Need Help With Website Review - Education Articles

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SteveRussell

SteveRussell

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Mar 6, 2007
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Location
The Woodlands, Texas.
Hello to the group,

I have been uploading numerous articles into the education library on my website in HTML format.

http://www.woodturningvideosplus.com/education-articles.html

Some of the articles are quite long and have lots of pictures. Although we have optimized the photos, the larger articles still have quite a few photos, especially the step-by-step project articles and the finish testing articles. I'm concerned that the longer articles may take to long to load, especially on dial-up computers.

I'm curious what you as a reader would prefer... Fewer photos, more photos, even if you have to wait a bit for the page to load, maybe an all text version? I'm on broadband, so the pages load really fast for me, but I know that lots of folks are still on dial up. Do you prefer a PDF download option, longer articles broken up into several parts?

We will also be adding video segments into the library very soon, which will be accessible via a text link in the article. Do you like to watch your videos online, or download them and view them offline?

Any help here would be appreciated as I want to make the library as convenient for everyone as possible. That's a tall order, but it's one that we want to achieve if possible. If you have any other suggestions on the website, or find any problems, (errors, bad links etc.) please let me know.

Sometimes when you've been working on a page for several hours it all starts to blend together into mush...:( I have a thick skin so blast away.:D

We will be loading a couple hundred articles into the library initially, so I want to get it right from the start. Your opinion and criticisms are valued and appreciated. Thanks for your help and assistance. Best wishes to you and yours!

P.S. Please note your connection - Dial Up Speed, Broadband, DSL, T1 etc in your comments. Thanks!
 
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Steve,
I have a DSL connection, with about 800KB in. If it's not too much trouble, I'd like two versions of things like instructions. The first is a PDF with all the pics in higher resolution/larger size, so I can print it off for in my shop (I can't afford a ruggedized laptop to keep out there). The second version I'd like is one with smaller versions of the pictures (e.g., thumbnails, but big enough to get the gist of what you're showing), with links to higher resolution versions.

With respect to videos, I like to be able to watch them online, but to store them on my computer if I like them. The advantage for you is that, if you stream the videos, you can control their distribution more (from a copyright perspective).

I'm probably unusual in what I like (seems like that's the case with most other personal preference things with me!), so I'll be curious to hear what others say.
 
Russell,

First thank you for taking the time to post those tutorials.

I use DSL at home and T1 at work so I have no problem with larger pics, which helps a lot.

As you are already aware of, you cannot really please everybody. Given a choice though...and if you can spend the effort, I would rather have a simple version with the least pictures possible (catering to everyone)...then offer downloadable version with more pics and separate downloadable movies. Biggest problem here is that you will have to maintain 2 versions.

This is just my thought and I am sure others will have their own say.
 
Russell

T1 here, i dont remember any problems.

Went to your site to do as you asked, but lost track of time reading all your great stuff and also forgot why i was there....[:D] [:D]
 
Steve,
I have had this sight bookmarked for a while and have learned a lot from it already. One thing I like on similiar pages is the smaller pictures that link to full size when you click on them. I don't mind returning to the page to review an article but a PDF would be great to take to the shop. I use a braodband connecton so online video is no hassle but remember the dial up drill of starting the down load then going to make a pot of coffee while waiting for the video to load. I don't think you can have too many photos. I'm a very visually oriented person and sometimes a picture will answer questions far faster than a long explanation. Thank you so much for what you have done so far and continuing to add to this wonderful resource. I'm looking forward to seeing the new additions.
 
Steve
These pages are very informative and useful. Thank you for taking the time to write and post them.
I first viewed several of the articles on your "Technical and Education Articles Library" page at work where we have a T1 line. They loaded almost instantaneously. I'm now at at home where I have dialup at 31.2kbps and the same pages loaded very quickly (in a mater of 10-15 second for the text, and a little longer for the pictures in the articles). If all of the articles are in the same format, I see no problem with them the way they are on dialup.
I didn't even attempt to open the videos at home of course.

edit: Might I be so bold as to suggest you have Jeff put a link to these articles in the Forum Library.
 
I am on a slooooooow dial-up (on a good day I can get a whopping 26.4Kbps!!) compounded by analog phone system lines. I found the page the link led to to open rather nicely. I then selected the link leading to the euro pen tutorial. Despite the amount of pictures (which speak more than words for me) it also loaded up rather nicely, within 2-3 minutes (today is a good day!). Very nice site and thank you for it!!!
 
On the T1 at work, most come up lightning fast. Some take about 4 seconds, so no problem there. Pictures are good. As long as each one is different and adds to the body of the article, I say go for it.

For video, I prefer to watch it online, but I am not opposed to having to download it. Either way is fine.
 
Hello to the group,

Thanks so much for the replies, keep 'em coming... [:)] I'm really surprised that the longer articles load within an acceptable time frame on dial-up.[:D] I would have thought that dial-up users would want to throw a beating on me.[:0] We really tried to get the photos optimized for fast page loads, but since the ink is still dripping wet on my HTML coding license, I wasn't' sure.

We can certainly include a .pdf download option for each article as we have all of the articles in that format now. We also have the Adobe authoring software for making any new .pdf's we might need.

As for adding a better resolution photo that you can access via a click on the low res photo in the article, we can do that as well. I have hesitated to do this up to now because I read that 50% of internet surfers are still on 56K or less dial up modems. Having to wait for a high res photo to download on a dial-up is no fun. Been there, done that back in the day before I switched to broadband.

We can also offer the videos both ways, online and with an option for downloading for offline viewing. I'm up to snuff on coding for online viewing, but I'm not sure how to make the video downloadable. I will look into this...

Thanks again for your input. We will do everything we possibly can to make the education library convenient for you to use and refer to. When I eventually get my current library (about 300 articles) coded and uploaded, along with the video segments (many of these will have to be shot from scratch), my library should be one of the largest repositories of free woodturning information on the internet. That's my goal anyway.

Please feel free to add any additional comments or criticisms you have on how we can make the library (and the rest of the website) easier for you to access and utilize. Please include your connection set-up (dial-up speed, T1, DSL, or Broadband) to better help me understand your comments. Take care and best wishes to you in all of your woodturning endeavors![:)]
 
Hi Steve. I have DSL. Everything loaded fast and came through great. I have your DVD videos, except for your newest one. At first, I refured back to them several times. I havn't tied boiling a bowl yet, but if I did I have the information here. I like that. So I vote for downloads.
The only problem I have with your site is the article on texturing a bowl. You know how much that Mini-grinder with the arbortech blades is going to cost?[:eek:)]
 
Originally posted by Monty
<br />edit: Might I be so bold as to suggest you have Jeff put a link to these articles in the Forum Library.
Click to expand...

Hello Monty,

I would be happy to have a link to my education library in the IAP library. Since I'm new here, I do not know how to get in touch with Jeff. Any ideas? Thanks!
 
If he doesn't see this and get in touch with you, you can go here-
http://www.penturners.org/forum/pop_profile.asp?mode=display&id=2 and click on send email.
 
OK... before I go there and lose track of time looking through everything (as it sounds everyone else has done!), let me throw out my comments - kept fairly generic since I have not explored in-depth. I'm on broadband, so I doubt load time will be an issue. As to the format, I would say include as many pictures as possible. I like the idea of the thumbnails linked to higher-res photos. You could even do it in two steps - thumbnail on the main page is very small, then go to something like 640x480, and where necessary, you could click again for an even higher res version (although that probably won't be necessary very often). I think that would be nice for those on the "slow" dial-up, too - thumbnails to get the idea, but still have a reasonably sized pix which should still open up fairly quickly.

As to content - for anyone thinking "fewer pictures, more text!" - what if I said "less text, more pictures!" In actuality, I would say more text _and_ more pictures, if you have it available! The readers can skim over the thumbnails and the visual learners amongst us can go for the pictures. Everyone's happy! Except for you, since I just doubled your workload. ;-)

Everything else aside - I did look briefly at your site when I first saw it and can't wait to explore it more... I just need a couple of days for my wife to leave me alone and let me surf!
 
Hello to the group,

Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions, I sincerely appreciate your assistance in this matter. Now, I need to see what we can do... Thanks and take care!
 
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