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aprilcarter · Sep 22, 2003, 07:26 PM

http://www.gutterfresh.com/

Any comments?

kaboom · Sep 22, 2003, 07:34 PM

Welcome... get your fat ass in here!
This site is best viewed in Internet Explorer 6 or Safari 1.0 (not in Netscape).

Booooooooooo.

It's a shame too. I'd like to see it but it seems that you have everything popping up (which is bad anyway IMHO.)
Keep it in one window. Think to yourself "Is there really any reason that I need to have pop ups all over?"

The art looks really cool. I'm interested but I fear I won't go back until you make it Netscape/Camino/Firebird/Mozilla compatible.

Aric · Sep 22, 2003, 07:36 PM

Nice artwork, but the site navigation is a little odd with all the black background pop up windows. I viewed it using Safari.

aprilcarter · Sep 22, 2003, 08:07 PM

Maybe a hocker in the eye would've been more appropriate. Constructive criticism would be welcome to someone who just explained that it's her first ever. Jesus.

Anyway, in IE the old windows close as pop-ups open (but that's not the case in Safari). The artist wanted the windows framed/cropped as I did them, and as far as I know, there' isn't a way to resize the existing window. The pop-ups aren't excessive... they are used where necessary. Any specific suggestions that would improve it, IYHO?

godzookie2k · Sep 23, 2003, 12:26 AM

cross browser compatibility should always be your number one concern. at least make it work right in mozilla and IE. F safari. that being said I couldn't see anything...but remember 'best viewed' statements are sooooo 1994. get what I'm saying?

janmc · Sep 23, 2003, 09:03 AM

there are way too many pop ups - there has to be another way of achieving your aims. i found the navigation annoying personally - people associate pop-ups with unwanted advertising. (i viewed in IE as well).

arclight · Sep 23, 2003, 09:57 AM

Your navigation is very annoying. Popups are a bad idea in the first place. If they were an integral part of the design I might understand why you chose to use them. The site is so disjointed with all the content being separated into windows. The graphics and layout are crisp and professional. The navigation bar needs some feedback other than the text, it's too static. IMHO

I suggest thinking about the site if you were visiting it for the first time. Don't assume people will understand your popup idea. Cross browser compatability is a requirement, not an option. If you want visitors, don't frustrate them or they will leave almost instantly.

for a first site, it's very impressive. You just need to put some thought into navigation.

art_director · Sep 23, 2003, 10:19 AM

the popup windows aould be better if they were links to viagra.com, webcams and porn sites.

jokes aside, it's a solid swing for your first site.

spamtrapeze · Sep 23, 2003, 05:14 PM

hi april,

for the first try, the art and graphics are quite nice and clean, your useability is pretty bad though. I understand that the client wants to "frame" his artwork more, however I would push back some more, because I think they have to balance the artisitic with the pragmatic, ie you don't want to annoy the peoople who are coming to visit your site. Could you create a frame within the frame, possibly with the navigation adding to the framing effect around the central content area.

If you do want to stick with the pop-ups, then check your coding, some of the links open new windows and others just load new content. I assume that it was a mistake to keep loading new pages. I think that at the most you have the home page, then one pop-up which all pages then load into.

Isn't there some javascript that changes window sizes? I think that might be an option for you. Oh, and if you open a pop-up I think it would be polite to have a cool button that says "close window".

Anyhoo, sorry about the long rambling, hope it helps.

OwlBoy · Sep 24, 2003, 01:20 AM

AWSOME ART Though I am sure you hear it all the time...

-Owl

andi*pandi · Sep 24, 2003, 11:41 AM

well, I liked the art, and was only slightly delayed by the popup. I only got one, but I am using IE5 right now. It pays to be lowbrow?

I think it may be less disorientating for the viewer to have the site nav stay in the first window, and leave the popups for the art portfolio itself.

aprilcarter · Sep 24, 2003, 07:15 PM

Hey! Thanks for all the feedback. I really appreciate it and look forward to implementing your suggestions to make it easier and less annoying to use as well as friendly to all browsers.

darren h · Sep 29, 2003, 05:23 PM

If you cut down on the pop-ups, then you can also lose the splash/enter page, they are never a good idea, it's an extra mouse click that achieves nothing. You could make that first pop-up page the homepage, that way the user will know where they are, what it's about and where they can go as soon as the come to the site.

I agree with the pop-up comments, makes it a little confusing to navigate. I like the little bits of art for the menu but the average user hates having to 'discover' what each menu item does, I would have the menu text visible.

It's a bit dark for my liking but that is just my taste.

On the plus side, it loads nice and fast and is a very solid first attempt, you should be pleased.

Some thoughts for the future, your site navigation should be all about driving/guiding users to the content, make it as easy as possible for them to find their way to the important content. If you are ever unsure of structure and navigation sit people down in front of it and watch them use it, see where they click, where they pause, what they read and don't read, I have been designing websites for about 6 years and it users still surprise me sometimes.

Anyway, apologies for the long post, I hope the advice is constructive and helpful.

Regards

Darren

bracken · Sep 29, 2003, 07:07 PM

Very cool art. Lose the pop-ups.

desvenne · Oct 4, 2003, 11:32 AM

Originally posted by aprilcarter:
http://www.gutterfresh.com/

Any comments?

Comments? Sure. But they'll basically amount to what has been mentioned before.

+ to the art and design

- for the navigation and useability.

The funny thing is that if you were to keep it all in one window (thus foregoing the pop-ups), it would make assuring compatibility with other browser loads easier.

That's it in a nutshell.

All in all, a very nice design for a first site.

I can elaborate if you want me too though.

Cheers.

jfinete · Oct 4, 2003, 03:17 PM

Just to add to everyone else, many users do not want their windows moved or resized. If a user has a browser that supports tabs (like Safari) then when you resize the window, you're affecting the those other tabs.

It's probably okay to discourage Netscape 4.x (and IE4), there's no reason to discourage current versions of Mozilla/Netscape. Safari was designed to be similar to Netscape. There are a few exceptions, but most webpages that work with Netscape 7 should work with Safari, and vice versa.

DeathMan · Oct 5, 2003, 02:55 AM

If you're still looking at this for input, I'd say:

1) Make one backdrop page for the intro, and auto-pop 1 extra page in the size you want it. Don't forget an enter button for people who have autopops turned off.

Say they click on a link, and you want that page a certain size, you can call the function (I'll put it in the body, cause thats a good place for this, I think.)

<body onload="document.resizeTo(300,600)">
(I'm too lazy to look this up, but I'm 90% sure this is how you do it, otherwise look up that function.)

That will resize the window you opened, and not affect anyones tabs.

2) Tone down the link and text color just a bit. It becomes more of a focal point than the actual artwork, and the contrast is so strong it almost hurts to look at it a little bit.

Other than that, I think its great.

york28 · Oct 6, 2003, 12:26 PM

I agree with what's been posted thus far. If I had to concentrate on two things it would be:

1) Cross browser code. There is no excuse to exclude Netscape. None. But this has been said already. (Netscape 7 and Safari behave the same 98% of the time, except for scripts I believe.)
2) Navigation. You can fake the different window sizes by using a table cell or div centered on another color background, and rid your design of the pop ups. Here is something I did to test out this idea. You could maybe just use a i pixel white border on a black background too, depending on what the artist wants I guess.

Resizing/moving, and usually opening new windows are big no-nos. Personally they piss me off.

Also, consider giving the navigation bar some sort of mouseover effect, maybe similar to the green glow on the enter page.

Since it's a page for an artist you can stretch the rules a little more than if it was a really formal site.

I really like the mood and concept. Keep it up.

James L · Oct 7, 2003, 05:14 AM

I haven't viewed the page yet, but it sounds like there is a lot of scripting going on too (pop ups).

13% of people who use the web disable scripting in their browsers....this means that if your navigation is dependent on scripting... 13 out of every 100 users will be unable to access the site.

You are getting the imrpession from all of these posts, pop ups are bad. Browsers have features specifically designed to prevent pop up windows. For others, it triggers bad porn site memories.

I'm not sure how new to this you are, but I seem to remember reading this was your first site. If so, good on you for asking for advice. This is how you learn.

If I can make a suggestion (one that I make often), it is to become VERY familiar with www.w3.org. This is the site by the people who set the standards. Learn how to put a doctype at the beginning of your page if you don't already have one, then learn how to use the html validator and the css validator on the above site to make sure your code has no errors and is up to standards. If you do this it will be browser and platform independent...for the most part.

Good luck!