Websites

[Kitty]

I know alot of you are surfers and maybe this has been touched on but I haven't seen it so..... :bgrin

Wondering what websites are your favorites. And why?

Is it the horses or how the website is set up, how easy it is to get around, or information on the website.

Ect Ect.

I am constantly trying to think of ways to improve our website. I have seen some beautiful websites but I want to hear from you what you like and don't like.

As Always, appreciate the information in advance. Some day I'll figure out the forum posting also

Merry Christmas and a Happy Neigh Year!!!

:

Kitty

www.zephyrwoods.com

 

[Devon]

I do like the layout of my website I think it is Easy to follow very clear and simple

I made the banner and the whole website is done with HTML codes no pre made layouts.

www.freewebs.com/fartoomini

 

[holymoly]

After owning a web design company for over 6 years, this is a few pointers I tell our clients I go by when designing their sites.

1. User Friendly - many people are still just learning to use the computer. The site needs to be easy to navigate and not easy to get lost on.

2. Load fairly quickly. While the fancy flash is big now, most people want to get to where they are going in a hurry these days. They don't have time to wait forever for websites to load.

3. It needs to fit your personality or product and it needs to be nice enough to catch their attention and hold it where they will remember you.

4. Good, clear pictures is important. People are visual and like to see pictures. Sizing them correctly is important though so they don't take forever to load.

This is just a quick overview of the things I feel are important to a good website.

You can see my cattery site at www.holymolycats.com. I try to keep the sites simple, clean, easy to navigate but interesting enough to catch attention.

Hope that helps some.

Stephanie

 

[Jill]

Well, THIS is my favorite website. There's not a day that goes by that I'm not checking out the message board even when I have to do it from my blackberry!!! And the sales board is pretty hard to stay away from. Even when I'm not horse shopping, you never know when you'll find a good deal on some sort of equipment.

Another website I like is www.epinions.com -- I like to check out the reviews on electronics before we buy something new and that site has been a good resource.

I use the Yahoo weather site to see what they predict the weather will be for the next several days.

and Shopping... I do a lot of shopping online so I love to look at many shopping websites.

Things I don't like about a miniature horse website are when they were last updated 2 years ago, adult horses for sale but pictured as yearlings, ones with music, ones that look holly-hobby "cute", and ones where it's hard to tell where the farm is located.

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

I like simplicity. I designed my website to be wide open and easy to navigate, without any confusion and no distractions. I find it difficult to navigate a site that has both text and a picture background, so mine is a simple white with the pictures built into the text. All of my main photos are "clickable" to bring up a larger picture (which are copywritten, but I haven't had a chance to get the watermarked pictures yet). I dispise music and flashy things around my mouse cursor.

Side windows open on certian links so that when you are done viewing a picture or document you can just close the window and be right back where you started. That's my opinion, and my website I think reflects well on me and my business. Anyone is welcome to take a look and make suggestions, I really appreciate the limited feedback I get on it.

 

[Buckskin gal]

When looking at others websites I am drawn to the simple clean lines with dark backgrounds and light words which makes it easy for me to see. I don't care for all the wiggley things that follow the curser nor do I care for most of the music which is usualy way to loud. Easy navigation is really a plus. Mary

 

[Tammie-C_Spots]

Peeves- long loading time, instead of my little arrow pointer some other "cute" thing and I really hate having music on a site.

Plus- fast loading, pictures, easy to navigate, easy to find address, info on the horses and who the horses are in pictures

Tammie

 

[dannigirl]

One thing I learned while using a search engine is to have a link back to the main page somewhere on every page. I typed our name into a search one day and got to one of my pages, but then had no link to get to our main page or any information except about the horse on that page. Now, I have a main page link on every page in my website.

 

[Michelle@wescofarms]

Sites that I go to that I really like I often email the owner and let them know or sign the address book.

What I like -

Easy to negotiate, fun & informative and a reason to come back.

Pet peeves -

MUSIC!!!, flashy things and a site announcing their sales list from 2003!

As for specific sites - there are a number of them. I was just on one the other day that had changed their format - it really looks great, but I can't remember which it was. My own site is a bit on the cumbersome site, but I keep lots of info that I refer others to, so want it in one place online and accessible.

 

[angel_cowgirl]

Well I JUST revamped my whole site since I have a new domain and such. But web design is what I love to do, its what I'm in school for anyway apparently.

Theres lots I could say about what I like and dislike about sites, but a lot of it would be repetitive from the other replys I've read.

HOWEVER, personally, one thing I will say is as a visually impaired person, COLOR SCHEMES is what I notice first. I like them to be easy on the eyes in the positive, BUT people need to also pay attention to what colors their sites are in the negative. I use a magnifier/screen reader and its easiest for me to read things in the negative most often, easier on the eyes (depending on the color) (like typing in Word - text appears white and bg is black). So many times its frustrating to read MOST of a site in the negative but a portion is unreadable because the colors don't work together - like trying to read aqua blue on white (which in the positive is red on black - easy to read), not going to happen!

That's my soap box about websites. And I know I'm just one person, and part of a minority compared to all those that use the WWW, but part of web design (at least what they teach us in school) is try to adapt a site to reach the largest audience. So making it accessible to everyone is the key. I'll stop there though, accessibility is a whole other issue.