Is my "enter" page too confusing?

[Jessec]

Hi. I have set up my main page with a "litebox" style slideshow. I was wondering if it is obvious enough that one should click on the thumbnails. Some of my friends who have tried it have just gone straight to the "enter" link. I would appreciate any feedback on usability.

[caroline]

Hi. I have set up my main page with a "litebox" style slideshow. I was wondering if it is obvious enough that one should click on the thumbnails. Some of my friends who have tried it have just gone straight to the "enter" link. I would appreciate any feedback on usability.

Sorry Jessec, not at all obvious to me :( I went straight for enter when I looked at your site previously.

Caroline

[Allen]

Hi. I have set up my main page with a "litebox" style slideshow. I was wondering if it is obvious enough that one should click on the thumbnails. Some of my friends who have tried it have just gone straight to the "enter" link. I would appreciate any feedback on usability.
Remember seeing this eariler, might increase the font size.


.homepage #HPenter {
display: block;
margin-top:250px;
font-size: 200%;
}

[dannyk]

Honestly first time I hit enter as well just thought it was image on the front page, however evertime i visit the page now or refresh i'm getting this on the top
"Jesse Cathcart's home | this is my: friend (http://www.jessecathcart.com/homepage/friendsandfamily.mg?FFID=179708&Type=Friends&add=1) · family (http://www.jessecathcart.com/homepage/friendsandfamily.mg?FFID=179708&Type=Family&add=1) " where friend, family are links back to homepage not sure if it's on my side or it was intentional.

As to the slide show maybe if you have the mouse over it; instead of it showing your name could give a little hint to the user that pops. Right now with the mouse over the slide it shows your name, I'm sure it can be changed. Other then that no idea mabe have a think boarder around it if possible so first time visitors would have more intentions on checking it out.

[rocketcuse]

Hi. I have set up my main page with a "litebox" style slideshow. I was wondering if it is obvious enough that one should click on the thumbnails. Some of my friends who have tried it have just gone straight to the "enter" link. I would appreciate any feedback on usability.

Had I not read the threads....I would have gone straight for the enter text as well.

I tried seeing if you had some sort of mouseover event, but all it would show is Jesse Cathcart. Only by looking at my status bar did I see it was actually clickable.

I would suggest changing your image title from Jesse Cathcart to click to enter.

[atwlphoto]

Hi. I have set up my main page with a "litebox" style slideshow. I was wondering if it is obvious enough that one should click on the thumbnails. Some of my friends who have tried it have just gone straight to the "enter" link. I would appreciate any feedback on usability.

It is impossible to ignore the "enter" link. It just begs to be clicked. I played with the images on your main page as well. Their operation was a little confusing. Sometimes I had to move my mouse off the image and then back on again to get the "next" or "previous" buttons to show. At first I was expecting a slideshow to start when I clicked on the first image, because it came up in a flash lookin' box. Anyway, it looks cool, but it isn't very intuitive...or I'm just slow...that's also a possibility. :)

[FotoMike]

ha ha its 4 to 4 as the poll stands right now, so good luck with that. I went to your site before i read the threads, and i clicked on the "enter" button first, but i orignally though the pictures were going to be links to galleries. when i went back i was surprised to see them come up as stand-alones. Either way, i dont think its confusing per se, but maybe if you (and i have no idea how to do this) created a title for them, so when you hover with the mouse, it will show up and then maybe it would make them more...well...clickable for lack of a better word. good luck. and i love your work!

[Jessec]

ha ha its 4 to 4 as the poll stands right now, so good luck with that. I went to your site before i read the threads, and i clicked on the "enter" button first, but i orignally though the pictures were going to be links to galleries. when i went back i was surprised to see them come up as stand-alones. Either way, i dont think its confusing per se, but maybe if you (and i have no idea how to do this) created a title for them, so when you hover with the mouse, it will show up and then maybe it would make them more...well...clickable for lack of a better word. good luck. and i love your work!


Ok. I think its a tie up until this point. I made a "view" link that opens up the slideshow and placed this next to my "enter" link. Hopefully this will make things less confusing. Thanks for all the input! :D Please keep voting!

[ivar]

Ok. I think its a tie up until this point. I made a "view" link that opens up the slideshow and placed this next to my "enter" link. Hopefully this will make things less confusing. Thanks for all the input! :D Please keep voting!Hey Jesse,

I've seen your site a few times now, and to me, your splash page is confusing.
People and in particular internet browsing people looking for 'something' (photos in this case) are very goal-oriented. It needs to be easy and obvious where to get the goodies. To me, it was not obvious. I thought that clicking on one of the images would get me in to your site, as you see with a lot of other sites. After all images is what I want to see, so I click on images, right?

The 'view' link makes it even more confusing to me. What am I viewing? When I click on 'view' it is not obvious what I am looking at. I see a photo, cool, but what photo? where am I? Also, it is too far away from the thumbs to make a quick connection.

I think the 'enter' needs to be more prominent, and possibly say 'enter site' so it is more obvious that I'm still looking at a splash page at this point, and I'm not at my final destination (your site) yet.

Hth.

[presence]

I think your front page is confusing:
-- The 6 images are effectively dead-ends.
-- What's the difference between 'view' and 'enter'? I know because I clicked them but a casual user wouldn't?
-- I'd also put your name and/or logo on the front page.

Inside your site, I also found it a bit hard to navigate as well. You have no breadcrumb or other sort of navigation. I would get frustrated quickly with pressing the back button all the time. For example, if I browsed to this picture (http://www.jessecathcart.com/gallery/3543418#214579262), how would I go back a few steps?

Sylvia, in that picture, commented: "Love the abstract shots, they are like paintings. I would love to get them printed on canvas! Have you got anymore photos in this series, and how can I go about placing an order?" This suggests you've no 'buy me' or 'email me' buttons anywhere!

[Jessec]

I think your front page is confusing:
-- The 6 images are effectively dead-ends.
-- What's the difference between 'view' and 'enter'? I know because I clicked them but a casual user wouldn't?
-- I'd also put your name and/or logo on the front page.

Inside your site, I also found it a bit hard to navigate as well. You have no breadcrumb or other sort of navigation. I would get frustrated quickly with pressing the back button all the time. For example, if I browsed to this picture (http://www.jessecathcart.com/gallery/3543418#214579262), how would I go back a few steps?

Sylvia, in that picture, commented: "Love the abstract shots, they are like paintings. I would love to get them printed on canvas! Have you got anymore photos in this series, and how can I go about placing an order?" This suggests you've no 'buy me' or 'email me' buttons anywhere!


I removed the breadcrumb links because people commented that they were too confusing. I don't have any categories so the breadcrumb links just took people back to the gallery they were already in. There is an unfinished nav bar at the top of all the galleries. A person just has to click "galleries: to get back to the gallery main page. How is this any more confusing than any other site? My photos on my main page are not dead ends. They are a slideshow. Perhaps I need to write "view slideshow" and "enter site". The reason I set my site up this way is so people cab get a quick idea of what my work is like without having to navigate through a bunch of categories to get to the galleries with the photos they want to see. I guess I have not been successful in doing this. Perhaps I should just put a boring timed slideshow so people don't have to think at all. What if I could get the litebox to start as soon as the page loads? Is it the litebox technique that people don't like?

[Dizzle]

Just checked it out...confused the heck out of me. I am a web developer for a marketing company so maybe can lend a bit of advice...

The pics on the enter page...if they had a mouseover event that changed them AND when you clicked them it took you to a gallery or a picture within the gallery it would help.

There is nothing that is intuitive about how the site is supposed to work. You have to lead yor users down the path you want them to take....

[presence]

Hi Jesse,
First, let me declare a personal bias and say that I'm not a big fan of slideshows...

Second, have a look at this photo (http://www.tiffanynicolephotography.com/gallery/3467797/1/194993309/Medium) on Tiffany's site (the last commentor). I just drilled down randomly from her home page and found it. Now that I'm there...
-- The logo: I know who she is (in a week's time, I'll remember Tiffany something or something Nicole, i.e., it'll be easier for me to find her again).
-- Navigation: There's navigation in the header...a breadcrumb...and 'photo 3 of 12'. It encourages me to go further/deeper into her photos because I can 'get out again'.
-- There's a 'share photo' button for blogs etc which might encourage others to spread the word about you, plus it increases search engine ranking.
-- The 'booking calendar/guestbook/client access' suggests that she's a 'proper' businesswoman and implies that I can trust her with my money.

I guess what I'm trying to say is you've great photos but how will people find you? And once they've found YOU, how will they find THEIR photo, and how will they BUY it? And if they're a bit nervous about buying (because they've never bought over the internet or they don't know you), how will they CONTACT you?

P.S. You don't have categories now but think about navigation when you've 100 or 1,000 photos on your site. To be honest, it's something in the back of my mind and I'm struggling with it. People will either find you (& me!) through a search engine (keywording!!) or your homepage (which is when navigation becomes important!!).

My 2cents

[Jessec]

Hi Jesse,
First, let me declare a personal bias and say that I'm not a big fan of slideshows...

Second, have a look at this photo (http://www.tiffanynicolephotography.com/gallery/3467797/1/194993309/Medium) on Tiffany's site (the last commentor). I just drilled down randomly from her home page and found it. Now that I'm there...
-- The logo: I know who she is (in a week's time, I'll remember Tiffany something or something Nicole, i.e., it'll be easier for me to find her again).
-- Navigation: There's navigation in the header...a breadcrumb...and 'photo 3 of 12'. It encourages me to go further/deeper into her photos because I can 'get out again'.
-- There's a 'share photo' button for blogs etc which might encourage others to spread the word about you, plus it increases search engine ranking.
-- The 'booking calendar/guestbook/client access' suggests that she's a 'proper' businesswoman and implies that I can trust her with my money.

I guess what I'm trying to say is you've great photos but how will people find you? And once they've found YOU, how will they find THEIR photo, and how will they BUY it? And if they're a bit nervous about buying (because they've never bought over the internet or they don't know you), how will they CONTACT you?

P.S. You don't have categories now but think about navigation when you've 100 or 1,000 photos on your site. To be honest, it's something in the back of my mind and I'm struggling with it. People will either find you (& me!) through a search engine (keywording!!) or your homepage (which is when navigation becomes important!!).

My 2cents

Ok. The main page aside, I fail to see how navigating my galleries is too confusing. There is a "documentary" gallery a "portraits" gallery etc. and it is just one click to view the photos in that gallery and one click of the navbar to return to the main galleries page. I took out the breadcrumb because it just lead back to a single thumbnail image of the one gallery the viewer was just in. Unless you know how to change the name and URLs of the breadcrumb links the breadcrumbs just mean extra clicks. Breadcrumbs complicate things. I can add them when I need them.
I don't plan on having a ton of categories. I'm not running a stock photography company. I think that is one major problem with Smugmug sites. They look like photo sharing or stock photo sites. They are cluttered and look like somebodies personal photo site. Who wants to have to look at look at hundreds of mediocre photos anyway? I can create private galleries and stream them to my blog or facebook. I bought the pro account so I could make my site look professional. My intent is to have a nice clean portfolio page where people can quickly check out my work and if they like it they can proceed to view all my galleries and purchase prints. I'm not saying that I have achieved this, only that this is what I want to do.
I just want people to quickly see what my abstract or portrait work or whatever looks like. I'm, in the process of making a link for clients to view password protected galleries. My contact information is under the "information" link. Perhaps this is not quite as obvious as a "contact" link but I didn't think it would be too puzzling for someone who wants information on me to click on the word "information". Is this really asking too much of my site users? Maybe the problem is that I need to polish up my navbar so it is more obvious.
I'm not sure how much more simple i can make the page navigation on my site. Perhaps it's too simple and people expect to have some depth to a site? Personally, if I am viewing a photographers work I want to be able to quickly judge their talent. On your page I have to click four times before I can even see one of your nice photos. Tiffany's page takes three clicks. Mine takes one if you view the splash page's slideshow or two if you enter the site and click on a gallery. You say that you don't like slideshows. I don't really like being forced to watch a timed slideshow. That's why I thought my solution was a good one. You can "view slides" or you can "enter site". If a person is in a hurry they can quickly start a slideshow or if they have more time they can enter the site. I think I could add a popup window with my card to the main site.
Tiffany's page looks like most Smugmug pages. Indeed so does mine. From Tiffany's home page one still has to click "galleries" to enter the galleries page. Mine does the same thing only call it "enter" instead of "galleries".

I appreciate the feedback but I think your way off on the difficulty of navigating my galleries at least. I will take your advice and put the share photo buttons back in place and I will add the option to buy prints as soon as I figure out the prices. Honestly I didn't think anyone would want to buy prints of the photos I have up so far. I'm glad I was wrong about that. Does anybody else have problems navigating my galleries? I thought I had made it simpler than most people's sites.

[presence]

I appreciate the feedback but I think your way off on the difficulty of navigating my galleries at least. I will take your advice and put the share photo buttons back in place and I will add the option to buy prints as soon as I figure out the prices.

Hi Jesse,
My advice is only that - my opinion (& I'm no expert). It's your art and you should showcase it the way you think best. Good luck with things :thumb

[Dizzle]

:)

My photos are horrid...site might look nice, but I am working on getting the good photos up there...

Anyway, Jesse...my main thoughts on your enter page are really simple ones. We deal with this DAILY at work. If you put a series of pics on the main page, peole expect them to "do something". Change when you mouse over is the most common and easiest to indicate that the pics are more than just images to look at.

I think the idea is clever, you just have to spoon feed most web users to get them to know what you want them to do. A quick rollover of the images would do that and make the enter page a lot more user friendly and less confusing for most.

In the end the way YOU want to display your images is up to you. I think you have a good start and its different than most of the SM sites.

As you said, my site looks like most of the others and I want to get away from that....will work on it...your site gives me ideas. I have one of our designers at work looking at things for me to offer insight.

If you woud like to do the rollover images and need help please let me know, I would be happy to help you out.