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While we're at it...

As a few people are plugging their websites, I'm very tentatively letting you know about mine. It is a general site, so clicking on

formatting link
will take you straight to the most appropriate page. There is also a link to general railway bits on the left sidebar.

As is also traditional, I am inviting constructive criticism - I will be wearing my thick skin shortly! This is the second public announcement (the first was in a specialist email group) and as a result of feedback the site no longer has any dependancy on MS FrontPage. This took a lot of effort to ensure there was absolutely no visible difference! Also, I am now aware that people want a lot more wordage in the galleries themselves. This is being slowly addressed, but before I get too carried away, I have a fundamental decision to make. Do I leave the galleries in the format they are, or change each into more of a "magazine article" style? I should also mention that each gallery opens, and stays, in it's own window. This confuses some people! I think on balance this is easier as you just close the window when you're finished with that particular gallery. Consensus please!

Finally, there is a feedback form on the site, or if relevant please reply to the group. Replying to the email address in the headers of this post won't work for all the usual reasons.

Here goes......I'll be looking at the webstats tomorrow!

Paul

Reply to
Paul Boyd
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Overall, I'm impressed. Clean, tidy, does the job. Main page navigation is excellent.

I didn't get lost anywhere, which is a good start. I found the navigation tools easy to understand.

Unsure whether its better to open your galleries into a new window (as you do) or if they should stay on the main page, with the LH navigation still present. There are arguments both ways on that topic. What you've done works well having chosen to open a new window.

I might look at whether the larger images could be encoded to come down "interlaced" and thus increase in crispness, whereas there was a long wait (acceptable, I was asking for the high-res image), then "bang" and the image appeared on my system.

Getting really picky:

The fonts chosen change from the main page navigation and titles, to the sub window. That looses some of the visual identity which links the main pages to the sub window. On the main page, I would choose a more suitable font than the system default for the captions below the pictures. That would then fit more with the navigation fonts. Absence of an explicit "close" command on the secondary window. I know the "X" in the corner of the browser works, but it would be nice to have one.

Use an external style sheet for the fonts, and make sure they can be over-ridden by user settings on their browser (so specify sizes as "larger" or "smaller" rather than absolute sizes, thus a user can have their browser set to have a larger default size if they find small text hard to read).

Not checked for colourblindness, browser compatibility, screen readers (partially sighted users), etc.

More text under the pictures needed, but you acknowledged that earlier.

(My day job is manager of a usability group for a large corporation).

- Nigel

Reply to
NC

I think the layout of your site is excellent, as are the photographs and subjects. It might help to add a note on the first page to the effect that clicking on a thumbnail will open a gallery of further thumbnails in a separate window.

Reply to
MartinS

I'd second Martins comments, thanks for putting the site up

Reply to
Mike

Many thanks for all of your responses. Nearly 9000 hits up until midnight Saturday! What became very apparent is that it is the trackwork page that most attracted peoples attention, so that has moved up the priority list to caption. To answer the most common questions: the facing point locks don't work and the tie-bars are from Ambis (as are the FPL kits)

Oddly enough, not one person has commented on the filesize of the large images, so hopefully that means I've got it right!

This is something that I will probably do - it is already there on the "Scrapbook" page.

"NC" wrote:

Opinion seems to be 50:50, so I think it will stay as it is. This separates the distinctly different styles of the galleries and home page.

The images were originally "progressive", where they gradually sharpen in successive passes. I really dislike that, and what I actually want is for the image to appear in "slices" from the top down. I haven't worked out how to do this yet, bearing in mind the final image processing is in PhotoShop to splatter the picture with the copyright text and resize as a batch process....

I have used an external style sheet, but for some reason the captions don't use it. I need to look into this.

I'm not sure if the gallery generator I use can do that, but it crossed my mind before to have one, so I'll have another look.

As far as browser compatibility goes, I've tested it on IE5, IE6, Netscape 6 on various Windows and Linux operating systems at resolutions from 800x600 upwards. I also know that it works fine on a Mac, but I don't know the spec! I am aware of the legal requirement to make websites usable by the blind and partially sighted, but I'm not sure how a screen reader is meant to cope with what is primarily a photographic site. Braille displays can only do so much. Presumably the legislation must allow for that. I have at least ensured that all images have alternative text for readers to pick up!

...and did you spot the usage of 2mm Scale Association bits? (Linda and Blanche pages)

Now I'm off to do some modelling!

Reply to
Paul Boyd

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