(Semi-)OT: Website check, please. And street paranoia.

Goodyear

Goodyear

Happy-snap ninja
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Hi folks.

In my time wandering around shooting, and in my naturally paranoid personality, I was looking for a way to make walkabout (I won't say 'street', as I'm crap at it) shooting a little tiny bit more... transparent is the best word I can come up with.

So, if I am asked, I have cards with my name, email, a phone number and the following website. The theory being that by providing such information I demonstrate at least some level of openness and trustworthiness.

Any thoguhts on the website would be appreciated - http://www.markgoody.com

And I know the 'about' page sounds hopelessly pretentious. I was in that kind of mood. I may rewrite it 😀

Currently this is the only real purpose for th website, althoguh I will keep the portfolio page up to date. And you never know, more content may be forthcoming.

I'm especially interested on how it looks on monitors smaller than my 1280x1024 - how does the anti-aliasing on the graphic text look?

Cheers, all.
 
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Mark,

I think it looks pretty darned good. No problems with the text here. I find that I am carrying my photo club membership card in my bag when I go out, as well as business cards - 'cause well, I'll be happy to take some money if someone wants to pay me.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
Mark - OK for me on my T41 laptop. I would like to do something similar, but time does not permit - what with work, rugby and family, I dodn't get time to maintain a convincing website anymore 🙁

Hmmm, the "about" bit is "awfully morningside" 😉
 
Manolo Gozales said:
Personally, I would prefer the "about" page to be in the first person.
Click to expand...
Yeah. That's what I was thinking.
Manolo Gozales said:
Also, in the gallery, the picture of the "make poverty history" demo appears on both pages 1 and 2.
Click to expand...
I think I was banishing that particular bug as you were posting 😀
 
I would have had the bottom nav links highlight on mouseover (like the mailto link already is) and would have made the page title a link back to index.html.

You may have discarded these choices for very good reasons.
 
The site looks fine. Now you just need to add some more photos 🙂
I also agree with Manolo about putting the "about" page into the first person.
 
Looks pretty good, Mark! And the "About" text sounds fine, though perhaps a bit like an intro to a book. 🙂
 
Cheers all for the comments.

In case you're wondering, I was a bit wary of putting my home number (or even mobile) on the web, so VoIP comes to the rescue! It's a regular geographic call to that number, and if the handset isn't plugged in to the PC then voicemail will pick up. Is very cool.
 
I like it! I have gone to wesite that have a thing that once you click on the first photo you can just click next and it will allow you to go thru all the photos in gallery..
Great shots and can't wait to see more.
Skinny
 
Hi Goodyear.
A few remarks:
The page looks good as it is. In the first page it is somewhat strange to find a shot of a lady knowing you are not the person and not knowing anything about her. Is she your love? Is she just a random unknown model?
I maybe would put a shot with a bit more abstract content on the front page. The shot is great, just it is not self-explanatory.

"About" text: You put too much stress on the equipment you use (3rd paragraph) and to explain yourself why you prefer to use film, etc, which i find a bit unnecessary. You can mention what equipment you use but why not keep it objective, simply saying you use this and that and that's all. I know we like this type of threads here on RFF, to explain why RF are the best and film will never be dead, but i would just skip it in a personal webpage that is supposed to present your work first of all (i think) 🙂
Portfolio: Looks good, only thing is, i would prefer the thumbs not being crops from the shot but the full shot - matted to square if you want them all to have the same shape as thumbs.

I would suggest you to use some kind of e-mail address hiding trick so that spam bots cannot just get it from the site. Simplest would be to make it an image.

Photo projects: You jump to third person on this page, why? Was it all third person in the beginning? The bio is now first person, the projects is not, looks weird.

The above are just my humble oppinion, blah, blah.
Cheers!
 
Pherdinand said:
Hi Goodyear.
A few remarks:
The page looks good as it is. In the first page it is somewhat strange to find a shot of a lady knowing you are not the person and not knowing anything about her. Is she your love? Is she just a random unknown model?
I maybe would put a shot with a bit more abstract content on the front page. The shot is great, just it is not self-explanatory.

"About" text: You put too much stress on the equipment you use (3rd paragraph) and to explain yourself why you prefer to use film, etc, which i find a bit unnecessary. You can mention what equipment you use but why not keep it objective, simply saying you use this and that and that's all. I know we like this type of threads here on RFF, to explain why RF are the best and film will never be dead, but i would just skip it in a personal webpage that is supposed to present your work first of all (i think) 🙂
Portfolio: Looks good, only thing is, i would prefer the thumbs not being crops from the shot but the full shot - matted to square if you want them all to have the same shape as thumbs.

I would suggest you to use some kind of e-mail address hiding trick so that spam bots cannot just get it from the site. Simplest would be to make it an image.

Photo projects: You jump to third person on this page, why? Was it all third person in the beginning? The bio is now first person, the projects is not, looks weird.

The above are just my humble oppinion, blah, blah.
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Aha. A little third-person slips through. This is why it's good to get people to look a site over 😀

The slightly cropped thumbs are pinched from Flickr - t's something I particularly like. Differing tastes, I guess.

Regarding email, and spambots, this is an issue I am well aware of. It's a deliberate decision to use a regular mailto: link.

RE the about gear stuff. I have found that these days when people are curious about the photography I do, one of the first things they want to know is film or digital? Film?! Why?! And film gear is something of a distinctive by now.
 
Goodyear said:
Personal preference on the first one, oversight on the second 😀
Click to expand...
No.

If something clicky lights up on mouseover, and something else clicky nearby doesn't light up that is poor interface design.

It happens on this site too.
 
Jon Claremont said:
No.

If something clicky lights up on mouseover, and something else clicky nearby doesn't light up that is poor interface design.

It happens on this site too.
Click to expand...
Well, yes, in that it is my personal preference.

I personally find rollover images quite objectionable, and anything else (mucking with borders, etc) to be just plain ugly. The current style is a deliberate compromise between visual style, file weight and usability.

I agree it is fairly poor interface design, but it is deliberately poor. It's okay to break the rules, as long as you know why and do it deliberately. On the other hand, in a web browser I have always found the changing pointer to be sufficient visual cue of a link.

For example, the current design should degrade well in older browsers and without CSS, and (althoguh I haven't tested this yet - as demonstrated by the rough edges I only started work on this at the weekend) it should also perform well with a screen-reader (despite being a site focussed on the visual).
 
Jon Claremont said:
No.

If something clicky lights up on mouseover, and something else clicky nearby doesn't light up that is poor interface design.

It happens on this site too.
Click to expand...
Heh. I think I misunderstood you, though.

The juxtapostion of the mail link and the graphical links.

I would regard them as quite distinct and different. Graphics-based vs text-based, hence with very different styles anyway.

What is definitely questionable is the use of text-links to return to the homepage from others. That's just inconsistent nav, but I didn't want to add another big button, so for the time being I'm living with it 😀
 
This is what I do. Get some user-testing in.

A few mates after lunch and keep quiet and watch while they click. Keep quiet. Do not 'help' them.

Just watch what mistakes they make clicking around a site.

Of course they are not making mistakes at all, but they are finding our mistakes.
 
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