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Cumulus Computers New Website

choucove

choucove

New Member
I'd like to get all of your wonderful professional input on a rebuild of the general layout of my computer business website. You can view the original website at http://www.cumuluscomputers.com

I have two different layouts created so far. One has a static navigation panel on the left side of the window, while the other has a smaller static navigation panel on the top of the window. The content on the page is just "filler" right now and will be changed and made more pleasant, but the overall layout and placement of navigation bar, logo, and bottom footer/navigation is what I'm really looking at right now.

http://www.cumuluscomputers.com/index_set1.html
http://www.cumuluscomputers.com/index_set2.html

I'd love to have any ideas or input that I can get from you all, as once I can work out which style I'd like to go with I can finish creating the rest of the actual content for the pages and get everything live. Please, feel free to ask any questions you may have as well and I'll see what I can do to get you answers! Thank you in advance for all of the help!
 
Fred Weiss

Fred Weiss

Merchant Member
I like Set 1 better assuming the arrows that pop out will actually be pointing at something relevant. If not then I think you should settle for the rollover color shift and drop the arrows. I also got slightly hung up on the Click Here button at the top looking different than the other buttons.

What I prefer about it primarily though is the lesser width of the paragraph copy which makes for a far easier read.

Set 2 looks a lot more conventional and less interesting.

The bottom links seem fine on either layout.
 
choucove

choucove

New Member
Fred that is incredibly helpful and thoughtful input, thank you!

There are a lot of things I like about both styles, so it's hard for me to tell what functions the best. One question for your regarding the Set1 layout. Do you think it would seem better if the rollover navigation buttons had no pop-out effect? What if the company logo was the same width as the navigation buttons, or the navigation buttons were moved over to be centered more under the company logo? Somehow what just feels "off" on that layout is just that side seems unbalanced.

The top buttons on that Site1 are a little different because I was kind of playing with the idea of doing a color shift instead of a pop out for buttons, and just didn't get that one changed. I ended up going with a little more subdued color shift for the navigation buttons in Set2, which I prefer over the pop-outs.
 
Fred Weiss

Fred Weiss

Merchant Member
Yes, I think centering the buttons under the logo would look better.

I can understand your choices on Set 1 because you're trying to work with transparency. I think you might want to continue to work with the layout of Set 1 but try it without the transparency. With the buttons being opaque, the balance will hopefully follow. You may run into legibility problems for some visitors when you have text sitting on the clouds. Opaque buttons with color change rollover and page also opaque. Or, if you like the motion effect, just have them expand or jump rather than pop out an arrow. But try it without the transparency.

I'm also a bit bothered by the off center result being caused by the "g" in "Blog". You might want to adjust that.
 
choucove

choucove

New Member
I went through and made changes to the buttons and layout based on some of your suggestions and came up with Set 3. Take a look at this one below and see if this is better, I like it more than the original Set 1 as things seem a little more balanced. Additionally, I have built it now so I can change the top right graphic to something different for each page.

http://www.cumuluscomputers.com/index_set3.html
 
choucove

choucove

New Member
Vinylman said:
First thing I notice is that your address is incomplete.
What city & state w/ zip code??
Click to expand...

Oh are you meaning within the page content itself, where it says Address: Phone Number: etc? I just haven't filled in much there. All that information right now is just kinda placeholders to show what text will look like on that page.
 
choucove

choucove

New Member
Hehe, no not getting paid, as it's my own business and I don't really make the money to pay myself time for building my own website unfortunately. I've spent quite a bit of time on it though working to get some stuff online. There's a TON more content that I thought there would be initially, so it's going to take some time.

Some things that I'd like to do I don't even know how to yet. I'm pretty much self-taught when it comes to website design, so I'm not the greatest.
 
S

signswi

New Member
To be honest it looks self-taught, I wouldn't trust the company behind any of those sites with my toaster much less my computer. Hire a web developer. If you can't afford to do that then look into Squarespace, their templates will at least save you from looking like you're 15 years out of date.
 
choucove

choucove

New Member
jesse said:
To be honest it looks self-taught, I wouldn't trust the company behind any of those sites with my toaster much less my computer. Hire a web developer. If you can't afford to do that then look into Squarespace, their templates will at least save you from looking like you're 15 years out of date.
Click to expand...

This may be something that I will look into. I have not heard of Squarespace, and I'm not sure I quite understand the concept. Are the web builders, or just templates? Hosting, customizing, editing... how do all of these things work with Squarespace?

Honestly, when I set out to rebuild my website my only real goal was to make something better than the one and only other computer business in my area, which isn't too hard: www.ntronic.net Still, having something professionally done (and professional looking) would be wonderful, I just don't have a lot of money to put into it which is why I was doing it myself. In the end, though, it is true that I am 1) a little short on time to build the site from the ground up including all the buttons, pictures, etc. and 2) a little short on skill and know-how to do some of the features I'd like to incorporate.
 
choucove

choucove

New Member
Went back to the drawing board, so to speak, and used the styles and layout ideas from several other templates that I found and liked. Here is a revised version of the website.

http://www.cumuluscomputers.com/new/index_set4.html

You'll notice that I don't have the company logo on there, and some other information missing from the very top, this will be coming once I can basically modify the logo to work right within this page.
 
S

signswi

New Member
Not there yet but it's a very positive change. Squarespace is SaaS providing highly customizable templates using GUI editors and very fast/secure hosting (as it's SaaS...), just watch their demo videos or try out the trial you'll get it quickly.
 
SignShopWebsites

SignShopWebsites

New Member
I recommend hiring a professional to do it, but I understand you don't have the extra money. Getting a professional to do anything isn't cheap, but then again, neither is your time.

Do you have any computers sitting around that you'd like to barter with? There are lots of web designers out there that need secondary computers that they do testing on. I have 2 extra computers in my office just so I can test my sites and troubleshoot issues with.

Locally, you could offer (in barter/trade) a tech support contract complete with computer cleanup and system optimization. I know if I didn't already have someone I trusted with my entire business (my computers) I would be desperate for someone like you to lean on when I have problems because when a web developer's computer is down or on the fritz, EVERYTHING comes to a standstill.

It does look like you're getting somewhere on your own, but I highly recommend either paying a few bucks for some stock photography. Nothing against your pix, but often times people get so hung up on using their own photos that they tend to miss the bigger picture... "Gaining the visitor's confidence with a reliable, professional presentation". Poorly cropped photos in bad lighting will never achieve that. Nothing personal, that is way better than many I've seen, it's just that nobody can beat a professionally lighted, professionally shot, professionally improved photograph. http://istock.com super cheap, royalty free, and professional. just try to stay off the first 5 pages per search if you want something fresh and not commonly used. This site is huge and lots of people use it for this very thing. I would search for computer repair and then jump ahead a few pages so you don't get the same ones everyone else grabs.

Okay, sorry for the long windedness, I just had a lot to say about this. Hope it helps!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Custom_Grafx

Custom_Grafx

New Member
That latest one is pretty cool, and I totally understand about not having the money to get it professionally done, so hang in there if you can. Some really great tips though with the bartering idea offered by John ^

I am by no means a web designer, however I do have a link I would like to share with you, which was passed onto me by a friend a while ago (and I'm kinda surprised that it's still up!).

https://www.math.duke.edu/education/ccp/resources/write/design/toc.html

Since reading this, it has not given me the power to create great sites or anything, but has given me a much much much better understanding and appreciation for good websites, and I highly recommend reading it.

It's a little boring to get through at first, but it's not that long to be honest, and it's all really really useful info. It's basically a manual for design considerations, specifically geared at human/computer interaction.

Some of it also applies to signs, but almost always when it gets into the details, it steers the basic design principles towards human eyes and a computer screen, which is where it becomes very different to say signs and print.

Best of luck!
 
choucove

choucove

New Member
John, thank you so much for some helpful tips and insights!

To be honest, I'd trade out a computer for professional web design here locally... if there were options locally. I live in a town of 6000 people, and we're the largest town around for over 100 miles. Even then, the closest mall is almost four hours drive time away. Here in Colby there just aren't any professional web developers. There's only even one other computer business in town. So that is why I'm kind of stuck at the moment with the only option of doing it myself.

I have used iStock photo actually for several images previously. In fact, the technician graphic at the top of the page is from iStock. It isn't professional remastered for lighting, but to get the basic template built it's what I had to go with. The part that is really going to be hard here will be images of the computer systems themselves, as I'm definitely not a professional photographer, so I may have to go to one of the photographers here in town that I know to get some done of our systems for the website.

Custom Grafx I'll take a look into your link and see what I can come up with. There are several points in designing the page that I know I am at a major loss. That is mainly in photography (having the right images and knowing how best to place and utilize them on the page) and other graphical design elements like buttons, logos, and simple designs. I'm definitely not a designer either, so coming up with these things takes a lot of time and effort to develop halfway decent.

There's a lot here to consider, and unfortunately I'm just kinda stuck until I can figure what direction to take next. After all, I've gone without much of a website for quite a while now, so maybe I can figure out a way to budget in having it done in the next year or two by a professional.
 
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