Thread: Please! Suggestions wanted!

Hello! I would LOVE to receive your feedback (yes, YOU!) on my first-ever site. Dive in and give me your thoughts, suggestions, and any other ideas...it will only make it better! www.wildedgeconservationscience.org.

P.S. Thanks so much BLUE VODA, VODAHOST, and all of you AMAZING "military" experts who made me think I could do this. What a blast! It's a little embarassing that I've gained so many stripes from submitting ASKING posts, not HELPING ones...LOL!

my p.c is on a go slow today 2meg braodband and your site loaded a bit slow maybe want to use pixresize its free from voda and tha mite help, at first glance it looks cool exactly like a wildlife type page nice use of colours, page wants puling up at the top a bit and tha end of the page needs a sort of end i felt like it should go on more i know im being nitt pikky here but its best to be honest now rather than you realise these things later on. as for the pics now they seem blurry to me again this is prob a good idea to use pixresizer for this reason too
lol having said all that i tried most of the links thay are ok having said that i think this is one of the nicest cleanest fresh to the point interesting sites ive seen on here for ages good luck

I agree with AllStar...your registration of key elements makes transition between pages jumpy.
>HOME page is registered far below top edge....in BV, use arrows to advance to top edge of page until it cannot go any higher, then simply "stretch down" the bottom edge of page/image to meet left borders.
>A couple of pages (especially Press Room), the left nav and top left images are only about 1-2 clicks off registration, but very noticable when moving thru.
**Find out what the X-Y axis registrations are for everything (lower right hand BV bar) and make same for all pages.....I too, had to rely on this method long before the "clone" button came out....ahhh, the good old days!

To help your images look better and load faster, try re-saving them as JPG's instead of GIF's.....use your filters to *****en and despeckle before final saving and use. JPG's present finer resolution and load much differently.....

Your site is very *****ly designed and presents a professional attention to detail. You should be extremely proud of your work, and thoughtful planning!

The pictures were slow loading for me too. I am also on 2mg broadband so its not my pc. The pics need resizing to the what they are going to be viewed at on the pages. The site is basically ok apart from that, I think you will find that with the comments from other membes and your own tweeks that you will end up with a very good site.

Wonderful suggestions. Thank you, thank you! KEEP THEM COMING! I need all the help I can get.
LOL! I did wonder why it loaded so slowly. Hmmmm...CLONE button??? Hahaha! That would have been a good thing to discover!

I know.....I lost a lot of hair before I got lazy and simply deleted things off pages and resaved them.....geez! Who would have THOUGHT to actually insert a CLONE function! LOLOL!!

You only have a few minor tweaks, and you will have a truly wonderful site to show off.....good for you!!! And - welcome to VodaLand! Stick around long enough after you finish up to pass on the encouragements to those just arriving!!!

Thank you! Yes, I will. I need to add some HELPING stripes to "pay it forward" for everyone who is helping me. :)

Here's something you can use if you don't have a photo editor like ACDSee, or the Editor that may have been supplied with a digital camera?? (NOT the Kodak or Safeway things, please!) I copied it off General VodaHost's post in another thread:

run all your pictures through pix resizer >> http://www.vodahost.com/pix.htm I disagree about the earlier comment on photo size...they are exactly the size you need, but *****ening them up, despeckling them, and changing them to JPG (for photos, primarily) rather than GIF (for Graphics) should really be the solution...maybe this "resizer" has a refiner too??

"with a little help from my friends..."

PS: I became temporarily famous outwardly complaining that I was making "Stripes by gripes" rather than as 'honorably' as I thought I could....LOLOL Look at me now! I get to ride in a Jeep, but I still have to pull to the side whenever a General blazes thru!

My comments would also be about the pictures - very slow loading and not too *****. Otherwise I liked the site.

The Site is fine and all the links work its just the pictures!They didnt take for ages but they did take about 8 seconds but apart from that its fine
I used the pixresizer that bluevoda provided and i made all my pictures load alot faster and my website has alot of pictures!! Alot!!

Dear Vodayoda,
all suggestions from our friends in the forum are quite usefullm as far as placing of the photos etc. I will stay with the size of the photos. They are huge!!! For instance the nestingonpole2 (down to the right) is a .gif with important reduced quality BUT it is 1,75 Mb (i open the file in Photoshop), it is VERY big and "heavy". The actual size of the photo (in 72 pixels/inch) is 44,45cm X 51,44cm. You see what i mean? The "normal" size must be 130 pix X 150 pix (now is 1250 pix X 1358 pix). And if it was normal instead of 1.75 Mb it should be 19,2 K !!!!

If you need more help tell me

Site looks fine and pics load quickly. The background is really nice and in keeping with your website.

I did notice that you do not have "Home" navbar in http://www.wildedgeconservationscience.org/legal.html every other page does. I clicked on the logo to get back.

Also, you might want to make the link words a little darker shade, i.e. convenient inquiry request form -tends to be overlooked

Yes, I didn't really know how big photos were supposed to be. When I placed the "nesting on pole" photo, it covered the entire website! LOL! I just sized it smaller in on the page.

Oh, on the legal page it had so much "blah,blah,blah..." that it took up three sections. I took off the navigation so people would have to run through it all. (It reappears in the last legal page) Yes, in hindsight, it was probably a bit too controlling! hahaha! I'll put it back.

Hmmm, good catch on the link shade...I thought that myself once, but then forgot about it!

Thanks to ALL. KEEP SENDING COMMENTS! I love it!

You will get there, keep up the good work

My suggestion would be to justify your text. Also, on my computer your link colors are very pale, I can barely see them.

Having no experience at website development, I agree with you, BV sure made it easy and I am having fun in the learning process.

Andrea
http://forgetmenotusa.com

Text is fine....link colors are fine....

>>> You need to just go back and register all fields/text areas/elements all the same for proper page transition.
**Especially the 'blocks' as mentioned earlier.....when this is all done, then stand back and let it be! It's great!

OK! Here I go! I'll surface again when I finish...

(...Now! where is that $%($# clone button????) LOL!

Wish me luck! Thanks for all the great advice.

Don't bother to recreate pages ( fix the registration issues) with the Clone, Kim (it IS Kim, right??)....

Do it manually with the arrows....a simple thing really.

*and about the "mailto:" link on Contact mentioned above?? rather than change your link styles now, simply put it centered on the line below so it has only one contrasting background....

Ok, that does sound quicker. I'll keep you posted on my progress...

Actually, it's Annie! I'm doing the site as an "office-warming" gift for friends---I thought it would be more useful than a potted plant! :)

LOLOLOLOL

Priceless!

Got it now, Annie! Get on with it then, girl!!

Annie...great elegant site and really makes you get a visual feel for nature. Simple and I echo like others before about the slow loading but other than that ...great work. I'm a bird watcher and helping birdlife Jamaica with their site and it makes me see a different way to do things. Keep up the good work.

Bzz

Thank you! I would love to see the site when you are finished. Thank you for the kind words. :)

No problem...they are going to be registering with VODAHOST as I hae touted the wonders of the company and the forum so they should be promoting it here once they are ready. I look forward to getting back to your site and checking things out more leisurely.

bzzz

I just finished the aligning of the text blocks and other items. LOL! Wow, what a mess they were...just off enough to be annoying! Yes, the X and Y axis data is invaluable! :)
I'll work on the photos tomorrow. Thanks all!

I have put the photos through the pixresizing program and reloaded them. They are still a bit "sparkly" but when I tried to despeckle them in Photoshop, they became blurry. The text blocks are lined up now... Wow! How did I miss the whole x/y axis thing?
Thanks for all the great input. Any more suggestions or comments?

Opppsss! Forgot the address: www.wildedgeconservationscience.org

absolutley fantastic i think , i lrealy do like this its doin the job its supposed to looks very profesional
pat yourself on the back

Thank you! Thank you!

Now that I am finishing up on this one, I can start being a helper. Of course, I don't really have any techinical ability, LOL, so I don't know how "helpful" I could actually be!

Is it helpful at all to offer design suggestions?

Not bad. Some of the backround font was unreadable. Site is cool though.
David

Originally Posted by vodayoda

Thank you! Thank you!

Now that I am finishing up on this one, I can start being a helper. Of course, I don't really have any techinical ability, LOL, so I don't know how "helpful" I could actually be!

Is it helpful at all to offer design suggestions?

You've done a great job! and yes it is helpful to hear suggestions, anyhting that makes for a better site is always welcome.

Originally Posted by Lgddesign01

Not bad. Some of the backround font was unreadable. Site is cool though.
David

Hi David,

Are you talking about the background words on the home page? If so, are they unreadable because they are too light or for some other reason?

Thanks for clarifying, it looks fine on my computer but I would like to fix it if possible. Also, does the "unreadability" affect your ability to read the other text on the page?

Thanks for helping!

Annie--(or is it Yoda??)--

You fixed it really great. (Don't bother about Dave's mention about "background"....methinks he doesn't get the artistic concept).
BUT >>> He does bring up a good point: maybe now is the time to go to your link styles and re-tint your links 2-3 levels darker....you can keep the same color, but a shade or two darker will not only allow a greater level of legibility, but not allow them to be associated with your undertone background....set the contrast 2 shades lighter than content, and the difference in link color a shade or two darker will be perfect. Try it....you might like it when you see it!

After that....stand back and simply let it be. For at least a week!
LOL

Really great job!

I love the look of your site. Everything loads fast for me on IE4 and DSL.

[QUOTED: You fixed it really great. (Don't bother about Dave's mention about "background"....methinks he doesn't get the artistic concept).
BUT >>> He does bring up a good point: maybe now is the time to go to your link styles and re-tint your links 2-3 levels darker....you can keep the same color, but a shade or two darker will not only allow a greater level of legibility, but not allow them to be associated with your undertone background....set the contrast 2 shades lighter than content, and the difference in link color a shade or two darker will be perfect.]

Why, thank you! I was amazed by how shifting things just a bit, made it SO much better...that was excellent advice! :)

RE: David's comment, I hope he replies...I WOULD like to hear what was happening. Early-on I sent a link to a friend of mine in the Netherlands (to help with my highly creative spelling) and for some reason on his system there were tons of text issues and big white squares which did not appear on any other computers. Lesson learned for me! :)

OK, that's a good point, I will tackle the links next. I think it might be harder than it sounds because I seem to recall just picking a single color (gray) out of a word list. I don't remember seeing option for shading. If I can't figure it out, I will come back for a little more guidance, yes?

Thanks again for your help!

A. Yoda? :)