Your Opinion on this Website

[CodeGraphics]

Working on this. I did it from scratch. I used lorem ipsum text till the write-ups for the website are ready. I want you to review it for me. Again, I have two call to action buttons at the homepage. One at the header, the other close to footer. I linked the buttons to services.php. I need your suggestion. Is it good to link the buttons to the services page since a user can easily click on the services link? Should I rather link the buttons to contact.php? or should I create a separate page that will not be on the navigation bar, which will be seen only when a user clicks on the CTA buttons? If yes to the latter, what kind of information will be on that page? Thank you.

http://www.ctrlshiftstudios.com/ChurchSite

[Anonymous]

I say it looks pretty good, Nice design.

[Alen]

@CodeGraphics, How many churches are looking for cutting edge multimedia services? Is this some kind of fictitious concept you’re working on or is this actual business? I’m not sure how big this market is, at least in Boston it’s not. So forgive me for asking.

I think content needs to be simplified. Especially the intro paragraph. Feels like I’m reading very long sentence. You need to leave the visitor wanting more, ask questions, and make them take action. Things like: “We deliver dynamic multimedia designs and web applications. See [what makes us great to work with](http://#)”. This way there is a actionable step. Remember you want to be as clear as possible and to the point. There’s no need to ramble on, people don’t actually read they skim. More importantly, IMO you should have all the content before designing begins.

> “Content precedes design. Design without content is decoration. It used to be that you worked on look and feel before you thought about content. But it’s actually very hard to do design without content.” – [by Luke Wroblewski](http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1311)

As for design. Give it some white space and let content breathe. Vertically and horizontally. I personally don’t like the pattern behind the text, plus with added shadows it’s rather difficult to read. Additionally, not really sure what purpose images/graphic icons serve? They feel very out of place. Does light bulb with a pencil convey cutting edge multimedia services? Looks like you just wanted to throw something there and there was no real thought behind it. Remember that web design is about communication. You have to have concrete reason why something is on the page. If it doesn’t have purpose, IMO should be removed. Typography also needs some work. Remember longer lines of text need more line spacing, when you read long lines of text it is very easy to lose track of returning line.

Overall I think you are heading in a right direction. I think design would benefit the most from more white space and letting content breathe. I like the color palette, great overall contrast. Keep it up.

Alen

[CodeGraphics]

Thank you Alen. The project is real and it has great prospects in Nigeria, West Africa. It’s like: http://www.thechurchapp.org. Christianity in Nigeria is more than 60%. The Anglican Church which I belong has more than 160 Dioceses and each diocese has more than 100 urban churches. And the pastors will like to have online presence like website since most of them have facebook page for their churches. ChurchSite will be offering these services to Churches, other christian organisations like missionary bodies, student campus fellowships, NGOs and youth fellowships. There are more than 200 High Institutions in Nigeria and these schools have at least 5 major Christian students’ campus fellowships. In the Anglican where i belong, there are at least 7 organisations in every church in the 160 dioceses. Organisations like, youths fellowship, men’s association, women’s ministries, Knighthood, etc.

The bulb and pencil u see in ‘about us’ page represent something. The pencil is like our skill and the bulb is like what we deliver through our skill. Because we serve churches, our products bring light to darkness.

[Senff]

Nothing, absolutely nothing on that first page gives me the idea that I’m dealing with a site for a church (or anything else religious) here.
I would say that the user needs to know the main topic or “category” of the site even before reading a single word. The services page does a LITTLE bit of that with the images, but still the design is way, way too generic.

That thing about the bulb and the pencil: a user shouldn’t have to GUESS what it represents. I sure wouldn’t have come up with that representation myself, so if you want to get a message across, you’ll have to be a lot clearer about things.

Once a user has to guess what something is about, he’s already left by the time you’re starting to explain it.

It’s a nice design. Just not a nice church site design.

[asiek]

I’m no professional but I didn’t even think the site had anything to do with a church.

[JohnMotylJr]

The design i believe is almost there but in my opinion seems like it is missing something and as a result has a dulling effect. Mostly, the font is too big in the h2 class element lol..

What’s the deal with your naming conventions? You have
<h1 class="h1 h2">.....

[Author]

Posts