LebGeeks

arithma

Member

xentrics.net - prerelease

Hey guys,
I want your constructive feedback on our portfolio site
http://xentrics.net

malek

Member

Re: xentrics.net - prerelease

Let me tell you something, that goody game is fucking stupid.

arithma

Member

Re: xentrics.net - prerelease

Dude, constructive feedback!

Georges

Member

Re: xentrics.net - prerelease

Dude, constructive feedback!

The site is very light ! But to be honest, it needs more work.

arithma

Member

Re: xentrics.net - prerelease

What seems to be missing?

Xsever

Member

Re: xentrics.net - prerelease

Simple and straight to the point.

I suggest it you enlarge it a little bit so reading is easier. It's too small now.

malek

Member

Re: xentrics.net - prerelease

Dude, constructive feedback!

Well the website is really lite and simple, only thing left  for now is getting more content so it's more interesting.

Joe

Member

Re: xentrics.net - prerelease

Some remarks, randomly :

* No Favicon, no 'www' in the url, poor <title> tag. It gives your portfolio amateurish aspects. Favicon is a must.
* Links to your creations, bottom-right, are not obvious. I had to look for the links, started clicking on the image to get redirected. Links must be put forth.
* Transparency around the logo and central image isn't the smoothest. You can see the white border and it doesn't look pretty.

Finally a broader problem. There's a  BIG incoherence within the website. Ask yourself, who's the audience ?

If you're appealing to the artisitic/design side of your work, why mention optimization? If you want to talk about technical prowess, why the buterflies ? (Far from optimized, they made my netbook lag like crazy).
A client interested in your optimization work would need more info than what's inside. Mention the technologies you're using. Mention your blog.

Or maybe you're talking about 'business' optimization, in a sens 'low investment - high return'. I don't think that two portfolio website, a 'Goody' game and a Flash 'experiment' would convince a lot of people.

I strongly suggest you redefine your target audience, and develop the site accordingly.

A great technique to do that is the persona technique. Here's a good tutorialon how to do it. You should take a look.

I sound too negative. There are some interesting aspects to your portfolio:

* I like the look & feel, things are smooth enough.
* Apart from the Favicon/title/url problem, the website looks generally professional. It would earn my trust (as a potential customer)
* Slideshow is cool. Did you write it from scratch ?

Kassem

Member

Re: xentrics.net - prerelease

The website looks very professional. Simple but straight to the point. It is very lightweight, loads in no time and everything looks good. I did not notice any lags due to the butterflies (rahmu, maybe it's because you're using Linux?).

Suggestion: add a little bit of complexity to the site, enlarge the text a little bit (it hurt my eyes trying to read the about us page), and finally let it be a fluid layout rather than a centered box. Flash fluid layouts are usually very smooth and look elegant.

Overall, good work. Keep it up man :)

@rahmu: check your inbox please.

arithma

Member

Re: xentrics.net - prerelease

@rahmu: Thanks for the critical assessment of my work.. I am indebted to you.

* Favicon, title tag are release items. They're definitely going in.. I should have mentioned that, but not you did.. The site would work with or without the www part. I just happen to prefer linking without it..
* About the link, I have actually been having a hard time locating it. It was located before above the next/previous buttons. This is partly the greater reason where I need feedback..
* The transparencies are part of the experimental design for this thing. As in it is intentional as you've experienced it. I fear that it appears otherwise. I guess I went too far with the implied borders using the butterflies (which is why they're moving about).. Noted.
* I believe my best target audience would be actual web and ad agencies since our portfolio is not big enough to lure in the the huge fishies. Hence I thought it would be fine to go a little technical. A blog link in the about us section perhaps?
* The butterflies should not be a real performance bottleneck. I would make a little butterfly-less link just to figure out if that's the actual problem if you can spare me the minute.

Everything in this website has been built from scratch. I am not too incessant on keeping the code private, and there are some cool stuff going on in there (just open firebug and try see how things start loading differently when you open different sections.. it's all organized in a hierarchical manner, page -> project -> picture.. and it focuses on what the user is viewing) --- Maybe the source code could be a another cool point to add so that agencies can see the quality and organization of our work.

arithma

Member

Re: xentrics.net - prerelease

@Kassem: You have a point about the text size comment. I guess I was just too close to my screen most of my time that I didn't know any better. Changed locations now, and it all seems headache inducing.
Simplicity is what I was aiming for. Utter simplicity. There's a place in the code left for transitions (it's actually doing null transitions at the moment) but I found it more interesting to expose my barebones. I may be wrong.
I don't think a fluid layout would work for me here since I am short on content -- hopefully it'll come together as the site would feed itself with projects (given that it passes the threshold of enticing people to work with us in the first place). The reason for a small viewing box is that it can allow people to focus on the elements of a website and makes it a bit more mysterious what they're looking at. This of course can be a load of bullshit and would be doing more harm than good.

Last edited by arithma (June 22 2010)

Joe

Member

Re: xentrics.net - prerelease

Another thing I just thought about:

What are the services you provide? They should be explicitly mentioned on your website. Web development, design, registration, hosting, optimization, ... ?

A client should see what you are selling directly.

arithma

Member

Re: xentrics.net - prerelease

Funny that I had that section and removed it.. We're relying on the categories we've worked on so far to imply the stuff we actually do.
Though you do have a point, I need to figure out in a way: What we do.

Joe

Member

Re: xentrics.net - prerelease

If I see on your competitor's website that he takes care of hosting and domain registration, I'd probably contact him before I'd do you ...