Website Review and Suggestions

**jumbographics** · 08-21-2007, 01:46 PM

Hello. I just created this site and have been monitoring traffic statistics on it. I noticed that it is getting a high bounce rate according to google analytics. I think the layout is coherent, but I was wondering if the design turned people off.

Could somebody give me their opinion? Here is the url:

http://www.benfranklinpress.net/

Thanks

**walkedaway** · 08-21-2007, 02:04 PM

it is possible. there are some things you can change that i think would make your site more aesthetically pleasing as well as easier to navigate.

when i view the index page in mozilla the top portion bg color with the header is a diff. color than the bg color beneath it (on some of the other pages it is not though).

also, i think it might be better if the links to your work do not open up in new tabs.

you might be able to find some better images for your header and find some better colors for your site..

hope this helps, good luck.

**iMountain.com** · 08-21-2007, 06:32 PM

For me, the site loads slow when I click through different pages.

The concept is very interesting. I'm not sure if I like it, the Vivid Color robot takes away from the site when it's the first 1 that shows up.

**ForrestCroce** · 08-22-2007, 04:40 PM

The page takes a long time to load, mostly because of the Vivid Color robot.

The "busy" layout actually works for your type of business ... but you might want to make it look like a magazine page, or a poster?

What's a "high" bounce rate, by the way? 50 %? 75? How does it look across different referrers? I would think part of what you're seeing is more and more people and offices going paperless.

**Chronicle** · 08-22-2007, 05:20 PM

Just a quick note....RED is really painful in the eye...

**MrTom-UK** · 08-23-2007, 09:02 AM

I like it, the large images are slow to load but not too bad.

The bit that annoys me is the graphic of the cart with the picture in it. The way the edge of the picture frame lines up with the vertical red graphic is uneasy. It should disect it to be more pleasing. But that is being ultra-finickety.

**tomythius** · 08-23-2007, 02:26 PM

I personally don't like that kind of pop-out navigation. I mean I'd probably still use it, but I wouldn't enjoy it.
Also - it feels very much a graphic designer did this site. That's a bit vague, but it's just something I pick up on. If I were you I'd get rid of all the pictures of the text (use text when you mean text), use the full space on the screen and cut down the image sizes a little.
Other than that, it looks lovely.
PS I personally quite like the red.

**HighVoltage123** · 08-24-2007, 06:00 AM

i like red but this is too much - red is very powerful color and it looks bad when it's too much

**jumbographics** · 08-24-2007, 08:45 PM

Thanks for all the advice. I'm going to make some modifications, mainly to the text that appears as images. Unfortunately, I don't know if there is much I can do about the overall color of the site. The client says they like the color mix. Perhaps I could show them different colors, like blue for the side bar and background and keep just the logo red?

**jumbographics** · 08-24-2007, 08:55 PM

Is the pop-up navigation overly annoying? I could just stick to roll-over buttons and allow the user to navigate the sub-directory of a page when they get to that page.

**nancy4king** · 09-10-2007, 04:06 AM

concept is very good. layout is fine. But red color seems like shouting. The large images are slow to load. Else everything looks quite ok.