Community website review request

Hello All,

I've set up a new website on a budget for my local village show committee - www.knaphillshow.org - and I was hoping for a bit of feedback from you lovely people. I'm particularly interested in legibility and content. Although any of the content can be added to I'm not sure I've covered everything that a punter might want to see there.

Many thanks!

 

Hi Loofah this is what I get

 

Yes, I cocked up the address somewhat lol www.knaphillshow.org

Apologies, have also edited first post to correct.

 

Seems to be an issue with mobile browsers, I'm getting it on my phone too. Will see what can be done.
Busy how? Too fast in slideshow, too many sections, too much info?

 

I really don;t mind if you want to tear it apart as long as I find out how it comes across to peeps

 

I'm a totally non-tech person but am responsible for a number of websites and still never understand what it's about. That doesn't stop me from making comments of which some, occasionally, are taken notice of.

Overall, I like the site and my comments are, mostly, minor ones.

These are purely visual comments:-
I, also, find the elongated scrolling pictures at the top of the home page offend my eye (because of the distortion) and would be inclined to leave the site unless I was looking for something in particular. (By the time I had scrolled back to the page a few times my eyes were actually hurting.)

On the Home page, the date of the event should be visible in the first screen and we should not need to scroll down twice to find it.

The map is not in dark enough print (or sharp enough) and, not knowing the area, I wouldn't be able to read it.

Gallery:- When I went to the Gallery it didn't show the thumbprints but just an 'X'd out frame. I clicked on it anyway and it brought up the thumbnails. Although I then clicked on 'show slideshow' I never got past a spinning circle - gave up after leaving it for five minutes (could be a problem at my end).

Sponsors:- I'm sure you must have other sponsors (probably minor ones) that should have some sort of acknowledgement. Usually at these sort of events there are small businesses and organisations that give help in some way. That's a form of sponsorship and should be shown as, maybe, a simple list below the financial backers. Even your business should get a small plug for you having done the website - unless you are getting paid for it.

 

Brilliant stuff I don't ever (hardly ever) take these things as criticisms, just helpful opportunities for change. It's absolutely required for websites, especially of this nature, as there are such a wide variety of users. I also developed it on a large screen so needed people to view it on smaller ones to see how it renders - mixed it would seem! Again, it was on a small budget so I did what I could and the rest will happen over time; it's also the reason some items are looking a bit unfinished!
I'll try to address a few things -

Graphics & slider; Has to be graphics led as it's a very 'don't you wish you were here' event, but point taken and I'll see what can be done. I think most images have been optimised but that slider could perhaps be replaced with a smaller one. I'll also slow down the slider to stop it being so frantic.

Font; I'll be honest, it's one of the main reasons for asking for input. I'm not convinced it's easy to read by everyone, I may just default it to arial for the body text. There's more than the visible font sets available (not currently seen), I've put a small mix in during testing to get opinion on legibility and may remove the fancy ones altogether.

Front page links; @clueless1 you're right, I should have spotted that.

Alt tags; It's a mix, some have and some haven't.

Links & sidebars; Some still need populating. With regard to side bars (@HsuH ) they'll become more relevant over time and comments and posts are added. I agree at the moment they add little but they need to be there.

Footer; Fair point about it being large. It's driven primarily by the twitter feed parameters although I may be able to reduce it a tad as long as it doesn't become cramped.

Map; Yep, not the best. Will replace with something legible.

Gallery; an issue I'm still attempting to solve! The plugin used to be fantastic and the developer buggered it up recently and is firefighting it back into service.

Sponsors; Had to put some in there for placeholders, others to follow.

Payment; We all have pipe dreams! Financial costs are covered (tight budgets etc) but I won;t be retiring on it.

Overall, broadly speaking and at the end of the day (I could carry that on...) it appears it has gone down OK. Issues over 'business' can be addressed and theres a good few items to be working on in the meantime too.

Huge thanks everyone and if anyone has more comments to make please feel free