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Dan Antonelli

New Member
When you click on the navigation bar it still does not go to the proper page. You are forced to click on the up arrow. I quickly clicked on each bar and the "effect" of arrow appearing could not "keep up". Assuming some of your visitors are dumb, they may not ever click on the arrow. Why not have both areas clickable?

I love the look of the design, I think that this one thing might cause some of your potential customers to miss out on the rest of your website

One more thing. When you click on the 5 navigation bars, the graphic changes on each but there is a little area that says "get more info about our web design". This text does not change but clicking on it will take you to a page that is not related to web design. Shouldn't that also change and not remain static? For instance, when the vehicle graphic is displayed and I click on "get more info about our web design", it goes to the vehicle page and not a page about web design

The old images are cached in your browser. Clear them and you will see the text in the 5 flash sequences does change, indicating to click here for more info on web design, logo design, advertising, etc--

You cannot have both areas clickable - the subnav under the flash controls the sequencing above - it can't control that and also allow you to click to that page. Its one or the other.

Thats why we added the 'click here for more info' on each of the frame.

It's OK if it's not working for you and some others - and do appreciate the feedback. I'm doubtful of the ability to produce something that everyone agrees with 100%, but will certainly monitor analytics on the site to see where clicks are going, and if its confusing to others.

I'm also OK if you don't click directly off that area as well, as I'm intentionally trying to force a navigation to come through the primary buttons on top. I'd prefer you land on my services page and then hit logo services page, rather than go to logos directly and miss the services landing page. This is one of the reasons why the site no longer has drop down navigation.

Dan
 

GB2

Old Member
Well, I don't mean to belabor this point but I'm sorry, I see it as a big stumbling block on the first introduction to your site, and for you, premier web site designer to have such an issue is counterproductive to say the least. You say it's OK if 100% of the people don't get it but here you have a bunch of people saying,"Nice job" and about 3-4 actually looking at detail and they are all telling you the same thing is a problem...that's pretty close to 100%. If you noticed, Eric said almost word for word what I said 6 posts earlier.

I don't think anything is "forcing" navigation to the primary buttons at the top, I think people will randomly land there as a last resort. The bottom green button bar is so prominent that I think everyone will try to use it. Therefore, if you must leave things status quo, I have some suggestions:

Option 1) If you didn't even have the arrows appearing but instead just had the green buttons cycle and change color (as they do now) and didn't have them do anything when you clicked them (as they do now) then you could have the "What we do" as a button that will take you to the services page. After all that "What we do" looks like a button anyway but now does nothing.

Option 2) Have the arrows control the changing pictures but do nothing if you click them (as the green blocks do now) and have the green blocks all take you to the services page if you click them.

The other thing that gives me a little discomfort is the fact that all the pages are slightly different from that first page in that they don't have the green blocks at least. That first page is percieved as the home page but nothing allows you to navigate back to it. I often navigate back to the home page when I'm looking through web sites and though that isn't a big deal, like I said it's discomforting. It kind of makes you feel like your a little lost and can't find your way back.

Now I know you'd like nothing more than to get past what I'm sure you percieve as these non-issues but as you see, I haven't even been able to get to the rest of the site yet. I think you should at least acknowledge that you understand and will look it over so we can move on but I hope you'll mean it too.
 

signmeup

New Member
GB2 is right. Sorry Dan but it just doesn't make sense. If I designed this website I'd be raked over the coals by the members of this site. Since it's you, they love it.(for the most part)

Between the weird animated arrows you have to chase, clickable nav buttons you can't click, the too fast changing pictures in the header and the lack of consistent navigation tools on each page it makes figuring out how to navigate your site dubious at best.

I have yet to figure out what or where the "forced navigation to the primary buttons" is/are.

If it was just me having trouble I'd write off as just some nut who can't figure stuff out.
 

Dan Antonelli

New Member
Gary and Sign -

Thanks again for the feedback, and while I appreciate your concerns, I'm going to leave it as is for the time being. The earlier feedback was taken into account, and the additional text on the frames I think clarify the action step I want the viewer to take. The arrows point upward, for me, and most others, its very obvious they only control the flash, and each frame has a button to click to get more info on that section. Clicking on that subnav changes the current frame, so its clear to me that that's all those nav buttons do. I'm not certain I can make 'what we do' go to the services landing page, but if I can, I think thats a good idea.

Like I said, I will monitor analytics and make adjustments later on should I deem it necessary.

You would never repeat a home page flash structure on an inner page (at least, we would never), so the idea of repeating those on an inner page seems really odd to me, and would look really bizarre under a header, as well.

As for getting back to the home page, our logo will return you home (as is the case on a large portion of web sites).

After 350+ web sites under our belts, and a lot of study done on graphical interface design, I'm pretty confident in what we have presented. I respect your input, and have made adjustments based on some of your feedback. If those still don't work for you, I'm sorry. Might I change it down the road, sure. Everything's a work in progress, including myself :)
 

signmeup

New Member
Gary and Sign -
You would never repeat a home page flash structure on an inner page (at least, we would never), so the idea of repeating those on an inner page seems really odd to me, and would look really bizarre under a header, as well.
I agree, that would be weird. I would, however, keep the same bar of green nav buttons (without the arrows) on all pages instead of going to the text nav bar you used on sub pages. This would give each page a consistent nav system.
Anyway... if you're happy that's the main thing.
 
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Dan Antonelli

New Member
I agree, that would be weird. I would, however, keep the same bar of green nav buttons (without the arrows) on all pages instead of going to the text nav bar you used on sub pages. This would give each page a consistent nav system.
Anyway... if you're happy that's the main thing.

LOL - The green bar isn't a nav structure, that's why I wouldn't have on the inner page. Thus the confusion! There - we've both now solved what the problem is for each of us :cool1:

No, who's on first? What's on second!!
 

signmeup

New Member

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Joe Diaz

New Member
You cannot have both areas clickable - the subnav under the flash controls the sequencing above - it can't control that and also allow you to click to that page. Its one or the other.

Thats why we added the 'click here for more info' on each of the frame.

I actually don't mind the way you have it. It makes sense to me. But you could try to make the header image swap when you hover over the services navigation then link to the page on click.

Because I kind of see where they are coming from, because that lower navigation is larger and bolder, to the average person it seems as though it is the main navigation rather than the downplayed smaller navigation at the top. So one might assume that when you click on it, you would navigate to that page.
 

signmeup

New Member
Because I kind of see where they are coming from, because that lower navigation is larger and bolder, to the average person it seems as though it is the main navigation rather than the downplayed smaller navigation at the top. So one might assume that when you click on it, you would navigate to that page.
Especially when you hover over the "button" and the little hand appears.
 

TheSellOut

New Member
I really like the re-design, but I have to agree that the green bar does seem like it is a nav structure. When I first visited the site I clicked on "logos" in the green bar expecting to get routed to the logo section and I was confused when it was the same page. I then looked around and found the nav structure.

Anywho, I like it how it is, nice work!
 

Dan Antonelli

New Member
Joe - We had an issue with the on-hover state so we replaced with onclick to swap the top image, but I think going back to it would be a good option. Just have to dig through a bunch of code to get that figured out. Eh, what another few billable hours! LOL

Also the infamous green bar under - we're going to be 'dimming' the unclicked states so that they are not so prominent. But I think the hover flips, with clicks to those pages directly would work.

Stay tuned!

So thanks again guys!
 

Dan Antonelli

New Member
Houston, Apollo 13 here!

OK guys - clear your caches and reload the home page. The 'flash' (we keep saying flash but its jquery) now has hover states that will flip the top image when hovered on, AND now you can click right from the button AND go to that page also.

We also dimmed the infamous green nav button, so maybe it looks less like a prominent nav area, and your eye is better focused on flash area.

Only downside is my programmer/css guy wants to kill me! Poor guy! I gave him the afternoon off actually---

Thanks for the feedback and I think this works better now :)
 

The Vector Doctor

Chief Bezier Manipulator
Is this for SEO?

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Dan Antonelli

New Member
Life IS good! Two thumbs up too - sweet!

I'm taking the afternoon off with the rest of the crew, and going for a 40 mile bike ride. You guys like the site, its a beautiful 85 degrees outside and all is well in the universe.
If I can get Gary's buy-in also, well, then that would be just nirvana. :)

Thanks guys -
 
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