First try-Non Business related site

[jonnyb31]

This is more of a fun thing/hobby for me. Perhaps when my skill levels increase a bit more, I will seek to do something for commercial use. This site was designed entirely using XARA products, other then the addition of a few sound effects to flash, which I added with Macromedia flash 8. I still see plenty of little things I don't like'

(the imbedded utube/daily motion videos gotta go, clickable snakes don't auto reset to layer position, occasional loop gaps in sounds, etc.)

The bandwith of my public hosting isn't good, which doesn't help the overall presentation either. If nothing else I will store this as a template Nonetheless I haven't seen anything posted here so far that wasn't intended for commercial applications of some type, so this is at least differant. I am interested in what more experienced people might have to say. Thanks in advance if you take the time to check it out.

http://jonnyb31.magix.net/public/snakes/

[angelize]

I like the graphics and it is interesting, but I'm not too keen on the sounds. but that is just me, others may enjoy the sounds.

[jonnyb31]

Thank you. I did a few hours of searching for a more "atmospheric" loop, but settled for that Also the small sound effects on the intro flash were drowned out by the loop, so I just turned em off on that page. Same situation if for some reason someone chose to watch the imbedded video links(the loops were too loud). Still pretty ameturish compared to most of the works i've seen displayed by this forums participants, but it is certainly fun, and who know with refinement and practice.........

[Big Frank]

Welcome to the forums, Jonny. Good to see you're having fun with Xara! I like the subject matter and there's no doubt you grab the user's attention upon first hitting the website. I do have one serious issue with it, though. There's a maxim in web design circles that is taken from newspaper design: "put the important stuff above the fold". This means in effect that you shouldn't oblige the user to scroll down below the visible area in order to view anything that you wish them to see. Now clearly this "fold" area will depend upon the viewer's preferences, but you get the general idea.

On your website, at 1024 x 768 screen resolution with the browser maximised, the only things your viewers get to see are the buttons at the top of the page and the two words "Snakes" and "Home". Compare this to the amount of information Amazon have already blasted at me before I am tempted to scroll down. Using Amazon as an example is probably a bit extreme, but it gets the point across. If I were you I would reduce the overall size of your design elements on the home page so that it all fits above the fold - in this way the user isn't overwhelmed by the size of your graphics!

I hope you find this information useful - I certainly found a lot of the snake information enlightening!

[gsthunder]

As someone who really detests snakes I didn't stick around long enough to really see enough to offer you much in the way of feedback. Sorry.

[jonnyb31]

@beretgascon:

Thanks, I've never even thought about things like that. When I started the website, I had no idea what it was going to be, so I chose the largest page size to give me room to do whatever. Then the challenge was to fill the pages lol. There were several times I was struggling to fill gaps where I just didn't have anything. So I will keep that in mind in my future designing, especially the topmost viewable areas. Guess I need to catch the viewers attention in that section first and foremost, then they will feel more curious or interested in seeing the rest. Like I said "never even occured to me". The feedback is priceless.