New site need feedback.

[SNYD]

Hey glass peeps.
I have a new site almost ready to launch, just need to get more feedback. Check it out and let me know what you think.
http://home.comcast.net/~sagasha1/main01.swf
I know you all will be brutally honest with me so please feel free to rip it apart.
Thanks
Nathan

[H1JACK3R]

Interesting lay out. It's nice to see someone breaking away from the amazon mold that seems to have taken over the internet.

Your pictures are good. Could definitely use some expansion, like extending your bio. Adding more galleries, with sub-sections.

Just a couple quick thoughts. Looks good though, did you do it all yourself?

[SNYD]

No this is something that someone has put together for me. He really loves flash, but that is the biggest thing people have been telling me is that I may regret doing flash in the long run. I have brought this up to him several times and he just excuses it away. I'm not totally sold on it just yet, as about 40% of my views come from mobile devises which can no longer view flash sites, but he claims he will just build a mobile site to solve that problem, but it just seams to be more work than necessary to me.

[Captain Glass]

Couldn't check it out from my iPhone

[H1JACK3R]

So he's doing the whole thing in the macromedia suite? That will probably be detrimental in the long run...

The issue is going to be that eventually you'll end up (most likely) with a poor mobile site, and that's a HUGE market.

That whole suite is really solid though, especially for people with limited knowledge who are eventually going to maintain their website independently.

[SNYD]

Exactly what I have been telling him and he doesn't seem to listen. Well at least he is doing it all more free so I'm not really out much other than having to repeat myself about how flash is going the way of the dinosaurs.

[maxtsunami]

Nice work, but most of the pictures are pretty low quality on my computer. Maybe it's because I have a 22 inch screen, but you probably want to get some higher res pics up there. Love those geode style pendants.

[Bo Diddles]

I don't have much to add... the resolution on the pics is too low, but they are some good looking pics of some awesome looking work. Doesn't work on my iPhone. There's something confusing about the navigation, like when I click on Gallery 1, then Gallery 2, I have to click on Marbles to go back to Gallery 1. With all the colours on the page there might be too much going on, but that may just be my personal taste. Check out my website - it's not perfect, but I did it myself using Wix and I'm pretty happy with it.
Anyhoo, talk to your dude and if need be, show him the comments in this thread. If you paid for it he should make it right.

[Mr.P0rn]

It's really pretty solid. As everyone else said - higher res pics. Building a mobile side site isn't much more work, and should be pretty easy. Another thing is that the majority of Smartphones have no issues with flash. Basically if you have a smartphone purchased in the past 2-3 years, it will probably be fine. Iphones are a different story. The newest couple of Android releases have had actual flash support. If you are using a slightly older smart phone (Like I am, Android 2.0) the flash still works and displays right, but is not natively supported, so flash -videos- rarely work, but flash -content- is fine. This is without a mobile version of the site. just my .02. If you need any help or anything, feel free to hit me up.

[H1JACK3R]

There are ALOT of iPhone users. I pay for five iPhone packages every month.

[maxtsunami]

Yeah the more I think about it the more I think you should drop this dude and get someone who will build you a real website, not a flash app. If all you want is a gallery, then fine, but flash is very cheesy and unprofessional looking if you want it to look good.

[Herbie]

Trust me on this one, go with Wordpress. After working with some developers over the last 6 months on my companies website and going from idea to idea. Bluntly put, Wordpress trumps all. Granted I can't view your site via iPhone but think mass marketing mass media plug ins. Twitter plug ins Facebook plugins SO SIMPLE... Everything is clean, and easy as hell to use from your perspective, just my two cents. Ill update when behind my desk tomorrow and I have some spare time to go over it. I will say in experience though, flash will slow you down. Everyone is going in the direction of html5? )I think that's what it's called) and flash is becoming a thing of the past. Think 10 years ago, flash was awesome! Not so much now :/. From a business perspective you have to be thinking what will be best for you in 10 years.

[ahreno]

as a former graphic design guy, it's not the best. flash is stupid and dead and shouldn't be used, especially for a site like this that isn't making any real use of flash. He's doing it in flash because he doesn't know how else to do it.

I set up a real nice oil tube site for a friend ... check out www.shopify.com and i'd suggest going through them. Sure it costs some money (you can prepay for a year, $~300) of the cheapest tier and they'll give you a free bump up to the second tier) It was amazingly simple to setup and manage. Plugging in a payment gateway was a breeze... I'm not affiliated with them other than having used them once before.

You'd of course have to buy or edit a template or pay someone to do it for you. I'd be willing to do it for a headpiece trade, depending on your style of melting glass. I dont want to do more web design work but i'm willing to do it for nice glass trades.

[SNYD]

Thanks for all the feedback guys. This site is something that he put together on his own, and is trying to convince me to use, and so far I am not very convinced. I currently use big cartel and I am fine with it. I will definetly be looking at wordpress a little closer, but for now I am just going to stick with what I have that works fine, and just add more to that.
I really appreciate all of you giving it to me straight.
Peace
Nathan