I’m in the process of getting my website re-vamped and I thought I’d give everyone the opportunity to get a sneak peak before it officially goes up. Keep in mind it’s still a work in progress, but it’s pretty much done. Any comments and criticisms welcome. Cheers folks.
New website—–> www.jensen.davidhoff.info/
Russ.www.jensenfinefurniture.com
Edited 8/11/2008 10:34 am ET by Russell
Edited 9/10/2008 11:14 am ET by Russell
Replies
Thanks Wineman, I'm glad you like the site. Actually my latest article is in the latest issue (#200). It's the master class on the kane tsugi joint. That blurb on the website was made when I didn't know when the article was coming out. Like I said, the website is a work in progress lol. Cheers.
Russ.
A very pleasant experience and a web site to be emulated by others. There is nothing finer than good taste and you have certainly presented a challenge to others, your designs and execution of fine furniture is stunning. Thank you for sharing this site and I will certainly make it a regular viewing habit, good luck with your venture. Jim
Thank you very much Jim, that's very nice of you to say that. Cheers.Russ.http://www.jensenfinefurniture.com
Russell,
Excellent website and presentation. You mentioned this is still a work in progress, one minor thought, I'd like to learn a bit more about Russell Jensen when I click on 'About Russell Jensen'. Tell people straight up you like kittens and are afraid of spiders...
I'm afraid of bees and wasps etc. not spiders : )Russhttp://www.jensenfinefurniture.com
Your site looks excellent. I have seen your furniture before and it is well presented here.
I also like your choice in music, however, I'm not sure I would include it. I don't know why I say that but I generally don't like sites that automatically play music. I would also increase the size of the word "menu".
It may be bc the site is not fully established but it is slow to load. And I'm on a really fast cpu and a T1 line.
Also, did you consider including approximate pricing information. Maybe you did but I did not see it. I know most people don't, but I like the idea a weeding out those who don't know the cost of custom built furniture.
Despite my criticism, it is one of the best sites I've seen.
Russ, nice website, I think the music would be great to fall asleep to, I do like it though. Tell David, nice work on the site , first class (like the furniture you create). Much success to you.
Tom
Hey TWG and Tom,Thanks for the compliments and criticism, that's the only way the site will get better is if people tell me what they like and don't like about the site. The music you can actually control, there is a small bar at the top where you can pause play and change the toons. I agree that the word menu should be a bit larger, I'll see if I can get that changed. As far as the speed goes, your the first who has mentioned anything about it. The site isn't at its final destination though, it'll be moving to http://www.jensenfinefurniture.com in the near future, so I don't know if that will fix any speed issues, just have to wait and see. I might as well plug my friend David Hoff at this point and time to, he's the artist as far as the website goes. So if anyones looking to get a site made, he's very good and his prices are reasonable. You can find him at
http://www.davidhoff.info/web/flash/index.html
He really does some excellent work!!! Cheers.Russ.
http://www.jensenfinefurniture.com
Edited 8/11/2008 8:13 pm ET by Russell
Very nice site, but I agree, it's very slow to load. I've a pretty fast DSL connection, and I can envision someone with a slower connection giving up.
My thought is that you might want to check the size of the photos - they should be less than 100 KB each.
The speed issues that people are having may be due to the fact that this is a site that uses the most advanced version of flash, so it may be your computers that is causing the speed issued. David told me that people may have some speed issues or if are running an older computer, may not be able to run the site at all. I knew it may be a problem for some people but this is the direction that most websites are going. All three of my computers are less than two years old and I've never had an issue with load speed with the site.
I'm for sure going to change the size of the menu bar on the side, and a few other things, so thank you all for your comments, suggestions and compliments. I knew I could count on the fine folks here to help my new site get better. TY all again and as soon as I get Dave to make the changes I'll let you know so you can see if the changes are to your liking. Cheers to all.Russ.http://www.jensenfinefurniture.com
Well, it's your site and your decision of course, but my opinion is that a commerce site is best designed to run on the most common platforms out there. That typically means older versions of IE plug-ins, not the newest versions.
A very good test for your site is to go to the local public library and use their computers to access your site. If it's slow on the PL computers, you can bet that it will be slow on a good many of your customer's computers.
My advice would be different if I was selling something designed to appeal to the young and cool (i.e., electronic gadgets, software for iphones, etc...). Typically, though, people that are interested in custom furniture tend to be at least in their late 20's if not 30's, and are likely to be turned off cutting-edge website design that includes neat but not-relevant-to-the-content features, like fades and wipes to the various pages, hidden menus, etc...
Its actually not that "cutting edge". As long as your running at least windows xp you should have no problem running the site. Probably within the next year almost everyone should be able to run the site. I think probably 90% of people out there are running at least XP, so i'm not overly concerned about it. Cheers.Russ
http://www.jensenfinefurniture.com
Hmmm - I thought the slowness was attributed to the version of the Flash plug-in (the latest), not an operating system other than XP (which, by the way, I'm running, and the website is still quite slow).
Russ,
Overall, I was impressed by your site. At first, I didn't realize that there was a menu bar on the left side - thought that there was only one page. I also found it a little slow to load (don't ask me my computer specs). I didn't realize that the background which "opens" when you click on a link in the menu was wood grain - I thought that it was just glare or streaks on my monitor. The music is a nice touch.
In your gallery, where the scroll bar goes left or right, I used my mouse wheel to move through the pictures. Turning the mouse wheel one "notch" skipped an entire picture. Small detail though. What language are the captions in?
Chris @ www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Hey Chris,Some of the captions haven't been put in yet so the program put in a "mock" text to show you what it'll look like. As far as the wheel thing goes, I didn't even know the mouse wheel scrolled through the images, lol, learned something new, normally I just grab the bar on the botton. Anyways thanks Chris, cheers.Russ
http://www.jensenfinefurniture.com
Chris, the "skipping" that happened when you moved the mouse wheel one click is probably reflective of how you have the mouse scrolling feature set. Assuming you're using Windows operating system, you can change that by going to the Control Panel, clicking on Mouse and the going to Scrolling to change the setting.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Russ, a beautiful site but as others have said enlarge or flash the "Menu" on the left and the "Images" on the right. I saw the menu only because I slid the cursor to far to the right and almost missed the images all together.
Jack
Classy!
looks good Russ.. very classy and upscale. Just out of curiousity, do you own jensenfurniture.com domain name and you just hired David Hoff to design the new site? Or will David Hoff own the rights to your new site? How would he transfer his test site into yours? Just trying to understand how these things are done.
I have a website that I created through yahoo which is where I got my domain name but I have no skills in web design so the things just sits out there under construction. I've messed with it for hours trying to create cool effects and browser windows but i don't believe that the web design software I downloaded has those type of tools in it. I have basic computer skills so I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to web design but i have a good idea of how I would like site to look but no clue in doing it.
Hey mvflaim,Yes I own the domain name jensenfinefurniture.com, what David does is builds the new site on his domain, then when it's all done he will then transfer it over to my domain. This way I have almost no down time on my original site. As far as things go with your site, drop David a line and explain your situation to him. You guys may be able to work together to get your site up and running. Like I said before, his prices are very reasonable and he's a really good guy to work with. A websites not doing you much good if its not up and running : ). Cheers.Russ.
http://www.jensenfinefurniture.com
Thanks for the info Russ. I'll bookmark his website.
mike
Russell, fun!! Gorgeous site. Special kudos to your talented web designer for how fast the thumbnails of the wood samples load up!
I'll make a couple of suggestions along with the aforementioned Menu idea. You'd make the word Menu larger to help people notice it, right? Along those lines, I would drop the list of links (Home, About, etc.) down to be level with the first line of text on the page ("ABOUT Russell Jensen") and I would move the word Menu up, say just opposite Wood Gallery. I think that would make the whole thing lie more naturally at the visitor's eye level when they first look at the page.
To my eye, with my monitor, the pictures in the Design section seem rather grainy. My photography skills are quite limited, but it seems like either the lighting wasn't quite right, or the pictures were sized too big for the quality of the capture.
In the Ordering section, I would make the words contact form a hyperlink to access said form. "You can also use the contact form provided on this website...." This kind of handholding is what we've grown to expect, LOL. Same under the FAQ section.
Thank you for your great articles, and for giving us a sneak preview of your new site.
I really enjoyed your site and I especially enjoyed looking at the Craftsman Bookcase. You melded the different styles together in that piece in a very nice way, it's a great design.
Ron Brese
http://www.breseplane.com
Overall a beautiful site, good looking i
mages and very interesting.
Nothing wrong with what you have, but why be obtuse instead of obvious. I am redesing my web site also. Some items I wanted, not that they are correct, but I will have Menu tabs displayed at all times. Like C H R I S i did not even find the menu tab until I scrolled over it. Leave it displayed all the time, there is plenty of room in todays monitors and screen size. You want 100% success there at all times.
I like the music, but that is personal, make a prominant mute button. This can be a turn off for some, but not all. Again you want 100% to enjoy it.
I really don't enjoy watching a scroll bar showing the load time, give me a quick load of a home page with a photo to start with, and then go to flash as needed. If I were using your site every time, the accumulative wait time each time I open it becomes annoying. You want people to come back several times, they will be making decisions based on what is there. It really is instant gratificiation, not that that is right, but it is a fact these days.
These are just my thougths, and I may be out in left field with hole in my glove. But I have had some comments about my exisiting site that is leading me to change it. I would consider a monthly update with new items, wood, style comments, finish care etc to be of value. Again it gets your existing customers to come back and visit. They paid good money for your work and their investment. They love to show it off to their friends as well.
Great start and keep tweeking! AZMO
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Very nice, very nice.
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