Valletta G-House - final web site

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Aldo
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Joined: Sun Feb 27, 2005 6:19 pm
Location: Malta
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Valletta G-House - final web site

Post by Aldo »

About a month or so ago I had placed my website out in the cruel world and after much painful realisation, helped by all of your kind reviews, www.vallettahouse.com returns in its rebirth. Stronger, more beautiful and less self conscious it presents itself for further review :oops:

1. I have added information and all as words and not as pics so that it can be picked up by the search engines.
2. I have placed a picture of the apertures outside so as to compensate for the moodily lit interiors (needed the mood set). 3. I have given a lot more information about the walled city of Valletta to entice people that are not familiar with its magic.
4. I have tried to make it personal to differentiate it as holiday home from the impersonality of hotels.
5. I have placed a form that makes it easier for people to give me the right information so that I may help them with their enquiry
6. I have had professional photos taken
7. I have tried to retain the design look I had set out to achieve in the first place
8. I have placed a calendar so that people may have an idea of when it is free

Look forward to hearing from you. Any comments would be welcome

thank you

Aldo
Fraise
Posts: 2079
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2004 8:25 am
Location: Charente Maritime and Middle England

Post by Fraise »

Wow! The original site was good but dark,this is excellent! If I was nit picking I would query the half dark/half lighter aspect of the photos,but I guess that was a deliberate design thing? Wow again! well done- a beautiful home!
www.thepetitmanoir.com
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paolo
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Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:18 pm
Location: Provence, France
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Post by paolo »

Your site is very beautiful, the pictures are outstanding, so here are some more practical considerations:

- Top of the homepage doesn't tell the visitor what it is. There are no clues that this is a holiday rental home. It looks more like a page that might interest historians.

- Some basic info is missing from the top - how many bedrooms? Where is Valletta?

- G-House doesn't mean anything to me - perhaps it could be explained because it sounds terribly impersonal.

- Who's the guy on the left? I know it's you, but the visitor to your site won't. Could do with a caption, or moving lower down so it is next to your name at the bottom.

- You say 'please email me for more info' but there isn't an email link in sight without scrolling. Here you would logically make the words 'email me' a hyperlink.

- The lounge does not look very welcoming, that angle makes it look like a landing off the stairs.

- Because there are no windows in any of your internal shots, I am still getting a sense of being underground.

Your pages on Malta are great. I would have gone for more pics myself. I can see that the design you have chosen works better with one pic per page, but I don't think it would spoil it if there were more going down the page.

It took a few pictures for me to understand that the two-tone effect on your pics is to make them look like a brochure/book. It's a little too subtle I think. It would be more obvious if you increased the 3-D effect with a wedge of pages under the left border, if you get my meaning.

Anybody doubting the value of professionally taken photos should look at your site.
Paolo
Lay My Hat
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marcus
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Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 10:37 am
Location: Lot-Garonne / Dordogne borders
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Post by marcus »

Amazing photos, as already said.

One curious problem that I have not come across before, when I go to a new page the scroll bar on the right is pushed almost off the screen and I can't move down. If I minimise the page then maximise it again it returns to normal. No idea why this would happen, I have 'normal' settings I think, but its a bit irritating.

I'm not sure about some bits of phrase eg can one say '16th century holiday home' (unless people went on holiday there in the 16th century) or 'all the mod cons' (rather than 'all mod cons')? They don't sound quite right to me.

It is brilliant to see that someone can still come up with a new approach to a website - wish I'd thought of it myself. Very good and impressive work.
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Alan Knighting
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Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:26 am
Location: Monflanquin, Lot-et-Garonne, France

Post by Alan Knighting »

Aldo,

I think it is one of the most attractive "private" sites I have ever seen.

No problems with the scrolling bars.

From a user's point of view I agree with Paolo's comments. In particular, the format of the pictures just doesn't work for me. I realise it is deliberate but they look like separate pictures very badly stiched together. Could you try emphasising the shadow and the fold effect?

Overall it's great!

Regards

Alan
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tansy
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Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2004 6:29 am
Location: La Manche, Normandy, France

Post by tansy »

Aldo - your market .... I don't think your place is ideal for children...especially 2 families from Liverpool!! Be interested to hear where you will be advertising.

Looks great - the only critisicm I would have is that welcoming letter is slightly too long - I glazed a little.

Good luck with it all.
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vrooje
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Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 2:48 am
Location: Burgundy, France

Post by vrooje »

Aldo,

A very nice job! I like this redesign -- the book effect retains most of what I think you were going for with the postcard idea, but it's much easier to navigate.

I agree with Alan that the book-pages effect is actually underdone for the photos. The only photo that's obviously a magazine spread is, well, the photo of the magazine spread at the bottom of your home page. You can see it from the vertical strip of gloss on both pages (vs. the spherical gloss it looks like the other photos have), and the very sharp shadows at the bottom. Less obvious is the fact that the magazine pages aren't quite rectangular, because they're curved up off the surface they were sitting on. That would be pretty difficult to reproduce unless you had the right tools.

Another suggestion to make these images obvious as pages out of a book: surround them with a partial "border" made to look like pages out of a book.

I also had the scrollbar issue, and I think I know why:

Code: Select all

onLoad="javascript:if (document.getElementById) moveTo(0,0); window.resizeTo((screen.availWidth),(screen.availHeight));"
This is in your <body> tag on your home page. It ought to just maximize the size of the browser window on everyone's screen, but on my screen, it is about 102% of the true maximum screen size. So, the scrollbar is slightly off the viewable area of the monitor. In general I'm not a fan of any page trying to re-set my browser, because this affects other pages I'm also viewing at the time (I use tabbed browsing in Firefox, so when your page is auto-resized, all my open pages are).

I second (and third, and fourth) Paolo's suggestion that you add a clear, concise statement of the web site's purpose/offering somewhere just below the title of your home page.

I think those tidbits about Malta at the bottom of each page are fabulous!

Overall, I think this is a big improvement, and should sell your property to prospective renters very well!
Brooke
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