VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

kevinpowe

Hello lovely people! After sticking my beak in on threads regarding other people's websites, I realised I'd never thought to get the benefit of feedback on my own website.

Would love to know if there's anything here that irks you, or rubs you the wrong way. Any key info hard to find or missing?

URL is http://kevinpowe.com

Thanks in advance!
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MichaelN · Joined: 17 Feb 2015 Posts: 8

Hey Kevin. I see you're a fellow Aussie Smile

I'm originally from Adelaide but live in the US now.
Onto your site. My day job is web development so from a non-VO perspective I think it's a really slick and modern design/layout!

However, if I put my VO marketing goggles on, there's a few things I think could be detrimental for prospective clients visiting your site:

- There's too much content to digest and could be overwhelming and deter people. It also requires too much scrolling if people don't click the nav links.

- You want your home page to have the most important information right there (as little scrolling as possible) for people to digest, eg. demos, top clients. It should be short and quick and give people an idea of whether or not your VO services could be right for them.
Right now its just your name, nav and big background image. I think the real estate is wasted.
This is just me, but I would personally have a separate home page to your other sections. Have important preview content on the home page that loads quickly and then allow people to navigate to other pages to find out more if they choose.

- Loading on the background image took a long time. The jump-scrolling when you click nav links sometimes causes a little lag. I was on a desktop so this might be an issue on mobile devices.
Embedding the YouTube videos is also contributing to the lag when scrolling around. This is due to the Flash browser plugin consuming a lot of computer resources.

- The blog section above the contact form has gray text on a dark background that is difficult to read.

kevinpowe · Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 12:23 am Post subject:

Thanks Michael! Congrats on making the move to the US, too!

It's good feedback to hear about the background image. I've experienced some lag loading the site myself, but I don't have the greatest of internet connections.

I'll take a close look at the issue with the blog text, too!
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Fran McClellan · Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 8:11 am Post subject:

Hi Kevin,

I LOVE the look of the site...very slick!

I do agree with Michael about the blog section font color, though. It's tough to read and looks a bit lopsided (left column is way longer than the other 2 columns). The project section is off center as well. I also agree that it wouldn't be a bad thing to have some of the content as separate pages. If I'm viewing on my phone in portrait, it doesn't look as good since the demo and some samples are cut off (can still see the play button, so that's good). In landscape mode, it looks fine on mobile.

Other than that, I think it's awesome!

I didn't have any issues at all with it loading slowly...came up pretty quickly for me. I actually really like that the first view is just the image background and your name/profession. As soon as it came up, I thought, wow...nice site! Smile

. It was also easy enough to get to the samples quickly.

My 2 cents Wink

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Frank F · Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 10:23 am Post subject:

Four words: more pages, less scrolling.

Frank F
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kevinpowe · Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 4:56 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the feedback, Fran! I'll check the alignment of those sections and get them sorted.

I get where you're coming from with the scrolling, Frank - my previous page had content separated into individual pages. This seems to be the way that pages are going in terms of popular design though. To be more tablet friendly, maybe? Hope that doesn't sound like I'm throwing away good advice!
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Bob Bergen · CM Joined: 22 Apr 2008 Posts: 979

I agree with Frank. And it's not tablet friendly. I cannot keep track of everything on one big scroll. But I can if you separate with pages. The way you have it now it's overwhelming. Just a lot of words that all meld together. Gotta make it more user friendly, not tablet friendly. Wink

DougVox · Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2015 7:01 am Post subject:

Slick and flashy, Kevin, but, well...

As others have mentioned, it's not terribly user-friendly. (At least on the mobile version.)

– In portrait mode on my iPhone, some content is pushed too far to the right, and gets cut off. I took a screen shot so you could see what it looks like, but...

– Contact info is hard to find. I have to scroll waaaaay down to the bottom of the single page to find the contact form, and an email address and/or phone number are nowhere to be found.

– No nav buttons at all. These would make it much easier for people to find what they're looking for.
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kevinpowe · Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 4:34 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the feedback, Doug! It's particularly concerning that contact info is harder to find. (did the shortcut links at the top of the page not render, or is it more that their purpose isn't immediately clear?)

Thanks again for the great feedback, everyone. I'll take this away have a long think.
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Frank F · Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 8:01 pm Post subject:

Kevin, advice is worth less than you pay for it. Here on the VO-BB advice is freely given.

I am in the process of creating my personal webpage, and yes my designer mentioned how the trend was to have one page (but, not more than two pages in length) to scroll.

Personally, I will have two pages on my website - total. No scrolling, no fluff and very little text. Yes I know my SEO drops to to nothing but I really do not need any more than what will be on the two pages, nor does any VO artist.

Someone here on the VO-BB mentioned how "Less is More". Take that to heart with the amount of text you have on your website.

Follow P.T. Barnum's advice when dealing with website design: "Always leave them wanting more"! Not less.

Frank F
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Be thankful for the bad things in life. They opened your eyes to the good things you weren't paying attention to before. email: thevoice@usa.com

DougVox · Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 8:01 pm Post subject:

Kevin, I just checked, and on the mobile version (iPhone, anyway) the entire bar of Nav buttons doesn't exist. So while I see them on the desktop version, on my phone the Home, Demos & Videos, About & Services, Projects, Praise, News and Contact buttons are nowhere to be found.
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kevinpowe · Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2015 4:05 pm Post subject:

Eep!

Thanks for that!
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