The Framers Forum

Hello, I just put up my new framing site, http://www.portofinoframes.com please for any feedback on things or ideas I can add, or concepts or ideas I should have on a framing website. I just learned how to make burgundy pitch molds and compo, and just made 18 period type looking frames, seen on my website.

I am an ex- animator/artist who certainly cannot afford the museum looking frames, and desperately want them around my paintings hanging on my walls:)...so I had to learn the mold and compo crafts.....a few of the materials were hard to track down, but after a short year I have framing wings:)....now I hope to do business with galleries, artists or ?

please for any feedback, ideas, collective criticism is cherished also...

thanks, bart

Hi Bart.

Using Google Chrome.....

First impression - everything too dark.

Please ditch the music. Sometimes more is less. Same with the moving bits. Sites that won't hold still while you study them can be very annoying.


Well you did ask.....

Hi Bart

Site looks technically good, but as Prospero said maybe a bit too much animation/sound effects. What you do is great, some really nice frames in there..... but if I were a real customer, maybe someone just having a browse I don't think I'd have stayed too long on your site. Certainly don't mean to offend.

Best of luck & as I've said - you're stuff looks great

Hi Bart,

A nicely executed, elegant site. It exudes a confidence and professionalism that's sure to impress your target audience.

I'm not a fan of a home screens that force viewers to make an extra click before getting into the site. Why impose that barrier? But maybe that's just me.

Well done. I am impressed with the speed and smoothness of such a graphics intensive site, even on my relatively slow internet connection.

Great website Bart but really Flash is Dead and none of your site will be found in the search engines (maybe just your front page if you're lucky)

Who gave you the idea to build a site in flash?

Your main domain name needs to your main page, people will click back instead of clicking again to get in your site.
Music on a website maybe just about ok for a musicians website but not for framing site.

Best of luck

I don't mind the music, but the first page had me lost, if i hadn't read the previous posts, I wouldn't have known to go any further.

Nice looking frames.

Dave

I'm in the process of getting my website built, so I don't want to be too critcal. But, to be brutally honest if my designers came up with that, I would not pay them! Sorry, but you did ask!

There's so many things wrong wth it, I don't know where to start. But I feel I should be a little bit constructive at least.

Without a full re-design, I would at least fix the following:

1. The music. Get rid of it. If I'm at work and music plays on a site, I don't lower the volume. I close the site! At least have an option to mute it if you insist on having it.

2. Navigation. Your home link is too small and away from your menu. People will get lost and not know how to return to main menu! List Home on top of main menu.

3. Redirects. You get redirected away from main site too often. If you click frame styles and go 'home', you get re-directed back to your lovely welcome screen. If you go to galleries, you get re-directed and can''t even go pack to the main site! I'm not even going to go into the galleries section.

4. Oh yeah. The welcome screen. Get rid of it. It's pointless.

Honestly, I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with the site. It looks like you make amazing frames and offer some great services, but that site just doesnt sell it at all.

I don't want to offend but I am not a fan at all. It took way too long to load for me that if I was a customer I would have hit the back button pretty quickly just to get out of there ( We only get about 3MB internet speed in our village). As has been mentioned Flash is outdated and the site felt quite aged to me, I didn't realise people were still building flash sites. I don't know if it's still the case but Apple Iphones and I think Ipads didn't use to use Flash so if it is still the case then you would be losing those potential customers.

I found navigating everything took too long and was very complicated. I often browse on my phone and there is nothing worse than being in a quiet place when uddenly you click on a website and music plays. I also agree the colour scheme is very dark and depressing.

Did you design the site yourself, or is it a template design?

Chris

Doesn't work on my iPad.

Sorry big no from me, as they say "just because you can do something, doesn't mean you have to do it"
it's too dark

I'd love to join in the discussion but it doesn't load for me running Chrome on Linux.
I tried it on Firefox and it seems to be working now, but I think I'm stuck on the frame examples and I can't get any other information.
As others have said I don't like sites with music and I normally close them.
Frames look amazing but I think the website needs a redesign.