New website good bad ugly

[bob carnie]

Hi Folks

We just launched our new website and would welcome any comments/suggestions.
You may have to refresh your browser.

www.elevatordigital.ca

thanks
Bob

[Frank Petronio]

The Hasselblad looks a little bent...

It's a great website, tons of good info

I don't care for some of the design decisions myself, like the rounded corners on the boxes, color choices, or some of the display type, but nothing impaired me from reading the site and learning/appreciating the information.

[Ken Lee]

The home page conveys a sense of energy, and the feeling that it's for working professionals.

The softer side of things - design and decor - gets less visual expression. Perhaps that is intentional ? A less profitable side of the business ? A part of the business that you are not trying to expand ?

[Doug Dolde]

You are advertising you use an Imacon and an Epson XL scanner. That's honest but not very impressive. Plus you are charging real drum scan prices for these scans, which if I may say so aren't worth it.

[Turner Reich]

I never did like the Yeller color, it's not brown, it's not gold, it's... well Yeller. Why not a Canadian Red or a Royal Blue? Don't like the rounded corners and it's on the verge of being too crowded. Remember Less is more. The skewed Hassy picture is a real turn off, anyone going to the site is most probably a visual person and the camera and lens is going to represent the services. Are the services going to be skewed? Otherwise it's OK, keep working out the plan, you are close to being there.

[Frank Petronio]

When I go back there are a lot of little things to complain about:

The list of services, horizontal underneath the logo/header should be clickable... and it is a good practice to know what is exactly clickable....

The three vertical content columns should be equal heights (Safari, OSX)

copyright "2008"

etc.... it needs a more experienced/good professional to go through the architecture and code to make its navigation logical....

Note that this doesn't really effect my buying decisions except on an abstract level... You build a nice website out of pride, not to win new customers. Your customers are local, and word of mouth, the website is mostly for support. People, even anal web designers, routinely put up with less than perfect websites. 99.999% of websites have problems.

Unless you REALLY put a lot into the website, which means more than just code and design -- it's adding useful and new content all the time. That's expensive -- and really a marketing decision -- that may not make sense.

Sometimes good enough for a good price really is the right decision. You've got it 90% right, so spending 300 hours of writing and another $10-20K on it might not be worth it.

[bob carnie]

Like all things in life , this site is a work in progress.
I appreciate all comments
thanks

[Mick Fagan]

Bob, I like your site overall.

One question I do have is about your design centre. On the design centre page there is a picture captioned, "One Bedford, Presentation Centre", is that correct?

At first I read it as Our Bedford..... Upon re-reading it I noticed, One Bedford. I thought it was your presentation area, maybe I'm wrong.

Another point with any web design is readability, find someone who is a bit colour blind, maybe just one or two colours. Get them to look at the site for ease of finding the light coloured click on pages.

I looked at the film pricing PDF thingy, it is slightly hard to see with that colouring and percentage of solid. I have weakened vision these days and also know someone who is colour blind in one colour who probably have a bit of difficulty seeing that percentage of solid.

Mick.

Ps:- I like the Hassy, looks correctish for a super close-up picture.

[bob carnie]

Hi Mick

We do a lot of hotel work and condominium sale centers.
One Bedford is a Sales Center that we did all the Visual Decor for.
the truth be known, this decor work is what allows us to continue with the hard core printing and framing work. It really pays the bills each year.
We will be expanding this side of the site shortly to include various photographers images that our clients can purchase for specific projects.
The green colour has been with us since day one and it kind of grew on us and I cannot imagine switching colours.
All these points are well taken

Bob

Bob, I like your site overall.

One question I do have is about your design centre. On the design centre page there is a picture captioned, "One Bedford, Presentation Centre", is that correct?

At first I read it as Our Bedford..... Upon re-reading it I noticed, One Bedford. I thought it was your presentation area, maybe I'm wrong.

Another point with any web design is readability, find someone who is a bit colour blind, maybe just one or two colours. Get them to look at the site for ease of finding the light coloured click on pages.

I looked at the film pricing PDF thingy, it is slightly hard to see with that colouring and percentage of solid. I have weakened vision these days and also know someone who is colour blind in one colour who probably have a bit of difficulty seeing that percentage of solid.

Mick.

Ps:- I like the Hassy, looks correctish for a super close-up picture.

[Mick Fagan]

Bob, I didn't mean that you should change the colour, I meant that the parts of the site in green where you click for a price sheet etcetera, should be a solid green.

By being a solid green you achieve your corporate colour aim, and you also pinpoint where to click.

The eyes always go to the brightest parts easiest, at least that is my understanding.

Mick.