Surfing Waves

Some changes have been made to the main site recently. It seems that the redesign is putting visitors of from browsing the site.
I'd appreciate it if anyone had some time to have a quick look around the main site and give some feedback.
Things like the overall look and feel, useability, ease of navigation - can you find stuff? Is the site too slow to load?

Anything is appreciated.
Thanks in advance

Hey SP,

I'm not sure what has changed as I havent been onto the main site for ages!
But I went for a quick look around. I dont think there are major issues but a couple of things...

- Assuming that a lot of people are newbies, the 'lessons' bit should be more prominent rather than over on the right hand side, and a drop down menu rather than a link. Also, 'lessons' maybe sounds like somewhere you'd book lessons - maybe something more like 'how to surf'.

- I think the order of stuff isnt quite right. Not all that many people are interested in the surf map, so that probably shouldnt be right at the top. Assuming people are looking for something specific rather than surf photos or videos, again I think these should be shifted down.

- The very top bit that tells people what SW actually is should be more prominent, and contain links to the bits that it mentions.

- Generally a bit too much text. Maybe have just the headlines for the news, and fewer articles listed.


You can tell I've been building my own website recently can't you?

Cheers dbbb. I am going to do a how to surf hub page, and I'll link that from the header, with a couple of dropdown links.
Perhaps I'll cut down on the text a little, maybe add a latest articles feature at the top.

Anyone else have any ideas?

What's your website?