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In my website I'm displaying the websites I built as tiles that when clicked open as lightboxes.
I'm getting feedback that it's unclear that the lightboxes display actual live websites.
It's also unclear that they can be scrolled down and that links are active.
How can I make it more obvious to the user that the content in the lightboxes is live and interactive?
Users expect components to behave like other components they see on the web, and we generally don't use lightboxes to open whole external websites. While you are doing this is a way that is very creative and innovative (the butterfly loader is lovely), users still might need to see the URL and other site-based information as they browse another site in order to trust where they are going.
I would recommend you use your lightbox, then, to tell the story of the site you built - your involvement in the project, and so on, with screenshots. Then, offer a link to each external site, which could open in a new tab if you are concerned with users still staying on your site while having a way to browse the sites you built.
