Making Changes

[pmburrow]

I have been trying a couple of different things on our site. I would like to hear a little feedback from some of you before I make too many changes.

The first is a change in the slide for our sermon series. www.discoveryumc.org (http://www.discoveryumc.org) It is now 585 pixels wide. Next, I?m rotating one of three random slides each time the page is refreshed. I thought of this since our series are becoming longer. This will help break it up from the visitor seeing the same picture each time they visit. I also feel that it also adds a little fun it the page. I?ve also thought about having the picture change over time. For an example, let?s say every week.

I also have another page which is a test site (http://www.discoveryumc.org/v5.0/pages_5.0/test.htm) . Here I am playing with the idea of different headers in my side bar. These headers are 235x 75 pixels. I thought of making them 235X50 pixels, but the pictures seemed awful small.

Thanks

Phillip
www.discoveryumc.org (http://www.discoveryumc.org)

[mrbelfry]

Hi Phillip

Here are my comments. I like the rotating graphics and also the graphics on the headings on the side bar - it took me a while to work out why they all had a nautical theme!?!

My only criticism is that the height of the graphics means that I have to do a lot of scrolling before I can get to any text. Also when viewing at 800*600 the sidebar disappears off the right of the screen. I don't know how much of an issue you'd think this is

Hope I helped

[pmburrow]

Mr. Belfry

Yes you did help. Thanks for your input. I didn?t check 800 x 600. My resolution is set for 1029 X 768. It looks like I need to play with this idea a little longer.

Thanks

Phillip

[cwgraves]

You have 3-5 seconds to grab a user's attention. If they have to scroll on your home page to get to the text, chances are they won't stay!

Overall, I agree with comments that have already been made. I would add:
The design makes the user scroll to read the text. The home page should be brief and only serve as a welcome/introduction page. You can have small (emphasis, small) graphics with links to more information, but it is considered poor design to have large graphics and more than 1 screen of content on the home page.

I'll look into it in more detail later, but that is my initial thought.

[pmburrow]

Curtis,

Thanks for your comments. I?m sorry that I wasted your time, when I should have checked the resolution before commenting. However, if I hadn?t I possibly would still not know about the problem.

I was concerned about the size, and especially after I saw it in 800 x 600. Therefore, I?ve punted on the side bar idea for now. The main thing I want to do at this point is to repair the resolution problem, which was obviously the 585 pixel photo. I have reduced the pictures to a width of 500 pixels.

I normally would agree with your comment about time. However, I believe that most of my visitors are going to have broadband. I am monitoring my site and the traffic is steadying increasing. However, it is still something that I want to be aware of for those who do have dialup. If any of you use dial up, I would be interested in knowing your speed and how long this site takes to load.

Please view the main site again and let me know what you think.

Phillip

www.discoveryumc.org (http://www.discoveryumc.org)


+++++++++

I now have another test site back up with smaller headers.
I?m not too happy with my worship times image, but work on it later.
http://www.discoveryumc.org/v5.0/pages_5.0/test.htm (http://http://www.discoveryumc.org/v5.0/pages_5.0/test.htm)
Thanks in advance for looking at it.

Phillip