Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hello,

We recently upgraded the look of our website and would like to get some critical feedback about our new look.  We are currently refining and adding content, includinng a page dedicated to the benefits of document scanning and one for attorneys.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
ScanMonkeys.com
Thanks,
Brian J. Smith
Scan Monkeys, LLC

Hmmm. I don`t know how it looked before, so I am not sure about the level of improvement. The first page is kind of what I would expect, and above the fold is a good design, if you left off all the text below, and made your text in the image a bit more tantalizing.

On the other pages, the very large image at the top is too distracting. I don`t want to scroll down for more info, and if I did, it would annoy me that I had to scroll that far just to get the info I came to that page for.

Rereading, that sounds harsh. It`s not meant to be. It`s just my opinion. *smiles*

The graphics are gorgeous, I just think they could be used in a better way - to highlight your copy, rather than looming over it.

Thank you for your advice.  I never took it as harsh.  It is great feedback.  The more critical opinions that we receive can help fine tune the site.  We were attempting to set our site apart from other document scanning companies and bring graphical interest to our information.  Perhaps some adjustments are needed to effectively convey our message, while keeping the graphics alive in some form or another.

Thanks again!

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The large header images offer little help, and push all the important info below the fold. If you insist on having large images, place them at the bottom, the least important section. That way they`re there, but not taking away from what really is important, the actual site content.
That and i think some of the large header images don`t even relate to what the current page is about. For example, the contact us has an image that states "Protect your files"... how does this relate to the page`s purpose and contents?
And, even though you`re a graphical person (i am too), you need to balance file size versus practicality. Compress the images more to where they`re a respectable file size. If you can`t shrink them enough, make the image smaller, less wide, less tall...etc. Also factor in details in the image, some portions can be altered to allow for better compression. Also consider using different image formats. Jpeg`s work well for images with a  lot of gradations in tone, but Gif`s can give very small file sizes with no compression artifacts if used on images with little gradations (more solid colors). But, being honest, 237 kb for a single image, that is not even important to the site`s content and message, is not good.

I also didn`t see the earlier version, but I would reduce the size and number of colors in the images and allow the editorial to flow around them.  But that`s just me.

Going off-topic:

I have a background of legal document imaging and indexing, and we dealt with all ranges of documents from one box to a truck load of boxes.  (The infamous Sun-Microsoft case).  We were paid  $.009 per page, but our most common price ranged from $.01 to $.025 per page.  Then we charged a few hundred $$ per client for the viewing program and $10 per CD, so with inflation, your prices seem about right.

Don`t pass up the opportunity to solicit business from other parts of the country.  Except for pick-up and delivery, location is irrelevant.  We used Fed Ex to ship our doc boxes all over the world, and at the time, I think it was about $35 per box for overnight delivery.  We passed the cost +$15 handling (we provided the boxes for branding) to the law firm, who of course passed it on to their clients.

Personal note:  With the imaging experience behind me, I have been scanning virtually every document at home then shredding the sensitive ones and recycling the rest.  I have thousands of docs in JPG format going back five years that I manually index into a spreadsheet, and I have my irreplaceable documents in a safe-deposit box at the bank.  It all fits on a single 4Gb flash file.



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Steve Mann
Internet Videographer
MannMade Digital Video
My Email

We worked on some of the graphics and reducing them significantly in size (both physical and data size).  There are still ways to go as far as content goes, but I think the look is coming together.

What do you all think of the changes (for those of you that saw the site last week)?

I love the simplicity!

How about larger font size on this and less typos:

"*depends on project settings adn size of flashdrive"

While simple, I`d say you still have a little bit too much text on the home page. I think you should be hitting the highlights and leaving the details for other pages.

I`d say it`s looking better. However, I`d liek to make the connection of benefits versus features.

In your images, you are offering features, such as 512,075 pages anywhere you want, and instantly access critical data.

Why not give me the benefits. How do you tell the difference? Well, I ask myself, "So what?"

So, for 512,075 pages anywhere, I would say, "So what?" Well, what if I am in a meeting with a client, and I need to refer to a contract with him or with another client to refresh my mind or answer a question? THAT is a benefit. It gets me thinking of the possibilities of always having ALL of my data at hand, AND searchable. THAT is a big factor.

You do offer one benefit: save thousands in operating costs. I would elaborate on that. HOW do I save those thousands? Make it real to me.

You are moving in the right direction, IMO. *smiles*

Its better, but a quick word of warning then i`ll drop the topic if you still want the images.
Have you measured who your target demographics are? What the majority of them have in terms of screen resolution?
Just in case you have a high resolution monitor yourself, below is a screen capture of how your site looks at 1024x768 and the images still take up too much screen space compared to the content. At least for us, 1024x768 is 40% of our site visitors, though your demographics may vary.
Click Here to see the screen capture

In web design, especially if you`re selling something, you need to keep a watch on your demographics browser and computer specs and what percentages have what, to make the best design decisions. For example, what if the majority of your visitors don`t have javascript, flash, 24 bit color...etc. If you didn`t know this, and you made a large portion of your navigation by using one of these, you may be making a mistake. This is just like you making your images so large IF (keyword) your demographics have mainly 1024x768 monitor resolutions. I don`t know your statistics, but in my opinion your images are still too large and smother your actual content IF the majority of your visitors do have that resolution or below. If you know for a fact that this is not the case, or you really like the images, then feel free to ignore my reply :-)