Topic: my first site for a client

I need a reveiw for the following site. This is my first website I am actually getting paid for. It is not fully completed. The index page still needs a graphic (waiting on photos) and the two sidebars are for promotional items. Also on the services page I am waiting for some pictures to put on the side. I would love to hear opinions on what is done however. I'll admit, my ego is fragile so be gentle but honest.

http://www.harshks.com

mmm personally i don't like the grey background. But it will fit the client very good i think, since it's a concrete company.
But i do have some remarks. On the product page you put a lot of links to external companies..those sites are ugly..yikes. I would write some other pages with some product info on them and link from these pages to the external companies. Then your site will be more one style.

when the page opens it's grey without text or pics. This is confusing, so put some content on it.
could be as simple as: Welkom at the our website, bla bla bla- bla bla greetings from Harsh, the concrete company.

At the services page. Tell some more about those sevices. Make all the services a link an put some pages in with info about the services.

On the equipment for sale page, again put some extra pages in with info about the things which are for sale.

But since you are not yet ready, i might have spoken to early.

"Freedom of speech is by no means freedom to insult others" from the Razorart goodbye letter.

The client requested the page to be grey and as I stated above the index page (first page) is not done yet. I DO agree with you about the sites linked from the products page, ugly, bad, ick but the client is trying to get by cheaply and I informed him that it would cost more for me to do many different pages. I do expect the site to evolve once the client gets some customer feedback and sees that they do need to provide more information. What do you do when a client just won't listen to advice. I also agree about the services page, however those who are visiting the site should be the type of person who knows what the services entail. On the company history page I talk about the service bays (facility). Should I repeat this on the services page too or would that be bad?

I think your design layout is very clean. The only two suggestions that I have are these: the red text against the grey background is a little irritating (perhaps you could lighten the grey or the red for more contrast?), and the Equipment for Sale page breaks out of the nice box layout you have for all the other pages. Perhaps you could use a menu system with categories that have the listings show to the right? That way, you don't have to write any more pages, but you could get all that information in a smaller space.

Just some thoughts.
~Nethermind




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If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.
~Ray Bradbury
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Good idea about the menu thing. I didn't want to get too fancy for fear that it wouldn't render right in some browsers. Can someone show me a way to do that where is would be browser friendly, would I use javascript, which I know hardly anything about?

You might wanna go to the gurus and look at some tutes.
Simple Javascript-menu tutorial
Advanced Javascript-menu tutorial
Javascript 101 part1
Javascipt 101 part2

I also sugest you to read this book: Designing with Javascript from O'Reilly. It is easy to understand for non techies and it is not an "anti-techie book with stupid jokes" like those "whatever for Dummies" series. It is not a very 'in-depth' book but it will provide you with some good basic Javascript skills.

Sorry for the last post, i read yours too fast. i do like the desing however. And here is point for your client what is the point for having an website when you don't put some (useful) info on it. I personally see it as an waste of time and money. Every website should be interesting for the group(s) at which it is targeted. Also a website should be inviting for it's users aka your client's clients. Furthermore if i wanted to buy a cement truck (oh i realy want to ) i realy woul want to know, how many miles it has run, what it's capacity is, how heavy it is, what it's expected to cost and so on.

I do not blame you however. I know how it is when you are short on info, i had a client once who ran a music agency at that time. And he told me he wanted to have a website. After 5 emails from me, he send me just one logo and it was wrong because it used the wrong colors he said. So i told him that i needed more info. A couple off weeks later we could finally meet. I asked him to bring some info about his company, some colors he liked , some info about his bands and so on. When he came to me he had brought some cd's, his card with his adress and he told me he liked bleu-ish colors. And i was supossed to build a database driven website, where bands could be booked online, where people could which band was booked in which weekend, which band would be a good combination with which other band. He also wanted an notifier on his cellphone when someone sended an order through the website. And all this should be generated from 4 promo cd's, a logo with the wrong colors and his adress card.... I did not even know where the site would be hosted. And what facilties the host would have. Hell i did not even know the adress from the hosting-provider's FTP server. After another couple of months he start complaining that the site was not up and running yet. I told him i wanted more info to work with, like prices for example. He thought i could let the site 'calculate the prices i said that still needed the info about how the prices are build up.

Almost a year after the start i gave up on the site. So we ended up like this: I did not got him his site, he did not got me my money. So i kept all the already made desings. This whole thing was very frustrating.

"Freedom of speech is by no means freedom to insult others" from the Razorart goodbye letter.

i just looked at it again out of curiousity...it is getting right

"Freedom of speech is by no means freedom to insult others" from the Razorart goodbye letter.

I just looked again, too, and that white background makes a big difference!

Thanks, I got the client to switch the site bg color. It is pretty much done except for some pictures I am still waiting on, and waiting, and waiting, argh!

circus speaker voice: Yes ladies and gentlemen tonight it's time for the most amazing game ever, this is what you waited for....~roffling drums~ here is a new game of: ~louder drums followed by silence~
Kick the client!

Realy you shouldn't hehe

"Freedom of speech is by no means freedom to insult others" from the Razorart goodbye letter.