Website Redesign suggestions

teedg

I am in the process of upgrading and redesigning my website. Any ideas, comments or criticism welcome.
 
www.hitechwireless.com</A>

JulioF

Looks like you have a decent grasp of search engine optimization. Congrats!

Things I would look into:

Your
site is flagged by one of my browsers as containing "old" security -
512 bits, I believe. Tip - You should test using several browsers.

The main
content section is displaying rather low on the page. In Netscape, your
"Order Online..." is actually displaying below the fold, which is not
good. One thing to try is changing the font setting to other than
"paragraph". Another is to have the table align to the Top. Another is
to only use a table for the page headings, with other content
positioned via CSS.

Tables load first, from top to bottom. So, having your header in a
table at the top will quickly provide your visitors with something to
read, while the remainder of the page is loading.

Why do you have a link to your email/feedback form... on your email/feedback form?

Your Flash object in the upper-left corner is 380KB! That`s not going
to make your 56kbps dial-up vistors happy, and they may decide to leave
before the page loads.  I`ll bet it could be reduced quite a bit
through some optimization.

Not much time for me to evaluate more. Oh... I don`t like the pebbled
background, but that`s just personal preference.  And the font
size of the links down the left side could stand to be larger - not
everyone has good eyesight.

Have fun!

postcarder

I didn`t get the Flash show at all. And I`m using the latest version Firefox on a cable Internet connection.

postcarder

I would suggest moving away from tables-based design. Reason: It adds way too much code to a page, and it`s code that isn`t necessary. Instead, I advocate using Web Standards-based design, which doesn`t use tables on web pages. The only exception to this rule is when you are displaying tabular data like a price list or a flight schedule.I`ve written an article about the advantages of Web Standards, and hope it is useful to you.

postcarder

Uh-oh. Looks like I didn`t make myself clear. Among the web design crowd, "Web Standards" is shorthand for World Wide Web Consortium Standards. You`ll sometimes see this abbreviated as "W3C Standards."Why the move toward Web Standards?Well, get ready for an Internet where the computer-based web browser is nonexistent, or in very rare use.
What`s knocking the computer and browser off their throne? The
culprits are all around us. They`re devices that we`re already using.
For example, any web-enabled cell phone or Personal Digital Assistant
(PDA) can access the Internet and call up a public site, just like a
computer-based browser.
These trends are having a profound effect on the still-young field
of web design. Barely a decade old, web design has entered the "not
just for computers" phase.
Web designers are now using techniques that adapt web page content
to any device, be it large or small. The goal is to create websites
that are available to a wider audience, and to enable website visitors
to accomplish tasks faster.Ideally, Web Standards-based sites should be designed to be viewed with computers, cell phones, PDAs
and any other Internet-enabled device. They should also be
accessible to text-to-speech readers used by the blind. In addition,
there is no need to waste time hunting for one of those tiny
"printer-friendly" icons. Every page automatically prints out as a
printer-friendly page.Hope this helps clear things up!

teedg

Thanks for the comments. I will work on incorporating your ideas and get back to with a newer version. Thanks for the help.

postcarder

Kathy, although current cell phones and PDAs leave a lot to be desired when it comes to accessing the Internet, they are indeed being used for this purpose. And, I predict, future cell phones and PDAs will become even more Internet-friendly.In short, we who design the Web can`t just be designing for what is, we need to be prepared for what`s coming.

JulioF

"I would suggest moving away from tables-based design. Reason: It adds
way too much code to a page, and it`s code that isn`t necessary."There are several good things to be said about CSS, especially regarding quickly changing the look of a website. But I can change the look of my website by changing the code with a global search and replace, using our standard naming conventions. Still, may be better to use CSS for this reason in some cases. We use it to an extent. We design and create websites, and if we are 100% sure that we will be maintaining the site and applying changes going forward, then we will use CSS. But if the customer may be taking over at any time in the future, we use tables for the most part.Why? Well, it has to do with customer satisfaction. What if, down the road, our customer takes over their site maintenance and has no staff who understands the nuances of CSS? What if they find they need to spend thousands to either train existing staff, or hire someone? If I were them, I would definitely not be happy. We want our customers to have an excellent customer experience when dealing with us. Forcing them into using CSS is not something we choose to do. To us, it would be like forcing you to use premium gasoline rather than regular, informing you of this after the sale of your vehicle. You`d be forced to pay more. Not good business.And to state that tables add way too much unnecessary code is questionable. With that logic, a good case can be made that all use of XML adds waaaay too much code and transmission traffic to the web. It is much better to use flat files, in industry standardized formats, as already exists and has for years and is known as EDI. File size is tremendously larger when using XML. Perhaps Sprint, AT&T, and other carriers are the main champions of XML? XML use certainly increases data traffic, which increases their revenues! The introduction of XML was very much along the lines of "the king`s new clothes," with all the "oohing and ahhing" about a new mechanism for sharing data. Just because it is "new" doesn`t mean it isn`t a step backwards in many respects.

austinluthers

If you plans for redesign a website before you need to see the benefits and drawback of your website because this is very important factor to check before redesign website. As per the redesign website concern i like to say that first you need to optimize your website means you have required good SEO strategy that maintain your website rank and traffic in search engine. You need to add some extra activities that users most like and give the good response to your website. Make it user friendly.