Ask HN: What do you think about my agency's new website and how can I improve it | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What do you think about my agency's new website and how can I improve it

8 pointskiraken21 comments

We had to retire our old website, and move to something more modern and simplistic. However i feel that i spent a lot of time over thinking this project, so i wanted to show it to you guys at its current form to get your opinion on whether or not its ready to be used, and if there are any issues that i need to take a look at!

This is the link: https://www.eliteware.co/testing

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With js allowed there's a page which displays that looks browser window sized, yet if you scroll down slightly there's "";}}?>" at the bottom of the page. I was expecting more content below, so was confused a little. Also I mistook your logo on the left red column as the menu icon, and took a little time to find the actual burger menu at top right(ish). I love the font, colors, and floaty dots to far right though!

Thanks for the feedback! And i fixed the small text on the bottom. I'll definitely keep in mind making the menu icon bigger, and maybe the logo would also open the menu!

When I noticed that you linked to a subdirectory, I immediately went to the root and noticed you're serving a raw directory listing at https://www.eliteware.co . I don't expect I'll be the only person to check this.

Thanks for that! Completely skipped my mind

Not ready. Have you looked at it on mobile? It barely functions, not just slow but not mobile responsive.

"; } } ?> At the bottom of home page.

Text is often covered by images, particularly on the projects page.

I also question some design decisions:

Why a wall of text popup for About instead of a page?

Why is the Close button sometimes on the top-left, sometimes top-middle, but never top-right where everyone expects it to be?

Because of the visiual similarity to a hamburger menu, it took me long time to realise your logo was a logo and not a menu icon. Edit: I see a couple other comments also made this mistake.

Why is there a non-scrolling bar telling me to scroll? Edit: I figured it out, it's scroll buttons. Why? Is this an accessibility thing?

Anyway I don't mean to be an ass, but you badly need to sort out the mobile experience. It's not encouraging that a web agency has failed to do so on their own website.

Thank you for taking the time to go over the website! And i forgot to mention this in the OP, but the mobile version is not uploaded yet. But i'll keep everything else you mentioned in mind

Ohh haha ok

Do not break the user expectations. When I use the scroll wheel on my mouse the page screws up. As soon as I get close to the bottom it automatically flips back to the top. You may want the user to use your scroll buttons but most people won't because scrolling has been around from the beginning and people already do it a certain way. Expecting them to change for your site will make them leave. You can add your own little nuances like you have but always make sure it meshes with the current way of doing things.

You've got a lovely `"; } } ?> ` right at the bottom of you page ;) I mostly noticed it because somehow the page was scrolling when it shouldn't be.

Thanks for that! Fixed!

- Load times for the case studies are loooong.

- Took a bit of getting used to the scroll thing. Didn't know if I was at the top/bottom, so just had to guess

- Text is small. Can't zoom/enlarge text on https://www.eliteware.co/testing/projects.html

- You have some weird characters at the bottom of the page ("; } } ?>).

- Does the left menu work? I can't get it to.

Overall, seems like a professionally designed site, but you need to be clear on who you are trying to appeal to. Are you showing what you guys can do, or are you trying to give them information about your services/past clients? It seems like you're trying to do both, and expecting the user to click through quite a few times.

I'd love to see it all on one page, but that's just me.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to go over the website!

-I agree about the loading time, working on a fix right now -I'll make sure i change the font size -Fixed the weird characters thingy -What left menu? Didn't get this point, there's a menu on the top right

> Does the left menu work? I can't get it to.

Me too, then I realized it's their logo.

Fellow consultant here. These are the top 3 things you should fix:

1. The site loads very slowly. This is largely static content, it should not take this long to load. Adding in all of the whiz-bang animations and transitions detracts from your overall message.

2. It's not very accessible. Small fonts, poor contrast, it's very difficult to read. If you have a 50-year old CEO with money to burn, do you really want him/her to pass on your firm because they can't read your case studies?

3. It's a bit confusing. The logo kind of looks like a hamburger menu. The hamburger menu dropdown is really in your face, and you take over scrolling when going through the list of projects. So many things that make me cringe, please don't take over my scrolling! Make the information intuitive and easy to access.

Hijacking the scrollbar is a big pet peeve of mine. Designers keep trying to bring this fad back. I wish they'd not. I get the allure, but I've never seen it be a value add. Browsers handle that for you, don't get in its way!

With no javascript allowed, I get a large red dot in the center of my browser window.

If I turn off stylesheets, I can see that there was html text delivered to my browser, so that text should have appeared, instead of just a single red spot.

Pretty broken on mobile. (Android 7.1.1, Chrome)

Menu animation is too slow on mobile.

Thanks for going over the site bud. The mobile version is not uploaded yet!

Why am I stuck looking at a red ring type animation on iOS? Very fast connection on very fast hardware.

Doesn’t work on iPhone SE. Get horizontal scrolling and layout is all out of whack.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishmen...

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