Any constructive comments welcome....

Hi Gaspode,

I think you're right about the home page being too wordy. Peop0le probably aren't going to read all that. Try breaking it up with headings, lists, and photos. I think on a site like this photos speak much louder than words.

You have some very nice photography on the pages about the Cottage. It would be nice to see some of that on the home page, as well as some photos of the outside of the cottage and its surroundings. Pictures of local attractions might be helpful too, as well as a Google map of the location.

As far as layout and design goes, this isn't bad really. Adding some more padding around the body text would be helpful. I also think it would be good to put more emphasis on the photo in the header. Instead of fading it out, make it full opacity and make the text smaller (a subtle drop shadow or glow would help the text to stand out from the photo). The aim would be to really showcase main attraction (the landscape) and make people want to go there.

If you want to get fancy, another option would be to add a JavaScript photo slideshow, showcasing photos of the cottage (inside and out) and the local area.

I think your decision to focus on a particular niche audience (pet owners) is a good one as far as SEO goes. That helps you set yourself apart from the competition. My in-laws own a similar property in France, and have taken a similar approach with their marketing. You might even make a special page just for pet owners, with some nice photos, stressing the pet-friendliness of the area.

Hi Gaspode,

I was asked to made a suggestion to a webmaster who is soliciting feedback and I choose your website www.lawsons-studio.co.uk.

From a user's perspective:
I found the logo red and blue a bit distracted, (search.enjoyengland.com), I would suggest to move it at the end of the page. And leave your headings alone.

The site is not so attractive to me, It is quite overwhelming the home page, too much words to read, I would prefer less written content and more beautiful pictures in the from page. You can add more pictures of your beautiful cottage, and you can even add pictures of the Bolton Castle in the evening or at dusk at the bottom of the page. Your pictures would add amazing colors.

The site is easy to use; you have lots of excellent inks to inform your customers, there is lot of information about the cottage and surroundings. It is great.

Your content is good. You just have to split it in small blocks or add more pages with information.

From a designer/developer's perspective
I like your color scheme, it is good, I like the green you choose with the light blues, and red dark titles in the information page. Pictures look great with your light green background color.

Regarding the common design principles (alignment, white space, visual organization etc.) I would suggest leaving more space in your left and right margins of all your pages, they look very crowed. If you leave more space, your text and pictures will look much better.

Information and booking page is good, I realized you are still working on the location and local walks. Great work!!!!

Thanks for the feedback people, it really helps.
You are so right about the wordiness of the front page but I'm having a bit of trouble pruning it down. We love the cottage and want to get that over to prospective visitors - it's hard to decide what goes and what stays. I've already made a start by converting it to php to make layout changes easier, I guess my wife and I will have argue it out a bit more.

The wider margins Anavelia suggested are a good idea too. I'll sort that on my next upload.

It's much easier to design for other people isn't it?

G

Hi Gaspode,

I know it is easier to give suggestions for the design to other people, wait until I make my first website... I hope I can get your suggestions.

Cheers

1. You give a good website, i like your design and color.
2. As for the index page, to make it less wordy, you can insert a picture, add some headings or lists to make it clearly and classified.
3. Is the nav font color a little light?

Your site looks good. The pictures are bright and crisp and good idea having them move around it really catches the eye. The wording is not too much for the people who are interested.

My Site has completely changed now - what do you think? www.lawsons-studio.co.uk

Gaspode

i felt dizzy when i was looking at the photos in the homepage. Change the photo effect to may be just , appear, or bulldoze. the intro text in the homepage is also too wordy, make it brief and concise. suggest to change the colors to to more simple and elegant.

Hi,
I think I've gone as far as I'm going to with this site.
I've cut the wording down as per recommendations but frankly because I need to get a lot of information over, I don't think I can cut down on the wording any more.
Holiday makers need to see and know what they are paying for and any less description will not helpthem make an informed decision or help us get booking.
The pictures need to stay for the same reason. The unique selling points of the cottage is it's location and cosiness - points I cannot get across without the pictures.
I'm happy to draw a line under this one now

Thanks

Gaspode

Absolutely fantastic! A welcoming design makes people want to stay on the site longer and look around. I think you have hit a homerun. here. That slideshow is amazing!! And to think that you did all these manually!

Personally, I don't think your homepage is too wordy. Anything longer, I would agree. But as you know, you need sufficient text to get the required keyword density for SEO purposes. Just make sure that you have sufficient keywords in your text.

Thanks for that - I feel a lot happier now.
Hopefully we'll see some more bookings this year. (if the snow clears)

Thanks again

G

Nice website. Clear structure and good slider. We would suggest to do the following:

1. Website desighn looks a bit oldfashined, try to find a theme on ThemeForest to refresh the look.
2. Menu could be a bit bigger for easier navigation.
3. Social bookmarks in a footer should be bigger, try to find a plug-in for that.

Good luck!

Overall a very good site, a few things that could be changed in my opinion, but overall not much. I am not a huge fan of the color scheme, but it does work for the site, I have seen alot worse out there. The grey is ok, just not sure about the green myself. Pics are nice and clear, very well done there and load very fast. Only thing I would change is on the flickr gallery I would have the text describing the picture underneath the picture instead of to the side, the pics are so vivid and good I didn't realize that the text was changing as I went through the pictures. I would also prehaps give more of a bio of Fred Lawson, I am not overly familiar with artist and I am not from the UK so it could just be me, it appears that you just have a post from a newspaper on the site talking about him. I would offer more details on his life, maybe show some of his work, from the pictures that you have on the site the place looks amazing. I know the site is meant for the cottage rentals, but he seems to play some kind of part of the history of the place and area and with a whole page dedicated to him there is not actually awhole lot there.

Other then that the site works great, links all working and very easy to navigate. I love the booking and information page, the layout is great and with the looks of the links it makes it easy to navigate and find the information that you are looking for

I do have a few suggestions for your site design. The overall feel of the site come off as a little plain. The choice of fonts could perhaps be updated to something a little less generic. If your uncertain about what kinds of fonts to use you can learn all about 'web fonts' through google: http://www.google.com/fonts/ . They make it very easy to add some style to your text. There are easy to follow instructions on how to implement them. Be aware that adding such things will impact your sites load times, so use them sparingly. Your site appears to be loading nicely so I think you have some room to play with.
Maybe breaking up some of the TEXT areas into smaller sections would help the readability of some of the pages. Putting the text on to a light colored background would also make it stand out more.
I think the imagery is perfect for the concept and the only thing holding the site back from being REALLY NICE is the amount of plain text. Change this and I think your site will be beautiful!
Really hope my comments help, good luck!

Too many texts which will bore the readers. Not much design and colors that can entice the readers. The background being green doesn't really synergize with the logo and the purpose. Make it the scenery of what are you portraying. Make the images as a slider, wide enough so that it will be captured by the users eyes and let them be captivated.

Thanks for your comments - I have distilled this site as far as I can with out compromising what I need to get across. Please don't crit this site anymore. I'll leave it as it is now.

Thanks for your crits

G