You realize those things go hand in hand? a web designer must also have some understanding of UI and usability. probably not your responsibility though, but just saying
Not sure I follow. I personally make a distinction between a graphics designer and web designer and a web developer/programmer. I am neither designer, my area of interest/speciality has always been in design/development of software systems at the architectural/implementation level. I dabbled in everything in the projet, mostly due to time constraints and resource availability. No dought I could have spent more time on making the coed more semantically correct, focusing on user experience, but I'm already busy with a much larger web app with the same company, so the focus was narrow. Make it stick out on searches was one request, which in 2-3 weeks we've done OK landing on page 3-4 for Yahoo/Google for a few terms. I need more articl content or link backs to push the SEO much further.
For a site that supposedly advertises a product, there is no information on how to purchase
On the old site, there was an order form but it was just an HTML script that POST'ed to a sendmail type script so I scrapped it in favour of the contact form. What kind of "order now" informaiton would you suggest?
I recommended product videos, PDF's, etc...but ultimately this is out of my league, both in making the decision and/or investing the effort to make some worth reading.
If you can think of additional sales info, I would be happy to hear it and propose that as more content for the site
The homepage seems focuses on a product but the site overall is a front for a company? this ambiguity is not good. the site needs a clearer focus
No sales from the site, but to be honest I`m not totally sure myself, the project owner is always busy so his input is limited. As I understand it was just to inform people of the benefits of screen rooms, etc. Like a virtual brochure, I don`t think anyone expects to sell one online as Cadorath is primarily the manufacturing, not the re-sale. Informaiton for distributors and buyers I suppose.
continuing with the previous thought, if the site is a marketing front for a company, then the branding is bad. outside the logo and a minor link in the footer called "company history" (which actually leads to an about page - this should be clear and moved to the header) there is nothing immediate that makes it clear who or what is behind the site
Not a company, so much as a product. As a company they have a lot of commercial interests (realty, aerospace, etc) and web sites to reflect those niches, this site (as I understand) is solely to market the product, hence the lack of emphasis on the company info. As for the branding strategy, again, not my responsibility. I made some suggestions, some were implemented, others maybe not I don`t know.
are mosquitoes a good idea for the bullets? they invoke a negative feeling. how about something more branding related? that would probably require some graphics work though
That definetly is there to stay...

I argued against that but ultimately it`s not my site and the clientele are not tech savvy developers who nit-pick, so my argument lost weight pretty quick. Mosquitoes here, are like birds, Manitoba is world famous for our massive mosquitoes, the stress on mostuitoes is important to their brand message I guess, seeing as screens keep bugs away.
Blue text under "Take back your summer!" seems out of place. I know there's blue in the logo, but only duplicating it in this one spot makes it look out of place
I wasn`t blown away by the designer they chose but they did better than I would have so I was happy to relenqusih control. High quality designers are extremely hard to find, especially in this city. Out of town outsourcing was out of the question, so they went with what they knew, someone who did work for them in the past.
Even if the design was iffy, people are after information, not flashy graphics (ie: Google).
The architecture of the information was primary concern, and making it SEO. The homepage beats our best competitor(s) in terms of keyword density, which was goal one. semantically the markup could be improved and much CSS moved into external CSS -- but time was limited. Building link backs in this industry is like gambling with monopoly. Every directory or article submission site implements nofollow links. Our competitors have been online a few years longer than us, and frequently their web sites are far worse, both in terms of design (frontpage 97) and information availability.
The homepage was intended to sell the sizzle, not the steak! The products page was intended to highlight more benefits of a screen room. I think-guess it was assumed people would be visiting the site after receiving a physical flyer in the mail...who cadorath is as a company, either does not matter or is already known.
Thanks for the feedback guys
Cheers,
Alex