Peer Review

I used to work for this company full time (back when I first was learning Freeway). I Designed this site for the company and they loved it. Now it’s been a few years, I’ve moved on from them but still update the site as they need it.

As now I know Freeway infinitely better than I did then, I’m thinking about a major overhaul of this website. Every month or so the company asks me to add “just 1 more thing” and it has ended up looking rather cluttered and busy, I think. What suggestions would anyone have on how to redesign this site in Freeway? I’ve pre-ordered FW5 so I’m anxious to incorporate some of the new features. But what is your first impression of this site? How easy or hard is it to navigate? Does it grab your interest? Does it seem too busy or too sparse? Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks!


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Hi,
Overall it’s a pretty good website and I don’t see much that could be improved…however, being really picky, I could suggest that the design theme you have used (fonts,colours etc.) was kept to more rigidly and some areas don’t seem to fit as well with the overall look of the website. Some areas could be more smoothly designed - eg. the areas that use the red graphic box with text as the title and lines to divide (like the contact page) are a bit clunky and text is a bit big. Also, the live help box I think should be more static and stay in one place - it’s a bit off putting the way it pops up in various places… but (don’t get me wrong) it’s a great website!! Good Job :slight_smile:


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Sometime around 21/3/08 (at 10:13 -0400) Aaron said:

what is your first impression of this site? How easy or hard is it
to navigate? Does it grab your interest? Does it seem too busy or
too sparse?

http://www.fretlight.com

Well…

First impressions: slick, professional, clear.
Navigation: easy, clear.
Interest: definitely. The subject matter did that, the layout
supported it well, and the chroma-keyed video clip is a great touch.

It doesn’t feel specifically cluttered, although I can see areas
that are probably more busy and full than you originally intended.

I tell you one question that I have after looking at the site… is
there a Fretlight solution for left-handed players?

Oh… and one other question. Will there ever be proper Mac
versions of the software, more than just the GarageBand plugin?
Suddenly this is far, far less interesting. And no, the FAQ page
suggestion about Windows in Boot Camp or Parallels is a reasonable
response but also a complete and utter turn-off. Hey-ho.

Sorry, I know you just keep the site updated, but this is what I
ended up thinking about when browsing. A good sign I guess; the
design worked well enough that I basically forgot about it and got
stuck into reading about the product!

k


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Thank you for the feedback, yes Keith, you’ve hit on the most GLARING deficiency of the product. When I used to work for these guys I did my best to explain that most musicians are on a Mac, but they were all PC’ers. My efforts did pay off in the form of the Garageband plugin, which works okay, but not near as comprehensive as the PC software. I’m told they are now porting over the other programs, but it’ll still be months.

About the website, I agree that it lacks overall cohesive design and structure. Good observation about the LiveChat graphic. I’m thinking I should rebuild the header to include it.

Oh, Keith, yes there is a left-handed version of the guitar. All the software support “lefty mode” too. Go to the store to find the lefty. I think they have both a lefty acoustic and electric.

I appreciate the feedback. It helps me tremendously. One thing I’m wondering is on the CSS styles. It wasn’t until about a year into using FW did I notice that every time I’d change an attribute of any text, it would create another CSS style for it. This website has now 476 styles! My question is, does that matter? Does it slow down the site? Is it beneficial to design the styles first in the CSS Styles menu box (Menu bar > Edit > Styles…), and then apply the styles to the text, instead of styling the text right in the Inspector?

Thanks.


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This website has now 476 styles! My question is, does that matter?

It mostly matters if you want to keep your sanity. keeping track of all those styles is a nightmare. It also is a mess to try and decipher what style is used when they aren’t named in some fashion to remind you. The other thing is it’s most likely there lots of duplicate styles which waste storage space by making the page file bigger, although not by huge amounts.
Over time I have learned to start a project by setting up some generic styles first that covers the basics then start designing from there. Easy enough to add more styles later when needed, but always from the styles editor and never from menu.


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It is a shame this is not handled better by Freeway rather then the
user having to continually keep their eyes on it, I find myself going
back every so often to delete duplicate styles that Freeway creates.

On Mar 22, 2008, at 7:42 AM, chuckamuck wrote:

This website has now 476 styles! My question is, does that matter?

It mostly matters if you want to keep your sanity. keeping track of
all those styles is a nightmare. It also is a mess to try and
decipher what style is used when they aren’t named in some fashion
to remind you. The other thing is it’s most likely there lots of
duplicate styles which waste storage space by making the page file
bigger, although not by huge amounts.
Over time I have learned to start a project by setting up some
generic styles first that covers the basics then start designing
from there. Easy enough to add more styles later when needed, but
always from the styles editor and never from menu.


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It was handled much better in 3.

If what you were doing with the text had the same characteristics as an
existing style, it used that style instead of creating a new one. The
decision to duplicate a style and give it a new name was left up to you.

I would like to have that back.

Matt

on 03/22/08 4:17 AM Mike B said:

It is a shame this is not handled better by Freeway rather then the
user having to continually keep their eyes on it, I find myself going
back every so often to delete duplicate styles that Freeway creates.

On Mar 22, 2008, at 7:42 AM, chuckamuck wrote:

This website has now 476 styles! My question is, does that matter?

It mostly matters if you want to keep your sanity. keeping track of
all those styles is a nightmare. It also is a mess to try and
decipher what style is used when they aren’t named in some fashion
to remind you. The other thing is it’s most likely there lots of
duplicate styles which waste storage space by making the page file
bigger, although not by huge amounts.
Over time I have learned to start a project by setting up some
generic styles first that covers the basics then start designing
from there. Easy enough to add more styles later when needed, but
always from the styles editor and never from menu.


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As now I know Freeway infinitely b
on 03/22/08 4:17 AM Mike B said:

It is a shame this is not handled better by Freeway rather then the
user having to continually keep their eyes on it, I find myself going
back every so often to delete duplicate styles that Freeway creates.

I couldn’t agree more! Anyone from Softpress have thoughts on this? I read about “improved CSS capabilities” in FW5. Is this one of them? Also, perhaps, a more exhaustive list under CSS properties instead of having to manually code it in under “extended”, (i.e. line spacing, etc.) Check W3C for the full list.


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