Feedback Friday 5: Reverb Studios Multimedia and Website Design

February 27, 2009 · Posted in Feedback Friday, Membership · Posted by IIA

This week’s feedbackee (!) is Reverb Studios from Co. Leitrim. I’ll allow Leon Quinn, MD, explain why he is seeking feedback on his site at the moment:

www.reverbstudios.ie is the website for Reverb Studios Multimedia and Website Design, a small company based in Co. Leitrim.

I have had many people comment on my choice of dark colours for the website with the general consensus so far being that “it’s too dark” so I’d like people to look at that issue please. Bear in mind that there needs to be a good contrast between background and text colours and in that regard I believe White on black is as good as black on white! Also bear in mind that a significant number of people have said to me that my colours were “different” and it made my site “memorable”. My influence for the design was the iPhone if that’s not immediately obvious!

I’m planning a re-design soon so any comments may be influential!

Here are some other issues I’d like feedback on too please:

Layout

Speed

Navigation

Clarity of purpose.

Thanks to Leon for volunteering. Please don’t forget the guidelines when you are giving your feedback.

If you would like to volunteer your site or a client’s site please email me at members /at/ iia /dot/ ie

Imagine if you have a meeting with a client and you want to highlight the areas on their site that require development how helpful this could be. Do get their permission though!

Have a look at previous Feedback Friday entries to get an idea of how it has worked so far.

Tags: community, design, feedback, Feedback Friday, web design, websites

Comments

12 Responses to “Feedback Friday 5: Reverb Studios Multimedia and Website Design”

Dorothy on February 27th, 2009 2:39 pm

Hi Leon, My website is also dark and have received similar mixed comments. I changed it once and but up a nice bright site, LOADs of people asked me where my lovely dark one went. So you can’t win really. However, yours is really stark dark! My advice would be to bring it up a little to more of a charcoal grey, or even use very dark blue, green or red. I would also use a paler colour on the background of your main content section.
Your portfolio should be up top instead of at the bottom of the Web Design page.

I hope my comments are helpful.
Frank P on February 27th, 2009 2:50 pm

Hi Leon,

Upon opening your website, my first reaction was that it’s quite busy – my eye was not immediately guided to any particular point on the page and was constantly drawn to the border.

I would love to see this homepage without the border elements – I think it would give the content room to breathe and allow an otherwise well laid out and easy to navigate site function better.

Hope this helps,
Frank
Ivan on February 27th, 2009 3:48 pm

Hi Leon,

As requested!

Colours:
I’m afraid I find the grey, black and white quite harsh on the eyes, so I do prefer the light website. I fully understand the need for contrast, but I think white/light grey text on a black background is a bit much for the eyes.

While white background and black/dark grey text is a safe option, I’d go for a different light background with a strongly contrasting text colour, supplemented by 2-3 light support colours. Check out http://www.colorschemer.com/ .

A personal opinion, though.

Layout/Navigation:
There’s an AWFUL lot going on on the home page. I’d reduce the sheer amount of content there, and look at putting in a little more structure, and putting some of the content into sub-sections of the website.

Clarity of purpose:
If I were looking for a multimedia person, and wanted a quick overview of all of the areas you cover, the website home page does this well. However, if I was looking for something very specific, I’d be inclined to think, “Hmm, this guy does anything and everything. Maybe I should look for someone more specialised…”

Again, I’d look at the structure of the website, and gather your specialisations into various areas.

Other:
I noticed an inconsistency in how you refer to yourself – on some pages, it’s “contact us”, “our prices” and on others, it’s “contact me”, and “I”. I’d choose one and stick with it

Hope some of these help!

Ivan
Denise on February 27th, 2009 4:40 pm

I have to say I have never been a fan of black on websites. I tune out straight away, and always find the type difficult to read against this background.

I agree with comments above on too much content and hard to navigate.

If I was looking to for a company to design my website I would expect their own website to be appealing to the eye. Andthe black approach you have taken would not give me faith.

As Ivan mentions above maybe take one aspect of your servces that you do best in comnmercially and push that as the main feature on your home page.

Denise
Leon Quinn on February 27th, 2009 11:26 pm

Thanks guys, all valid points. There will be a re-design pretty soon and I’ll hope to incorporate your advice but keep the site “different”!
Roseanne Smith on March 2nd, 2009 10:01 am

Thanks to everyone who particpated this week – lots of great tips.
@Leon – I think you are right to try to keep the site “different” because distinctiveness leads to brand recognition and will only help in marketing your business. Good luck with the redesign and thanks for stepping up.
Roseanne
Mike Afford on March 9th, 2009 10:44 pm

Hi Leon,

Well as you know I’m fond of the dark backround myself…!

But I wouldn’t get too hung up about light vs dark. I’ve seen ‘dark’ sites that look awesome and plenty of ‘light’ sites that look dreadful.

I’m reluctant to offer a detailed critique, because I know that anyone reading this might click on my own link and go ‘what the hell does he know – his site’s way too dark and I can’t read the text…!’

Anyway – here’s a couple of ideas.

Try getting the typography right first – true enough for blogs, but also makes sense for main sites too. I saw a thing the other day that suggested viewing your site with no images, no colours, no banners or sidebars (in fact, no structure at all) – just text only (but WITH your headings, paragraph and other text-only styling in place).

So during the design phase you can get the fonts, sizes, margins etc right first and make sure the content all reads easily before worrying too much about colours. If the text doesn’t flow naturally with a good rhythm in black on white, then changing colours is unlikely to help.

Another thing from recent experience – I gave my own site a mini-makover a little while back – the look hardly changed, but I went through and cleaned up all the HTML and CSS. Oh and I lost ALL the tables that I’d used for positioning (about time too!)

So now if I DO want to give the whole thing a new look it’s going to be v easy to make site-wide changes with just a few CSS-tweaks. It also helps to ensure consistent typography across the whole site. And the CSS handles positioning now – again, much more handy for experimenting with different designs or layouts.

I must say I haven’t had a problem navigating yr site – although maybe a more prominent link back to your main site from your blog might help? Unless I’m missing something it seems the only way to the main site is via the 7th link down on the ‘My Other Sites’ sidebar section of the blog. Is that right?

Anyway, just some thoughts – hope it goes well!
Looking forward to the new look!

Mike
2D Graphic Design on March 13th, 2009 11:26 am

I followed a tweet from michadaly. Read this article and then looked at your site. You’ll note my own area of design is mainly print related and the few points I would have made most have been made clearly above.

It’s a long established rule in printed media that the main body of text or small text sizes be dark on white, headings, pull outs, highlights information can be light on dark. For the simple reason that dark text on a light background is easier to read. I’ve seen the same advice given in books and websites giving advice on “designing your website”. That said ‘rules are made to be broken’ and often are to great and innovative effect.

Ultimately its our customers who tell us what they want and pay for such ‘cosmetic’ detail and it’s up to the designer to provide guidance as to the appropriateness on an individual basis based on their own judgement, aesthetic, knowledge and skill.

I like that you’ve included a link to the light site and dark site not only does it give the viewer an option to use which ever they please, it simply highlights what a programmer or a CMS system can do.

I’ve been approached by people selling me CMS type systems, I’ve kept track of their sites rarely do they utilise the abilities they say are the brilliant functions of CMS. You can retain the same content but change the look.

If you alter your site you might consider retaining the light or dark site option. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Deirdre
Roseanne Smith on March 13th, 2009 2:04 pm

Hi Deirdre,

Thanks for the additional comments on Reverb’s site. Good insight into the different use of light and dark in print but does the same hold for screen?

Thanks
Roseanne
Paul Fearn on December 31st, 2009 1:49 pm

Hi Leon,
Do you use a Mac or PC for side development? I believe the default display gamma for Mac and PC are different so all other things being equal websites may appear darker on PC’s.

I like the site, although dark backgrounds do tend to create more split reactions from site visitors I think.
Leon Quinn on January 7th, 2010 7:42 pm

I use a pc believe it or not! Can’t see the difference in brightness being worth talking about, surely its negligible?

The current revision is a little brighter or more colorful at least!

http://www.reverbstudios.ie
Coast on February 23rd, 2010 10:23 pm

Some good points in this article. Encouraging to find an article genuinely worth taking time out to read. Keep up the good work…