Website Redesign

[Daniel Sorbera]

We updated the look and feel of the website earlier today. You might have to hit refresh if you've visited it before.

www.sorberaguitars.com

[jmrentis]

Very nice! I really like that you can click the progress pictures and it will take you to the next one, made looking through every single picture painless and quick. Very cool little trick. Anyhow, very classy and professional, nice work. J

[thegarehanman]

I don't know if it's the design or what, but the link bar at the top of the page is very distorted looking on my pc. Maybe it's the font, I can't tell. FWIW, I'm using firefox and windows xp.

On a more positive note, I like this design more than the last. I really didn't like how the last site had you alluding to "Sorbera Guitars" being a big, well established company. Now I'm not saying you should say "hey, me and my brother work out of a shed," but there's something to be said for just being up front that you're a small operation...more boutiqueish IMHO. Buuut, to each his own.

And on yet another note, I haven't seen much come out of your shop lately? How am I supposed to duel you for GOTM when there are no new Sorberas?!

Edited July 17, 2007 by thegarehanman

[GregP]

Looks great over here in Opera. Not sure about the first page, though. Logo-splashes with a simple "Enter Site" are outmoded in favour of getting right to the point; ie., the site that you "enter".

[Daniel Sorbera]

On a more positive note, I like this design more than the last. I really didn't like how the last site had you alluding to "Sorbera Guitars" being a big, well established company. Now I'm not saying you should say "hey, me and my brother work out of a shed," but there's something to be said for just being up front that you're a small operation...more boutiqueish IMHO. Buuut, to each his own.

Thats exactly what we were trying to avoid. Trust me, everyone who is even slightly interested knows upfront exactly what kind of operation we are and the caliber of work we deliver.

[thegarehanman]

I wasn't questioning the quality of your work, just the wording of the site. For that matter, I wasn't trying to be overly critical either, just giving you some feedback. I know I like to get as much feedback regarding my site as possible. On that note, one of these days I'll change my gallery, but first I've got to figure out how I want to lay it out.

peace,

russ

[Daniel Sorbera]

I was tired last night when I posted that. I know you weren't questioning the quality. What I meant to say is this, our goal is to make sure people know we are small time and just starting out, but they are still getting a professional quality product, be it a repair, modification, or a custom build from scratch (all of which we have done and had very happy customers).

The website will be changed even more to reflect that and get the point across.

We are taking things very slow, just testing the waters, eventually it will be a full time thing. But for now it's just small time, basically for local people we meet and know. The website is there just so we have somewhere to send people so they can have a look.

And on yet another note, I haven't seen much come out of your shop lately? How am I supposed to duel you for GOTM when there are no new Sorberas?!

Yeah, not much has been done over the summer, busy with other things you know. But now things are picking up again you will find some new guitars completed very soon

[davee5]

Suggestions:

1. On home/index page with the images up front: make each image a link to either (a) a magnified/larger image or, even better, ( a link to that guitar's gallery

2. The home page is a bit busy, or perhpas just laid out a bit clumsily (in my opinon). Here's my quick hit list, from broad to specifc pseudo-gripes:

- Some of the text you want to get across seems hard to get to (i.e. scrolling is involved). Maybe break out the "about us" into a separate page to elminate clutter.

- Too many images that don't really correlate with anything in particular and thus don't make a distinct statement. Perhaps select a few super-choice images to use on a larger scale instead of 6 smaller ones that don't visually flow very well to me.

- I don't find centered text easy to read for full sentences. It's good for titles, but people have learned to read English in left-justified layouts. Using centered text is just marginally unconfortable enough for me to read that I subconciously skipped it all.

- Big gaps between text and images. All that white space really breaks the flow of the page. Try to avoid making people have to scroll on the first page. Recent studies show most people decide if they are going to look over/like/stay on your page in about 1/10th of a second. On my machine there is not very much content or visual interest on the first page (I probably have a lower resolution screen than you. Remeber these sorts of factors!) but there is a lot of white space.

- Dig the logo and the navigation bar, buuuuut since I've already noted my older machine has a lower resolution screen than many laptops it takes up about 1/4 of the page's visual field. Since I don't really want to focus on it too much unless I'm navigating, which I can figure out with smaller logos, I would consider scaling it back a bit. This is especially true because with the gray "welcome" or "pricing" titles below each page I'm left with less than 2/3 of the page for "real" content.

3. Your photos are great but your copy needs work. Things like the tech specs seem "rambly" and the visual layout of tightly packed bullet points makes them hard to read easily. It often feels forced to me too. Why try to sounds like factory machines when you can (and are ostensibly trying to sell) your individual crafstmanship. Make it personal!

Example: "Everything from the neck carve down to the finish was chosen by Paul... Our legendary neck means you will be able to play faster and longer without the hand fatigue you might experience with a “factory” neck that is not built to your specifications."

How can your necks be legendary already? How especially can they be legendary and alow people to play better if they are all unique and built to each individual's specs? This may seem like a nitpick but if Paul chose the neck shape then the awesome design that enables superior playing is implicity HIS legendary neck design. Really what you should be touting is somthing like: "As a small team we take pride in working directly with you to understand everything from your playing style to the size and shape of your hands so we can design and custom carve the most comfortable, best-playing neck you have ever owned."

On a different note, I agree with Russ about the feel of the page. Much more appropriate for what you guys are up to and more personal feeling. I will say I prefered the old page's more muted gray tones than this new ones harsher white background. All in all, I like it. I just think it needs to be polished a bit more. (As maybe all sites do, like mine for instance... shouldn't throw stones now should I!)

Keep up the good work.

-Dave

[Daniel Sorbera]

Thanks for the input! Yeah it's very rough right now, I just wanted something out besides what was there so it was very rushed. I'll be sure to change a lot of that stuff. BTW what resolution are you using?

[davee5]

1280 x 854 on an old Apple PowerBook (FYI your page looks fine in Safari, unlike on Russ's Windows machine). I tried to design my page for it to be about 800 pixels wide x 600 tall for the base size, then additional length for "content" pages could over run with scrolling. I think the 600 x 800 setups is something of a standard guideline. (I'm not really in the webdesign biz). If you're using something with much higher resolution it will make your webpage look tiny and odd, but it's much more universally accessible.

Food for thought.

- Dave

[MidwestGitarz]

davee5 has some good suggestions. I would definitely prepare your page for a 800x600 fit, for those users who still use smaller monitors and that resolution. Not to mention it will always look better for someone at a higher resolution too. Possibly may want to make the text one size smaller, would need to check it on an 800/600 page and then on larger resolutions to see how it looks. Condensed, organized, and readable is your main goal.

If you use the pics on the main page as links make sure they link to something appropriate, not just to any other page in your website. The pic with the link should tell a visual of where you would be going without them having to read around it or a caption. Pop-up not description can be added to the pic using the "alt" attribute for the image. What a pic of all three guitars together as the gallery pic?

Put your text and pics in tables, this allows you to really place them anywhere on the page.

+1 on the centered text, that looks best for headers, titles, and quotes only.

For the front page i would shoot for a single picture frame in the middle that did a slideshow of the six pics you used and if the you click any one of the pics it will take you to the gallery page. Lets face it you want them to oogle over the gallery pics then click for pricing.

Don't forget reverse navigation, once they get to a page better make it easy for them to get back to the main or whatever other page they want to visit. I would add a smaller font/simple text nav bar at the bottom of each page, i.e. "Home | Gallery | Pricing | Contact Us"

I wouldn't do the mouseover picture change effect on the guitar pics on the gallery page, instead do maybe a border change for each pic. I like the color pics, not really the B&W. A little more description for each guitar too. Love the new window for the photo gallery of each guitar, good transition too for picture viewing, plus they can just close the window and be right back on the main page for that guitar. Change the titles for your picture popup pages. Take the specs out of the popup and add them to the guitar page, but slightly smaller font.

Don't worry so much about whitespace, its the flow your looking for here in your pages.

What about a form for interaction between a prospective customer? You could add it to your Contact Us page before or after the email.

If you would like I could help you out, PM me. BTW what software are you using to design the page?

Jeff

[GregP]

The element that should pop out INSTANTLY to anyone visiting is an invitation to contact or get a quote, or whatever other language you want to use to drive business. The primary thing you want from visitors is to be interested in buying, right? I also agree that you don't want to have to scroll.

As for size-- 800X600 is still an acceptable standard, but 1024 X 768 is overwhelmingly the resolution used by most machines, so it is considered an acceptable alternative. Either way, though, you should have it centered on the page, rather than a fixed width from the edge.

If you want help with text copy, feel welcome to PM me.

[Daniel Sorbera]

Ok we made a few changes.

[another doug]

It's been a while since I took a web design class, so my first couple of comments may be outdated, but:

-You don't need to indent paragraphs on the web. Removing them will make your paragraphs more visually appealing. As it is, it's a little awkward, particularly the one-line paragraph on the main page.

-Generally, sans-serif fonts are easier to read on the web, while serif fonts are easier to read in print. It didn't bother me too much before, but now it makes the print look a bit busy.

Also, the entire site tends to refer to you as "they," which is fine, but it should be consistent. In the gallery page for the wenge guitar, you say "One very accomplished player I know..." I think removing the "I know" would bring it in line with the rest of the site. Nit-picky, I know!

The welcome heading is off-center, and is now closer to the navigation bar than the text. I would put it either in the center or the left, and place it closer to the text.

I like the pic you chose to leave, since the color ties in with the color of your logo (although a shot of the front of one of the bodies may be more appropriate, since I think you want a whole guitar on the title page). However, I would put it to the left of the text. That's just me, though.

And a big +1 to getting rid of the splash page, or at the very least change the link on the logo so that it directs you to the main page rather than back to the splash page.

On the whole, I think you're 90% of the way to having a clean, professional looking site. Good luck!

[GregP]

-You don't need to indent paragraphs on the web. Removing them will make your paragraphs more visually appealing. As it is, it's a little awkward, particularly the one-line paragraph on the main page.

+1 -- the same applies to print. You use EITHER indentation OR a blank line to indicate a new paragraph. Never both.

[Daniel Sorbera]

Ok got some of that fixed.

Thanks for the input guys!

I like the pic you chose to leave, since the color ties in with the color of your logo (although a shot of the front of one of the bodies may be more appropriate, since I think you want a whole guitar on the title page). However, I would put it to the left of the text. That's just me, though.

Actually we made it random on the page load.

[another doug]

Actually we made it random on the page load.

I didn't realize that (obviously). Actually, they all look pretty good to me, although the pic I got first was the mahogany back, which did tie in nicely with the logo.

The more I think about it (not a lot going on at work today!), the more I think those pics would be better on the splash page, perhaps as a slide show type of thing. My thinking is this: these are great teasers to show the quality of your work and make someone want to know what the entire guitar looks like, whereas the payoff (i.e. a full body pic) should be on the main page. As it is right now, you have to click at least twice to see an entire guitar, and folks surfing the web are notoriously impatient, as davee5 pointed out. I think an artsy full-on shot of the body of the red guitar would be sweet on the main page.

Obviously it's your site and only you can know what you want to achieve with it; them's just my thoughts.

It's getting better all the time!

[tim_ado]

you should do like a flash thing of one of your standard guitars that has a picture of the guitar and two arrows that when u click it rotats the guitar so u can have a 360 view of it

look here www.victorwooten.com go to vixrig and its near the bottom