Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Any Freelance web designers out there?

See, I'm not even going to click that link.

I'm using the current version of Firefox on a 15Mbs (pretty fast) cable internet connection at home. We don't use the cable for TV and there are no other apps running on my PC (which is a dual core Vista). I see INITIAL load times for the galleries of 5-8 seconds depending upon how large they are. When I then switch between galleries, response is almost instantaneous.

HOWEVER, the initial load times under IE 8 are at least twice as long, which I do think is probably "too long" for the bigger galleries. Again, after they are initially loaded, response becomes almost instantaneous.

Just for laughs, I checked it in Chrome, too. Initial load times were somewhere in between Firefox and IE8.

I think you should limit the number of pictures per gallery to about 22-24. Having more than that means that - even on a wide screen monitor - you don't have access to the first or last image when the gallery loads. It would also help your load times.

It doesn't look like you have your watermark on all the musician photos (which I know we talked about already). I think "consistency" is good for its own sake.

To again reiterate our earlier conversation, I would like to see the font size on the section footers be a little bigger. I really like the idea of the "read more" link/box. Again, though, I think the size of the box and size of the font could be a little bigger.

I really like the pictures you've chosen for each of the sections.

I share Peter's concern about the Flash, but you obviously already have quite a lot invested in this and I don't think it's worth scrapping it for a whole new model.

Personally, I don't like the auto-play music. Usually, if I'm at my computer - whether home or work - I either want it silent by design, or am already playing some audio from another source. In either case, the soundtrack from accessing your site is somewhat of an intrusion.

Just trying to "help". You asked for it, eh?

I too like the clean look of the site Mark. It speaks well to the beautiful work that you do.

But I'd be concerned with the load time, which seems long even with the ridiculously fast connection that I have available in the corp office here.

And instant-on music always reminds me of some old Geocities site from the '90s that some kid built that loops a midi track. I know that's not the case, but that the association that I have now, and it triggers my close-this-window-now mechanism.

The mute/pause button should do the trick but FWIW consider locating the music controls in the top left corner, where people tend to look first. But maybe people are less sensitive to this perceived problem than we're giving them credit for and it's really a non-issue, personal preference thing...

IMO if you can get around the load time then basically you've got a winner. Personally I've always liked the approach of using a collection small thumbnails that click through to high res pics. Loads quickly and the user knows that a bigger photo is coming and might take a few seconds to render completely on screen. I know it's "old-school" Internet but it works, and can still look very nice and be usable. My $0.02.

Good luck with it. I hope that it provides you with much recognition and success.

Chicken!

Just tried from home on a much lower speed link, but way better computer. Loading first time took 4 seconds, 3 seconds subsequent calls.

Does anyone know what the little icon thingies are called for web pages/tabs, etc.? I'd like to see if I can have one for my site. I assume it's something I'd need to do with my site host, but I don't even know what to call them to Google any info....

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Awesome... thanks Chris!

Didn't Count Dooku have a bunch of those dudes hanging around all the time?