First site from scratch - critique!!

slylittlefox

slylittlefox

slylittlefox

Associate
Joined
24 Jun 2007
Posts
1,869
Location
Landan.
It's been a while since I've designed a site for any real use other than for myself, but my dad wanted a new website for his small drainage firm revamping - and so I created the following: www.drainbrains.co.uk

My dad likes it, but my brother (a partner in the company) doesn't, and prefers the likes of http://www.wirraldrains.co.uk/ and http://www.wirraldrainage.com/ - which I personally think are crap in comparison. He presents some infuriating reasons as to why they are better - e.g. "the water looks better"....

fuuuuuo.png


Basically I'm trying to guage the opinion of a wider audience, so if some of you could let me know what you think of it I'll be in a better position to judge whether I should call it a day or spend some more time tweaking the design.

I'm also dealing with some problems to do with the Javascript that's in use, and trying to cut down on the massive libraries I'm using. As such, it would be great to hear some rough times for how long the page/site took to load.

Thanks for any help/advice/criticism :)
 
One of the things I like about your design is that it shows the inevitable 'brown' side of drainage/groundworks; the other two sites are all "la-di-da idealistic notion of water for aesthetic effect" and much less representative of the work of the business.

The no-nonsense photographs, which include the guys, add reassurance.

You've got the phone number highly visible, which is also good.

There are, however, lots of little things that need addressing or could benefit from further investigation; things like consistent branding [why didn't you use the typography/colour schemes that are on the vans?], having the testimonials visible on the front page [or a rotating testimonial on every page, for that matter], or the big blocks of hefty bold text.

Speaking of which: Cufon for body text? Noooo!! Viewing the unstyled site is a mess of duplicated words, and Cufon text isn't selectable. Keep it for the headings if you must, but for gawd's sake convert the body text to something more web-friendly.

The 'Examples of work' Gallery: Any reason why you present the user with a blank page, with only a link to a jQuery lightbox? I'd have thumbnails at the very least; personally, I'd lean towards more of a 'case study' presentation, with a couple of short paragraphs outlining each example.

Obviously, as a designer, you should know why you've made the decisions you've made, and you should be able to justify them with rational argument to an insecure client.

Remember that your brother is almost certainly judging your proposal purely on how it looks, which is why he prefers the tonal consistency of the aquas used for the other two sites. The look is just one part of a site's implementation; the proof is in how it will perform. Once you've made some revisions, push for it to go live and see how it does. Stress that it's not a newspaper advert, it's a website - it can be changed at any time. There's no publish deadline, no committing to anything.

So get it revised, get it on, keep an eye on the stats and solicit user feedback. Then change as necessary.

That's just a few initial thoughts; I've not tried to pick it apart, so I hope it doesn't come across like that :)
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I agree with most of the points above. I think that the design that you have suits what you do and the people that will be looking at your site as a potential client.

I looked at both of those other sites and got the impression that one of them might be for a spar or something like that. Try and give the site a more consistant feel and I think you are on to a winner.
 
SMILE FOR THE CAMERA!!!! Or just look like you're gunna beat the S*** outta the drains :/

I personally thing the background is just too damn bold maybe make it a bit transparent so it doesn't appear so overwhelming. Although i do like Tripnologist's alternative as its a lot more subtle.
 
I like it!

But, changes I would make are;

Less text on the homepage.
Sort out the menu on the right, when I mouse over it expands by like 1 pixel.

Niggly things, overall quite a nice pleasant sight.

BTW it's drainage solutions they are selling, they aren't a multinational bank. They can afford to have a website which looks professional, but also fun! (Which yours is!)
 
The site looks great. But....

Am I right in thinking all the text on the bottom half is images? If so this is not very SEO friendly so won't help the search engine rankings. You have some great keywords in there so would be good if it was actual text that search engines could read.


Also what script are you using for the corner peel effect in the top right? I like it and works better than the one I have been using :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom