e-Smartz Website

**worthyashes** · 07-31-2006, 09:46 AM

Hi,

Finally got our new website up after being shouted at for ages because we only had a holding page. We'd really appreciate some feedback - http://www.e-smartz.com.

Don't hold back, we'd like to know if there are any problems, things you don't like, in fact anything.

Cheers,

Tim

**waffles** · 07-31-2006, 03:27 PM

Pretend I said the same thing I've told you other places. I'm mostly just pushing it up for you.

**mademoiselle** · 07-31-2006, 03:36 PM

I liked the way you designed the site. It attracts the wiever.

I want to mention only one thing. Personally, I do not prefer so many highlighted words on the page. I do understand that some of the names and features need to be highlighted but some other words do not.

Keep up the nice work.

**worthyashes** · 08-01-2006, 06:10 AM

Cheers wuffles

.

We are gettign a few comments about the highlighting we're going to have to think about that. I'm particularly aware of it on the Services page, think we'll actually drop the whole page and go with a different layout.

Thanks for taking the time

Tim

e-Smartz Developer
:: e-Smartz Online :: a surprisingly flexible technology company

**LadynRed** · 08-01-2006, 05:16 PM

Well, it's pretty.. nice flash work.. but..

Accessibility-wise it rates a zero. All flash sites are completely inaccessible to people using assistive technology, especially so for those using screen readers. Looking at your site with FANGS, all I can see is one line of text.. that's it. Nothing else.. and that's all a search engine bot will see too. Search engines don't like flash-only sites.

The text is too small for readiblity if you don't have 20/20 vision. Anyone wishing to enlarge the text to read it is out of luck because it's Flash only.

The white text over the 'flare' of the background is difficult to read. The highlighting text all over makes for bad readability. Your eye is drawn to those orange words and the reading flow is disjointed.

You do some nice Flash work, but you're alienating a portion of the population that DOES utilize services and does make purchases, despite their disablities. Do your clients understand this ? Or maybe they don't care and dismiss the disabled as undesirable clients ?

**worthyashes** · 08-01-2006, 06:53 PM

Woah! Getting on you high horse a bit there!! : )

If you look at our portfolio you'll notice that we do lots of straight html sites all up to industry and accessibility standards.

As for SEO for our site we see it a a brochure site for our products, services and applications and we imagine that most people who'll be looking at it will be there because we or someone else has told them to check it out. We're aware of the SEO problems and would in no way recommend this style of site for someone looking for a search friendly site.

There's a cute little trick in flash as well (which I'll be honest I need to highlight) but if you right click you get a zoom option so even if you don't have 20-20 to read the site.

Having said that I agree with you about the orange text - we've over done than and I think we're probably going to drop the whole services layout and restructure it.

Don't worry though, whilst this site is not accessible it is targeted at a specific audience interested in RIA and interface development. As far as our website development work goes we always make sure they are as accessible as they can be given the brief.

Thanks for taking the time and we've taken your comments on board.