Website demo pages - any good?

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Hi guys,

I'm just putting together some ideas for a website for my company that builds dashboards for performance management. I've mocked up a couple of pages in Word and added some macro photos I took yesterday. It's all a bit rough at the moment, but just looking for some feedback:

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Hmmm ... any ideas as to pattern? I don't want it to be too busy. I thought the black enhanced the other items. Although I know that there's a large empty space in the top left and right hand corner - I'd fill this with something. Plus I think my logo will be slightly longer.

I've just done a few different layout ideas - basically breaking up the large white boxes ... I'll upload in a mo.
 
I realise you're not a designer but you're offering professional solutions to companies and I would expect to see a professional site. You mocked it up in word and it most definitely looks like it.

The pages look cluttered and there is no visual flow to me. White on plain black is just awful as well. If you look over the following screenshots of 20 various dark websites, you'll notice that only one of them uses white and even then, the white area is large enough to cover most of the screen and they use color to balance it out.

tbh, I would think a layout inspired by this one would work well for you.
 
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I realise you're not a designer but you're offering professional solutions to companies and I would expect to see a professional site. You mocked it up in word and it most definitely looks like it.

The pages look cluttered and there is no visual flow to me. White on plain black is just awful as well. If you look over the following screenshots of 20 various dark websites, you'll notice that only one of them uses white and even then, the white area is large enough to cover most of the screen and they use color to balance it out.

tbh, I would think a layout inspired by this one would work well for you.

Sorry, I wasn't clear in my intentions. I won't be designing the website, I will be getting it done professionally, but wanted to at least give them an idea as to some sort of layout. Would you put white text over black background rather than the black text in a white box over a black background?

What about the pictures? Do they look professional enough?
 
Sorry, I wasn't clear in my intentions. I won't be designing the website, I will be getting it done professionally, but wanted to at least give them an idea as to some sort of layout. Would you put white text over black background rather than the black text in a white box over a black background?

What about the pictures? Do they look professional enough?

Ahhh, sorry about that then.

I would put grey text over a black background... or a slighty lighter grey text in a transparent dark grey background overtop of a black pattern page background perhaps.
I don't think the photography is too bad but they do look very much like stock photos.


Edit: I agree with Spunkey. Wireframe it only and let the designer worry about the rest. That's what they get paid for.
 
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Ahhh, sorry about that then.

I would put grey text over a black background... or a slighty lighter grey text in a transparent dark grey background overtop of a black pattern page background perhaps.
I don't think the photography is too bad but they do look very much like stock photos.


Edit: I agree with Spunkey. Wireframe it only and let the designer worry about the rest. That's what they get paid for.

Something more like this (ignoring black behind logo and buttons ...)

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Echoing what spunkey said, the most you should do is wireframe the site. Try http://gomockingbird.com/. Remember that you're not only paying a designer to physically assemble the site, you're also paying him to make it look good. The plain fact of the matter is that visual dexterity is a skill that most of the general public lacks, and there's nothing worse than a client who thinks he knows what looks good and won't listen to the designer.
 
I was just trying to knock something up that gave an idea of what I wanted, rather than turning up and saying "... uhhh ... build me a website."

True, but the problem is that you're not really telling the designer anything here. All you've put together is a black website with some white boxes. He's likely gonna look at that and think "urrrr, OK then" - there's nothing there that you couldn't have told him over the phone. It's good that you're making the effort with this, but I think you're probably better off spending the time on something else - make sure you get your money's worth from the designer! :)

When I deal with clients, I take an initial branding consultation where I sit down with them and get them to name general likes and dislikes and their goals/KPIs for the website. Once that's done, I go away and come up with a design. The whole process is about 2/3 me and 1/3 the client; because they're paying me to do the legwork.
 
Doing that is fine. It's what Designers do, and often expect of their clients. They'll ask you questions like what is your "corporate colour scheme" or something, but after that it'll be stuff like "Do you consider yourself a funky company?" :p
 
I think the photos are ok yeah. They're very 'stock photo' which is fine if that's what you want them to look like. Try and avoid any very legible text though; you don't want people getting distracted (see the one titled Metrics for an example.)
 
I was just trying to knock something up that gave an idea of what I wanted, rather than turning up and saying "... uhhh ... build me a website."

A good designer will ask you all the right questions so you shouldn't need to worry about that. If there is a particular style you're going for though, it doesn't hurt to have urls of websites you do like which will give the designer a better idea of the end result you're looking for.

Personally, I do a better job when I have an open canvas (ie, the client isn't giving me a bad mockup saying I want this right here and that right there, etc. etc.) so if there are specifics, give them but don't go overboard as that'll just clamp the designers creativity. My opinion anyway. :)

I would say the part which you should be putting the most effort into is your content.
 
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