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Hello.  I would appreciate any help I could get.  Please let me know what you think about my new Eco-friendly web start up - Franklin Solar.

Thanks,
Shane


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Shane Franklin Solar

I expected the pictures of products on the front page to be clickable.

Your logo is also a little small and hard to read.

I like the type of products you sell, so I`m not exactly impartial here. Generally speaking it looks good, although we can tell it was done by you. The site takes forever and a day to load, that`s not good. After I got tired of waiting (and I have broadband) I started timing it, 40 more seconds to load, that is way too long, a page should load in 10 seconds or less.

Like nhgnikole said small logo and difficult to read. I didn`t like the background on that top strip nothing wrong with it, just don`t like it. I too expected the images to be clickable, you should link them to a page were you give more info on them. Some pages have too much blank space others are a bit cramped. 

I think Eli went to the site when the main server was having trouble, as for me, FireFox 1.0, it loaded instantly. I believe we`re both using FireFox, so it`s gotta just be one of those weird "wrong time" things.

That being said, your menu titles, like `Products` appeared to me as black text on a dark blue background. That`s almost impossible to read, and bad use of color harmony.

I couldn`t read your tab headings---the blue on brown scheme. Nor could I read the copyright notice at the top right on the title banner. I don`t care about the copyright notice, but if this is your overall color scheme, anything else you put up there will disappear as well.

I agree that the logo is so small, it`s unreadable. I`m using 1280x1024 resolution on a 19" monitor, and the logo looked like a small dab of yellow-something colors.

Currently:

There should be space below the slug-line and "Whether it`s solar power or..." so people can see it`s a heading. It`s "your" not "you`re." That`s a bad typo, and should be fixed immediately. Also, see if you can do something so the line doesn`t wrap in the middle of your signature tagline.

I also agree with Eli that my expectation was to click on the pictures of products and be taken to a product page that further described that item. On your products pages, you need more space between the images of the product, and the descriptive text.

Also, on the Backpacks page, the first product---Voltaic Solar Backpack---looked liks the photographer tripped and knocked the tripod. The picture is down in the corner and that makes no sense.

Mostly some line-height spacing would help, I think. It`s a nice site, easy to understand, and focused in on a niche product. (Some sites are retail sites only offering a few products, and look like a mostly-empty store.) Because you`re ("you are") concentrated, your (possessive "you") store looks "full."

I think if you do some research on color compatibility, and maybe speak with an artist about the concept, you`ll go a long way to upgrading the site`s appearance. It doesn`t need a whole lot of copyrwriting, so whatever comes after that basic repair work, would be "added value." :-)

I agree the header image is a little small... thus hard to read.

The site may take a while to load becuase of all the java scripts used.

 

~Roland

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You have links to see a larger image but when you click on the image
another window opens up with the same small image. You might want to
check that out.

You have a good start you just need to refine it. Building a site is difficult
especially if you don`t have experience doing it.

The site loaded just fine for me. I have a cable broadband connection
running on a Powerbook G4 over a wireless router. I`m running Safari (of
course) so you might want to make sure that pages look good for Safari
(Mac) users as well.

The problem with your logo is not that it`s too small, but that it`s a bad
logo. It would be hard to read at almost any size. Dude, I`m being
brutally honest here. You need a new logo.

But for the short term, just get rid of that thing and don`t have a logo.
Just type out the name of the company up top in a clear font.

Wow, this is tremendously  helpful.  Thanks guys.  Some of them like the same size pictures, I knew weren`t opening up to larger ones yet.  But, all the other things like the blue on black that Craig mentioned show up perfectly bright and contrasted on my monitor.  I appreciate all the help - I`ll have a fun filled weekend working on the changes.  You`re right, MrTea, it is difficult not being a designer per se, but, I had to cut costs in the beginning.  I fully intend on having it redesigned in 3-6 months.

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Shane Franklin Solar

Okay, well I guess it didn`t take all weekend after all.  I made some changes and I think they already made a big difference.  Thanks for all of your suggestions.  Steve, what do you think about the logo now?  Since I`m not a graphic artist, I don`t think it`s too bad.  Craig, I think these color changes should make it easier to see now.  One thing you mentioned on the backpack picture, it doesn`t appear messed up on my monitor.  I guess I`ll have to find some different size monitors to check it out.  On my 15" LCD monitor, it is in the right position so, I don`t really know where to move it too.  Roland, you`re probably right about the java script - I put it together in a WYSIWYG program.  So, hopefully soon I`ll be able to get it redesigned.  Have a great weekend everybody.

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Shane Franklin Solar

Small one.
The way you created your CSS (where when hovering over a bold text it unbolds) acts weird on the top menu (Home, About Us, New). When you hover your mouse over the text, it shifts everything a little, as it goes from bold to unbolded text.

Just my .02


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Andre Costa DaCosta Chocolates, LLC www.DaCostaChocolates.com