LebGeeks

Joe

Member

Re: Need Some Feedback Please

Some definite improvements have been made. I spent five minutes reviewing your website and I do not feel dizzy. Most of the remarks I could give you have already been highlighted by arithma, instead I would give you a more global guideline to improve your website.

- I am assuming that your website is meant as a portfolio to present to clients. While your website give them a good visual presentation, it is incredibly difficult to browse. It takes several seconds to go from one page to another, gears on the home/about pages are hard to reach, the music button is difficult to click... Try to think more in terms of usability, as clients will get annoyed on your website. I would suggest slowing the background animation even more while making the page shift animation faster. It will get you rid of the floating in space feeling and will make cycling through your pages a lot easier. Look at this website. While it doesn't have the visual appeal of yours, notice how easily the information is provided.

- The text you entered make you come off as an amateur. I especially have in mind your biography. Clients do not care what your friends say about you, when you bought your first PC or that PHP is the best language in the world. They only care about themselves and what you can bring to them. Your biography should be something more like this:

Kassem Darwish has developed a strong interest for technology ever since he got his first computer back in 2002. With strong understanding of web standards like HTML/CSS and Javascript, he has made designing websites his passion. His work as a freelance developer, led him to discover PHP and Flash/Actionscript, technologies he now uses almost exclusively.

Today Kassem spends his time studying for his university courses, from which he would graduate in ... with a degree in ... , working from home developing websites for his clients or (volunteering for the Red Cross/Playing football/chilling with his girlfriend/put here whatever you want).

This is just off the top of my head and is far from being perfect. It is just meant to give you an idea of what a professional text looks like. You can use parts or all of it as you seem fit, but I would recommend you writing your own thing. I would be glad to help reviewing it.

- One last thing. Our strategy? Contact Us? Is it a personal website or is it a company?
I would use the terms Business Strategy and Contact Me.

Last edited by Joe (April 8 2010)

Joe

Member

Re: Need Some Feedback Please

I should add one last thing: Your website is killing both my CPUs. I am working on a AMD Athlon 64 Dual-core processor 4400+ which is in the top middle range of today's standards, and when your website is running, the load on the processors go crazy (a constant 65%, both of them). During the page-change animation it can go up to 90~95%! I tried this on different browsers (Chrome, Opera, Firefox), the result is fairly the same every time.

This is inherent to Flash, it will always hog your resources. Plus I have no idea how to help you optimize it, I don't know sh*t about Flash. Maybe someone else could look through your code.

PS don't forget that Ubuntu has bad Flash support, so maybe it wouldn't be as bad on Windows and Macs ;-)

kareem_nasser

Member

Re: Need Some Feedback Please

I should add one last thing: Your website is killing both my CPUs. I am working on a AMD Athlon 64 Dual-core processor 4400+ which is in the top middle range of today's standards, and when your website is running, the load on the processors go crazy (a constant 65%, both of them). During the page-change animation it can go up to 90~95%! I tried this on different browsers (Chrome, Opera, Firefox), the result is fairly the same every time.

This is inherent to Flash, it will always hog your resources. Plus I have no idea how to help you optimize it, I don't know sh*t about Flash. Maybe someone else could look through your code.

PS don't forget that Ubuntu has bad Flash support, so maybe it wouldn't be as bad on Windows and Macs ;-)

I am experiencing some performance probs too but my pc is old so it is not good for benchmarking, i think i'll try the site on the ps3 web browser.

on the ps3's browser: the worlds are outside the boxes maybe because i am not using an HDTV so the resolution is low and the ps3's browser is really slow so i experienced some low frame rates and slower loading time than the FF on pc.

Last edited by kareem_nasser (April 8 2010)

Kassem

Member

Re: Need Some Feedback Please

Thanks alot guys!! That's exactly the kinda feedback I was looking for! And yeah rahmu, I was planning to change the text of the biography actually. For now it's going to be only me, but hopefully I could get a good graphic designer to work with me.

Anyway, I will take all of your criticism and suggestions into consideration and report back with the results.

Kassem

Member

Re: Need Some Feedback Please

Ok site updated and fixed most of what you guys pointed at in your feedback. Please tell me if the transition from page to another and when u click on the black gear are still slow...

Concerning performance, that's the best I can do because a lot of calculations are being performed on every frame to achieve this sliding background effect (the frame rate is 30 frames per second). I am running the site on an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.73 GHz and it runs very smoothly. I've always hated AMD, oh well...

Last edited by Kassem (April 8 2010)

Joe

Member

Re: Need Some Feedback Please

Definite improvements man, the website is much more usable. Some remarks:

About your biography

I wouldn't encourage you saying that you excel at PHP and Actionscript. This makes you come off as pretentious. Your website speaks for your skills. And there is always the possibility of a PHP/ActionScript guru running into your biography and challenging you (byebkha3ak). You're still at uni, no one expects you to excel. Try to remain humble and professional as much as you can.

Instead you can mention something  about "Best Practices", "efficiency/efficient", "analyzing client's needs", ...
note: these words could also be added to the (very good) business strategy section.

I love the thing you said about "admiring the possibility of uniting the power of both".

One last thing: gf?? Really?? Are you a 12 year-old kid on msn? Write girlfriend in full letters.

Other remarks

There is a remarkable improvement in the website usability. I  can browse a lot faster than before, but I still have troubles finding the gears. arithma suggested you give them fixed positions instead of random ones, I think it is a great idea. You want people to travel fast.

But as a good news, I feel like I am on a real website, I lost the floating in space feeling.

You claim to be excellent at PHP, yet nowhere in the website do you show this. It would be a good suggestion to include this. But this is not an urgent task.

I am looking at your website from my netbook. The problem with text boxes i had mentioned in my first post isn't there. Strange since I am using the same Ubuntu and the same Firefox. I think it was a resolution problem (I am now in 1024x600).

Finally a comment about what you said: You say you hate AMD.

Unfortunately as a webdesigner you want your website to be visible for everyone. Your dislike of AMD is irrelevant here. I profoundly hate Internet Explorer. Yet I spend so much time getting my websites to be compatible with it. A web designer has no preferences. He should make everyone happy all the time. Unfortunately.

Last edited by Joe (April 8 2010)

Ayman

Member

Re: Need Some Feedback Please

I liked the new improvements well done but I have a comment though, I don't understand why you made the windows for displaying the info that small, I mean in some cases you have many paragraphs and texts all crammed into one little box take the biography section for example, why don't you make the box a bit more larger and save the user some scrolling, after all there is plenty of unused space. Personally, I don't find the size of the boxes displaying the information proportional to the huge size of the page, that is I find it a bit annoying to look and scroll inside a small box while there is plenty of unused space around the page. I hope you get my point, good luck and keep up the good work :)

Kassem

Member

Re: Need Some Feedback Please

@ rahmu, you've earned my utmost respect for being amazingly punctual. Thanks a lot for spotting these flaws in the text.
I actually fixed the positions of the black gears. I was hoping that would help in solving the problem and enhancing the usability of the website.
About PHP, well actually I do have some good php projects but they do not look good. I just wanted to apply what I've learned in php but the problem is that I always feel lazy when I come to the design part. Anyway, that's a good point and I've already planned to complete those projects and present them in my portfolio. Note taken :)
Concerning the AMD and browsers issue, well yeah I hate IE more than anyone, but I always end up testing my projects in IE as well as all the other major browsers. Life would've been much easier if everyone used Google Chrome!

@ AymanFarhat, you might have a point there but I thought I'd keep the size small for those with a small monitor (800 * 600 or a bit larger). If I increase the size of the popup boxes, it might end up being tweened outside the visible area. But I'll experiment with it and see if I could find a work-around. By the way, the whole thing is initially developed in an 800*600 stage. I needed to make sure there would be no freaking scroll bars in the browser for the majority of users.

ok so what do you think guys, can I officially release the site (after I add a few more Flash and PHP projects - the Print Design section is done, uploading right now) or does it still need major improvement?

arithma

Member

Re: Need Some Feedback Please

Still needs major improvement.
Recheck the "Must fix" list I posted. Mostly still unfixed.

Joe

Member

Re: Need Some Feedback Please

Be patient young programmer (Star Wars reference),

Your website is far from ready, it still needs perfecting. I get it that you want to release it and start advertising it, but believe me, every flaw of your website is going to give you nothing but bad publicity. You want to deliver only top-notch projects, or else what would clients think?

First of all, go through arithma's list and fix every single point.

Second, take a look at your website on different resolutions. An interesting bug happens in the portfolio page when I access it from my netbook. A good thing is that Firebug allow you to test different resolutions easily. (If you don't know how to use Firebug start learning now! There' a version for Chrome called Firebug Lite).

Test it also on different  browsers. IE6 has more users than you think. It also has extremely bad support for javascript, css and other standards. I wouldn't be surprised to see flash bugging.

There is an error in the biography. Hint: look for the extra space.

about the portfolio.

- the XML drop down menu page should be revised to include a marketing pitch of the text. The links to your website, to lebgeeks and such should be removed.

- the BMW site should be reviewed. It doesn't work well on lower resolutions. Try to include a side scrolling bar or something. Also, you are not (legally) allowed to say "This is the official BMW website". Simply replace the word "legally" by "mock up"

- You need content for the PHP section.

- Majestic Day Spa is a dead link. So is Jeita.

- There are copyright issues with the Hublot and Lorus watches. You are not legally allowed to publish their names. Unfortunately you cannot use these prints.

About the legal problems, don't give me the bullshit excuse that we're in Lebanon, no one cares bla bla bla. If you want to present something professional you cannot allow such noob mistakes. But don't worry, your original creations are really interesting, and you can always show the Lorus/Hublot ads to the clients later (privately).

Finally, the texts near the prints need to be made more professional, just like we did with the biography. Try to do it yourself, I would gladly give you a hand.

As you can see you still have a lot to do. Maybe it is just me who is a bit of a perfectionist, but believe me you do not want to be out there on the market with something less than perfect. A solid-looking portfolio website can double, even triple your prices. Keep that in mind.

To leave you on a positive note, in all the time I spent reviewing your website, not once did I get the dizzy feeling. It looks like the animation is OK, and the speed of transition is definitely fine ;)

Last edited by Joe (April 8 2010)