While trying not to be quite as harsh as Paul with my comments :), I
have to say that I agree with everything here.
The idea behind the portfolio shouldnt be "look at me fellow web
designers, isnt this mouseover effect cool", it should be geared towards
your target audience, which by the looks of your profile, would be SME
corporate customers.
Therefore the "flow" of the site (i use that word as a kinda mixture
between style and structure) would be best geared towards MDs/Managers
who have little experience/knowledge of web design, but more than likely
use the web on a very regular basis (or they probably wouldnt even think
about looking at your site, or even thinking they need one themselves).
Keep things simple, ensure your actions are consistent with what users
would expect (ie, dont use those unintuitive cursors... how am i
supposed to know that the help cursor actually means i can click links
on one page, and oh, i cant on another page... taking your portfolio and
services page as prime examples), and finally keep things clear
(Georgia, while a very attractive font, isnt a) the most standard font
for the web (with your fallback choices being even less standard) and b)
is very difficult to read at smaller font sizes (the paragraph text
looks incredibly cramped there)).
Also, from a more design perspective, you might gain more from those
thumbs/large porgtfolio images by creating them as cutouts of the main
design, rather than sticking the whole page into 1 small image (maybe a
small section of a logo/unique feature for the thumbnail, and a larger
portion with the header/link/page section in the larger image... and
make it obvious that they can be clicked for an example). I would try
and stay clear of the "take a screen screen shot and stick it in an
image" approach... why does the customer care that you have a nice
pretty mac task bar?
Anyway, I hope at least some of this helps.
Thanks,
David
Paul Novitski wrote:
At 01:19 AM 5/14/2006, Breiterstrom [Cosmin Ciobanu] wrote:
Please take a look at my web site: http://www.cosmin-ciobanu.popconsulting.ro
The CSS is http://www.cosmin-ciobanu.popconsulting.ro/cssfolder/mystyle.css
I want you to study the portfolio page and tell me how do you think it looks.
I've used Only CSS rules, no JAVA script, for the windows that
appears on mouse over on the ice thumbnails.
Is there a way to make that pop ups appear with some effects? Like
fade in, for ex.?
Can anybody help me with a sugestion?
Cosmin,
For me your portfolio doesn't work: when I hover over the menu of
thumbnails, the larger screenshots appear in the same place and cover
up the menu itself. I find this very irritating. It means that to
view more than one screenshot I have to move my mouse completely out
of the menu area and come back into it from another
direction. You're forcing me to use a lot of extreme mouse motion
for no particular reason, and I think there's something fundamentally
wrong about a user interface that covers itself up while the user is
trying to use it.
The design is not only inconvenient, it's superfluous. You have
already allocated space on the page to display a thumbnail
representing each portfolio item, however you're using the same ice
image for each thumbnail. That seems like a waste of space. Why not
put the website screenshots into the menu in the first place? This
doesn't make the hover images irrelevant -- it's OK to show a larger
version of a thumbnail on hover.
Your menu design seems like an especially poor choice for a web
designer's portfolio: I was not impressed with your ability to design
a functional user interface and, at least on this basis, I would not
be likely to approach you for help on a web project. While I
understand your desire to show off your abilities, I suggest you do
so in a way that enhances functionality and doesn't detract from it.
My recommendation is that you use screenshot thumbnails for the menu
itself and, on hover, display the larger screenshots on top of the
big ice cube at left. That way I could hover over different
thumbnails until I found one I wanted to click on, and the thumbnail
menu would remain usable throughout the selection process.
Regards,
Paul
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