Bon Bon the Clown

[Batchman]

Have done a site for a friend, hosted here on Powweb, and would like to get people's thoughts. If there are problems, indications in platform and browser might also be helpful.

Anybody will to provide thoughts, site can be found at http://bonbontheclown.com

[(jj)]

Overall, a nice site and holds true to what a site for a clown should be :)

Only 2 things that I see that could be changed:

1 The yellow contact "ball" looks too flat compared to the other two, might consider a little darker yellow so that it would have the same "ball" look as what the others do.

2 Music..even if it is "calliope" and in theme with a clown site, can become very annoying when it's set to loop "infinite". Give users a way to turn off the sound, or better yet, a way to play it if they want to listen to it instead of their music which they were listening to before they entered your site.

[YvetteKuhns]

The music attracted my son into my office. He enjoys the images. I agree with JJ's comments. The background image, though faded, competes with the foreground, especially since it is tiled. The background image really competes with the photos.

The contact page should have more info. There should be a logo or Bon Bon's name at the top of each page. Having the links at the top would be easier, though forcing people to search for them at the bottom may force them to read! ;)

Adding a related links page would allow you to exchange links with other sites to improve visibility. Okay, the music is making me crazy. Cute site.

[shenz]

Although there are lots of images, your site loaded quite fast. If you like to use the picture as a background, perhaps just one very faded one in the middle of the page is better that tiled. The music is nice but you should allow a way for people to turn it off.

As Yvette has mentioned, it should have a related page for links so that you can exchange links with some parents and child related sites for publicity.

Shenz
www.browsersite.com

[Batchman]

Thanks for the comments, folks ...

I read them as soon as they were made, and considered them ... made a few changes in regards to them, as well. But I like to take a little time after that before responding a bit, hence the delay. (All right, I also kind of got busy with other things for a time.)

JJ -- Could see how the music could get annoying after a time, so went through and set it to only play once, rather than infinite. May not be a perfect solution, but it should be an improvement.

I wouldn't even use music for most sites, but Bon Bon requested it, and that particular piece is really growing on me. Hopefully this at least lessens the problems and annoyance for anybody who doesn't like the music.

Am considering changing the color on the yelow ball ... just need to make sure it won't be conflicting with other balls. If Bon Bon ever gets me further information, two more pages will be added, and will need their own ball colors, as well. And since the link graphics have already been made, and one of them is orange, I'm halfway limited unless I go for a completely new shade.

Yvette -- I find myself wondering if background images hit different people different ways or something. Personally, I frequently really like background images matching the way I frequently do it ... which is why I do it that way. A really light background image that still shows a picture just really works for me. But obviously it didn't too much for you. Maybe it is just straight-out a personal preference issue, or maybe there are hardware issues or something that causes it to be a lot more distracting on some systems than others. I just wonder.

On shorter pages (like these, except for possibly the events page) does it really make a difference to most people whether the links are at the top of the page or the bottom? I've done it both ways on different sites, all depending on what seems to feel right on the particular site. What do you think?

And one of the new pages which may eventually be added (if Bon Bon gets around to deciding just what she would like to link to) is indeed a links page.

Shenz -- Thanks for the comments ... I seem to have referred to them all in the comments to the others, however.

Again, thank you to all of you for the comments and thoughts ... they help me in planning future improvements for this site, and even for other sites.

[YvetteKuhns]

I think that the background image, if used, should be one large image instead of repeated "tiled" images. But a solid background does not compete with images and allows the images and buttons to catch the eye. But I am usually creating e-commerce sites with many product images, so perhaps I have a different frame of mind when I look at websites.

When you go to another page, the music stops from the previous page, but starts again for the new page. You can create a link to play music that opens in a new window. The visitor can choose to hear music and that music will play in that window while the visitor visits other pages in the website. Just close that "music" window (or click, if you show player) to stop the music.