The 2026 Drupal Business Survey is open. Your response will help shape the future of the Drupal business ecosystem.
By DMacpherson on
I've put together a website for a client's sound equipment hire and installations business.
Modules used:
- Standard contrib modules - CCK, Views, Token, Pathauto, etc
- Filefield and Imagefield for galleries
- Webform for custom contact form
- 3D Views Carousel for frontpage feature
- @font-your-face - for non-standard fonts
- SEO modules - XML Sitemap, Site Verification, Google Analytics
Still in it's infancy, but we'll be adding more galleries and content as weeks go by.
Comments
Good start, I'm going to be
Good start, I'm going to be brutal!
Not convinced about the Javascript display on the home page, also think you could think about using Ubercart to actually sell your cables etc., it'd make the site a lot more dynamic. At the moment, all the services pages look too similar, I'd give some thought as to how you can make them stand out, broadly speaking they're a regurgitation of your 'About' page with a photo. A good way might be to have a few case-studies of existing clients, perhaps one for each service. One confusing thing was in your About section you talk about Mercedes Benz and Porsche, but then in the gallery are images of Jaguar and Porsche launches.
Perhaps worst of all is that you don't say where you are. Can I hire your services across the USA? In a particular state? the UK? Japan? There's a testimonial from a guy in Calais (France?) but the site's in English, very confusing. A quick google search of Geebung Primary School tells me you're in Queensland, Australia - whether it's local or national business you want, you should be screaming your location from the rooftops.
On the plus side, the site and layout looks professional and my first impression on visiting the site was positive, I can't see anything structural you need to change, I just feel you could make a lot more of what's there.
As you say, the site's in its infancy, I hope you'll find my comments useful!
Best wishes
Tony
Hi Tony, Not as brutal as I
Hi Tony,
Not as brutal as I thought you were going to be. That was all pretty fair criticism.
You're absolutely right about not mentioning the location. In fact, the thought also occured to me tonight just before I read your comment. Great minds think alike! I've added the location (Brisbane) to the slogan and page title.
Also, Calais is the name of a local band. This could be a little confusing to some people. Might add a link to their myspace page.
Regarding, the 3D Carousel display, is there anything specific that you're not convinced about?
Ubercart might be something the client will pursue down the track but at the moment wants customers to contact him for quotes.
Case studies are probably something we're looking to include also, especially with having testimonials and such. Might be a good idea to link the both testimonials, case studies and services together with nodereferences.
Regarding the car companies mentioned in the About section, my client has actually been subcontracted for Mercedes Benz, Porsche and Jaguar. I don't know if he has any galleries for Merc-Benz, but I've added Jaguar to About to clear some of the confusion.
Thank you very much for your comments. I did indeed find your constructive criticism useful, and am glad overall your reaction to the site was positive.
- D. Macpherson
Yep, a lot of it may just be
Yep, a lot of it may just be personal preference on the carousel - I think it's leaving too much white space. It works fine in Firefox (if maybe a little on the small side) but in IE I can't see the text below the images because there's too much of a gap - also in IE the screen jumps to centre the screen on the carousel when you click the left or right button.
Firefox: http://www.tonybarkerdesign.com/sites/tonybarkerdesign.com/files/bgsound...
IE: http://www.tonybarkerdesign.com/sites/tonybarkerdesign.com/files/bgsound...
Assuming you can get them to fit your site nicely with some CSS I would rather see a showcase style such as this: http://drupal.org/project/views_showcase . There are several different ones, http://drupal.org/project/ddblock looks the most impressive - that said, I've not used these modules before so I can't comment on how easy they are to set up and customise. There's a good comparison page here: http://drupal.org/node/418616
How weird! It displays fine
How weird! It displays fine in Internet Explorer for me on several different computers. What version of IE are you running?
Explorer (IE8) I've just
Explorer (IE8) I've just noticed the zoom level was set to 125% though. Oops. Apologies.
Still, personal preference I would try one of the dynamic display blocks.