. That's not a bad use of frames,
but in the ones where there are more than one page of images, you get a
scroll bar in the center of the page. You may want to cut down on the
number of images per page.

- You're on an Apache server with PHP. There are a bunch of PHP scripts
out there for image galleries. Some are free; some cost a few bucks.
Some are harder to configure than others. I personally like Singapore
(http://singapore.sourceforge.net/). To get a functioning gallery, all
you need to do is unzip the file into a directory and put some pictures
in a directory under it. However, it's vastly customizable if you want
to dig a bit.

I won't ask daft questions like "What's the going rate?" but what
would be a typical cost for putting something this basic together?
Assume all photo and CAD images provided by client. Anybody prepared
to give a price can mail me at daftbugger (AT) kitchenplans (DOT) biz

Macromedia asks us not to discuss pricing on the forums. However:
- How much do you want to make per year from web design?
- How many hours per year do you want to spend on it?
- £/hours = your hourly rate
- How long did it take you to do this site? I'll assume that you're
still at a point where you'll get more efficient, so knock off some
factor and that'll give you an idea how long
- Rate x time = price

[1] The discussions in the forums about design vs the code monkeys are
legion. My own personal feeling (and I'll freely acknowledge being a
code monkey) is that if you have somebody with good design skills who's
willing to learn how to code, you've got a near-ideal web designer.
[2] Always avoid generalities

--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.net/
Email: http://makowiec.net/email.php

Thanks for that Seb. I take your point about the image sizes. As I just said
to James I saw it on a 15" @ 800x600 and the big images looked...not as nice
as they could be, artifacts all over the place.
I did check my pages at various resolutions first but I have to admit I was
more concerned with everything fitted, esp at low resolutions.
I also accept your coments on the structure (lack of). Two of the words I
half expect to see in these reviews are boring and unimaginative, thanks for
the layout ideas I'll have a play when I've finish the content.
Gene Stevo
"(_seb_)" <sebnewyork (AT) earhlinkREMOVE-THIS (DOT) net> wrote

nice job for a first site.
In my opinion the main problem is in the design -even though everything
works as intended, the design looks amateur.
The jpeg in the home page could be smaller but much crisper. Low quality
jpegs are typical of amateur web design: if you're concerned with download
time, reduce the size of your pictures, but don't reduce their quality to
such a low level.
In the galleries, same problem: the thumbnails are very low quality, the
large images don't need to be so big.
The quality of the navigation images is too low too. It just looks bad.
You can acheive very nice navigation effects using CSS instead of images,
in most cases it will look cleaner and more professional.

Your page layout lacks structural elements. It sort of seems as if things
where just thrown in the page. Maybe you could consider framing the
content in one white Table and apply a light background color in the body,
so your content would look contained within a structure.

When you are going to price your work and show your portfolio, your
clients will see the design first, because they just assume that
everything should work technically. So a site like this, I'd say could be
priced at around $2000 or more if the design looked pro, but as it is
right now it looks like a $500 site.

Good luck



Gene Stevo wrote:

Oops! Thanks James. I'll be taking a closer look at my table formatting
when I get the rest of the content sorted. I saw it on a 15" monitor the
other day @ 800x600 and it wasn't pretty. Tried to console myself with
thoughts "target audience specs" etc but I wasn't convinced, doubt
anybody else will be either .
Gene Stevo.
"JamesR" <NOSPAM (AT) patchworkmedia (DOT) co.uk> wrote in message
news:cn5go5$3c6$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com...

Gene,
ok as suggested here's a run down of potential problems with your site:

. although you have your overall tables specified as width=100%,
something
in your code is pushing the content to be a minimum widht larger than 770
( i estimate), in any case,in 800 X 600 (if the user has a full window)
the
user would see left to scroll of about 10 pixels.

. You have height tags specified in your code on your table cells - this
won't validate with your doc type and won't be rendered correctly cross
browser.

Apart from that (those were just on the front page) everything looks
good...

James

Thanks Clinton. I take your point about the local fitted furniture
designers. They'll hardly feed me with web design work when I'm competing
for kitchen sales with them on a weelkly basis.
I sub contract to a local specialist remodeling studio. I doubt my peers
would believe me if after 22 yrs designing kitchens I said "hey guys, I've
changed my mind, I'm gonna be a web master for you lot".
I was thinking more of polling fellow kitchen designers nationally via the
producers of the CAD software I use and beta test for. They've already
agreed to post a suitable link on their own site.
Thanks for the polling architects idea. I hadn't thought of that.
Cheers,
Gene Stevo.
"clintonG" <csgallagher (AT) REMOVETHISTEXTmetromilwaukee (DOT) com> wrote

I've worked in the construction industry for many years before
pretending I am really competent at web design & development.

I'll let the others respond about page design issues and comment
about your other question...

...Could I really expect to supplement my kitchen design
income by touting for web work from my contempories?

On the basis of my degree, owning my own residential remodeling
company and working as an architect I would say no to that question
with one exception as noted.

You will not be successful trying to sell services to your peers
in your own geographical region as they will always see you as
a competitive threat.

You can be successful in a niché when marketing to your peers who
are located outside of your region but you have to build a portfolio which
I know you already understand. Pick a market in another geographic
locale and get a copy of the associations memberships in that locale.
They will be your market.

Work your company locally while you refine your web design and
development skills and then try to sell a couple of web projects to local
architects or a product vendor as neither will be seen by your peers
as direct competition yet familiar enough to your line of work that the
In fact, I would also suggest you start collecting as many architectural
and product vendor website references as possible to get ideas from other
successful portfolios published to the web and the copy the principles
and apply to your own objectives.

--
%= Clinton Gallagher, "Twice the Results -- Half the Cost"
Architectural & e-Business Consulting -- Software Development
NET csgallagher (AT) REMOVETHISTEXTmetromilwaukee (DOT) com
URL http://www.metromilwaukee.com/clintongallagher/




"Gene Stevo" <eugene (AT) kitchenplans (DOT) biz> wrote in message
news:cn5dfq$n3$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com...
After posting a question about a wk ago one helpful respondent suggested
my
beginner's efforts (first domain) may have some merit.



After hanging around a bit to see if I can help anyone else (newbie
graphics
etc) (don't ask questions unless you're gonna answer some.there's always
somebody greener than you.eventually) I'm beginning to feel like I'm so
far
behind the rest of the planet in this page building thing that I'm just
kidding myself.



Ergo.please have a look at www.kitchenplans.biz and show as much
positive
reinforcement as you like (I know it's not quite finished but it shows
what
I have in mind). Could I really expect to supplement my kitchen design
income by touting for web work from my contempories?



Please avoid replies like "You are a talentless dullard with less
imagination than a caravan site, get out of our forum and stay out" just
say
"Don't give up the day job"



I won't ask daft questions like "What's the going rate?" but what would
be
a
typical cost for putting something this basic together? Assume all photo
and
CAD images provided by client. Anybody prepared to give a price can mail
me
at daftbugger (AT) kitchenplans (DOT) biz



If anybody says they could knock it up in a morning I'll give up now.
Took
me twice as long to storyboard it. Thanks in advance and sorry for
getting
in the way this past wk or so but this web design thing is just so much
fun.

Gene Stevo.