Rate our new website

[Sally-san]

So a few months ago i created a post asking for advice on how to get business in the web development space. The thread ended up just being a discussion on how bad our site was. It was a bit of a shock since I was quite proud of it at the time. But luckily I was thick skinned enough to find the constructive comments and go back to the drawing board. Let us know what you think.

Old site: https://pixelfriendly.co.za/wordpress/
New site: https://pixelfriendly.co.za/

P.S. Don't mark us down too poorly on our portfolio, we haven't applied our new skill set to any clients yet.
P.P.S. We are still struggling for work. Any advice to getting clients would be helpful.

 

[Hamster]

So I open the page, there's a nice PF logo thingy happening and then it transitions into a PowerPoint slide with that "Welcome to Pixel Friendly" message... why you do this?

Those icons at the bottom had me confused. I knew I had to click on them but didn't really know where they are going. So I clicked on the first one and behold! It's a one page site, I had absolutely NO IDEA I could just scroll.

Then I clicked on the last icon which showed me a contact form. I didn't scroll there so never saw the animation of the pop-up... I had no idea. Took me too long to figure out the reason I can't scroll up is because there was an X I had to tap on.

But worst of all, and this is how I know a developer didn't test their site:



Your submit button is hidden behind your menu...

PS: And why do you have two buttons (top left/bottom right) opening the same contact form?

 

[Hamster]

A button to get back to the top would've been nice. I can click on the info button to get close but I was expecting a button bottom right which is what most sites are doing. Your menu system feels "different" to the norm (good and bad).

Play around on your mobile site. The scrolling and links goes out of whack after a while and it "jumps". This is on Chrome / iPhone 8.

But the site looks nice.

 

[Trystanr]

There are so many moving parts I feel like Im having an aneurism. I get that this site is meant to be a showoff of your work and design skills, but it just feels overloaded with content.

Not a fan at all of this menu that sits on the bottom of the page the entire time, seems pointless when the natural intuition for user experience is to scroll.

The services section performance is ironically horrendous.

Scrolling past Services overscrolls and skips an entire section.

On a more positive note, I am a huge fan of the team section, other than the extreme overuse of the bounce animation. Everywhere I scroll something bounces in and I have no clue where to look, its very confusing.

The keywords are information overload. With so many colours and movements, its tough to understand exactly where to look.

Apologies for the extremely harsh critique.

 

[bchip]

Only saw it through desktop (not mobile), but I like it

Well done

 

[namzsteve]

Very nice, on desktop. I guess movement is what will sell visually.

 

[Sally-san]

Thanks form the feedback... i really appreciate it.

I terms of it being too busy ill look into calming it down.

As for the mobile experience its bit of a mission to config for all screen sizes, as i tested on mine phone and a few of my mates, so ill go test it more.

 

[saor]

As a team of passionate developers and designers who strive to produce quality interactive and functional design.

This sentence should read: As a team...we can do etc. Right now it reads oddly.

Developing a eye-catching and functional website

*an

Many of your key target customers can brought in through an effective website

*can be brought

Using our skills and tools Pixel Friendly creating an engaging experience for your clients.

That sentence needs work.
Is creating?

Reach a large audience with a well formed marketing strategy that influences your consumer’s perception and creates an effective and engaging interactions with your company.

More work.

And this is just a few minutes of skimming.
How are you missing all this?

 

[Werfetter]

Loaded on Firefox on desktop.

Some of the animations that react to mouse over load a lower resolution whatever that looks a bit nasty.


The animations all become really laggy as well. Especially when scrolling through it very quickly.

I like how the page is showing all the different cool things you can do but try to do each "thing" only once. In other words only react to mouse overs in one place, do the scrolly-story reactive design thing a little less aggressively and so on. It is very busy as is. There is so much happening at each section that it is possible to miss some really cool things.

Otherwise, I think this is an improvement over the last one! Really well done on working to get things this far.

 

[Werfetter]

As for the mobile experience its bit of a mission to config for all screen sizes, as i tested on mine phone and a few of my mates, so ill go test it more.

Check out saucelabs for mobile device testing. IIRC you should be able to do some basic testing using that platform without much licensing but definitely worth checking out...

 

[Bryn]

I like it tbh. Yeah, it's a bit flashy, but it sets the site apart from the competition and probably inspires confidence in your technical ability.

Regarding language issues, make sure you have Grammarly installed on all your machines. Even the free version is excellent and will check your Office docs, Outlook mail compositions and even your web browser if you install the extension. Ensuring good language is critical if you want to be professional. Make sure Grammarly is cool with everything you type.

How did you find working with Gatsby?

 

[Sally-san]

Some of the animations that react to mouse over load a lower resolution whatever that looks a bit nasty.

So i believe this is a firefox issue, i think its been a problem for over 5 years now :/.

to do each "thing" only once

I agree, ill make that change.

The animations all become really laggy as well. Especially when scrolling through it very quickly.

So i I've cut quite alot to improve performance, apart from just removing even more animations (like i did for mobile) I'm not sure what I can do. I will say though that on my mid range desktop its runs fine. It's only a bit laggy on my 5 year old laptop.

Check out saucelabs for mobile device testing

Thanks alot, we trailed it ... its amazing.

Regarding language issues, make sure you have Grammarly installed on all your machines

We will defos looking into Grammerly or a system like similar

How did you find working with Gatsby?

As for Gatsby I loved it. Totally worth learning React for. But i will repeat what I read online before i learnt Gatsby.

All static site generators are built with performance in mind, So dont pick an SSG based on what you think is fastest. Instead learn an SSG that its built on a framework that you comfortable with and has a big community.

So if you are familar with React, look at the React framework with the biggest following, Gatsbyjs, then look at other React frameworks and if they have features worth picking over the community support you are 'losing', then go for that.

If you know Vue look at Vuepress

If you know Ruby look at Jekyll

(At least these were the biggest a few months ago)

I only chose Gatsby because i wanted to learn React more than any other framework.

 

[PPLdude]

Looks good

 

[hellfire]

So a few months ago i created a post asking for advice on how to get business in the web development space. The thread ended up just being a discussion on how bad our site was. It was a bit of a shock since I was quite proud of it at the time. But luckily I was thick skinned enough to find the constructive comments and go back to the drawing board. Let us know what you think.

Old site: https://pixelfriendly.co.za/wordpress/
New site: https://pixelfriendly.co.za/

P.S. Don't mark us down too poorly on our portfolio, we haven't applied our new skill set to any clients yet.
P.P.S. We are still struggling for work. Any advice to getting clients would be helpful.

I'm guessing I don't know enough about websites and web development but I really like both sites

 

[Y'all Qaeda]

Ran it through testmysite and pingdom and got good results from both. They are saying there is too much HTTP requests, so ensure you run a test and follow the guidelines there as well.

 

[Brenden_E]

Feels very templaty. Did you actually make it yourself?
Some UX tips. You're trying too hard to make the site snazzy that it's becoming less functional. Site opens up and I don't immediately see what I'm there to see.

Ask yourself, why would a person go to your site? Answer the question and make it seamless to get those answers - don't leave it to the user to manually navigate.

 

[SauRoNZA]

A button to get back to the top would've been nice..

Why don't you use the phone's built-in shortcut for that?

 

[Hamster]

Why don't you use the phone's built-in shortcut for that?

Or, and this is a far out crazy idea, develop the site according to prevailant UX expectations. If the site us awkward to use then it is a problem.

EDIT: Even MyBroadband has it.

 

[CT_Biker]

I like the design, but the page is either slow, or the fact the everything moves is making it feel very slow.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Or, and this is a far out crazy idea, develop the site according to prevailant UX expectations. If the site us awkward to use then it is a problem.

EDIT: Even MyBroadband has it.

View attachment 625800

I guess.

I've never seen the purpose of such buttons if the OS supports the functionality.

Same way you don't need scroll bars embedded into the page since the browser can do that.