Comments Please 5

[ascotta]

On a very small stamp Seriously, this is my first ever venture into this, so if I be bashed I learn.

Brock And Associates


Thanking you in advance.

[blue] A perspective from the other side!![/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[mmerlinn]

What is the purpose of the "W3C" images on each side of the copyright notice? I don't see any reason why they should be there as they add nothing to the pages and will cause many people unfamiliar with them to contact the website owner about them. I am sure Brock & Associates has NO interest in receiving queries about those images, and even less interest in explaining something that is not part of their business.

Your header bar needs to be reworked. The contrast is so poor that it is hard to read.

Click the 'Purpose' button on the header bar. Hover over the word 'care' in menu bar on the left. When I did that, the bar began flashing, making the bar almost unreadable. "drainage" is misspelled in same menu.

I have not determined whether I like the green in the boxes of text or not, but I definitely DO NOT LIKE the shading. That shading detracts from the message by making parts of the message almost unreadable.


mmerlinn

"Political correctness is the BADGE of a COWARD!"

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

I agree that the contrast of the header is shocking. Definately needs reworking.

You might also want to set a different background colour on your main content area (".baframeclrbg") in case the user has images disabled. Dark green text on dark grey isn't the easiest to read.

The logo next to "web site by" looks crap. What is it meant to be? If it's a corporate logo? If so, make it look good. Also the link it goes to is non-existant (

http://www.businessnetworkspecialists.com.au).

The aqua / turquoise background colour on the "links" page looks really glaring in contrast to the content. I think it should be toned down a bit (and maybe on other pages as well).

If you're going to have W3C images in your footer, at least link them to the validators they represent. Also make sure that the pages validate if you are going to display them (the contact us page has some minor errors). Also you're missing some required elements which stop some validators from checking your site:

http://www.htmlhelp.com/cgi-bin/val...com.au/&warnings=yes&spider=yes&hidevalid=yes

What is the logo floating in the top-right of the top-left box on the "Specialities" page? It looks hastily-inserted, pointless, squashed, and gives away no information.

Why turn away users with JavaScript disabled, or who use input devices other than a mouse? For example, the "Projects" page asks you to use the mouse, and requires JavaScript. Neither of this is necessary for a well-developed accessible site.

The staff pictures on the "About us" page look as though they are "hanging out" of the boxes - it just looks tacky. Either remove the boxes, or put the pictures in them properly.

Get rid of the turquoise. It's a really nasty colour scheme.

Also, if you're after a good re-design (not turquoise!), I can highly recommend Oyster Design based in Melbourne -

http://www.oyster.net.au/

Oh. And did I mention - get rid of the turquoise?

Hope this helps,
Dan



Coedit Limited - Delivering standards compliant, accessible web solutions

[tt]Dan's Page [blue]@[/blue] Code Couch

http://www.codecouch.com/dan/

[/tt]

 

[chrissie1]

The projects page float is wrong.

And make thumbnails of the pictures and let the user click on them if they want to see them up close, they loaded really slow here.

And yes the shading is a bit distracting.

Like they have said the menu is hardly readable make the text white or something and perhaps the bottom bar should be the same as the top menubar.

What turqoise????

Christiaan Baes
Belgium

"My old site" - Me

 

[GUJUm0deL]

[ol]
[li]Color scheme doesn't do anything for me. I find the main content color to be very bright. In fact all colors look off to me. Unless these are the company colors, I'd look into using something less vivid.[/li]
[li]The hover color on all links doesn't look good. Better to make the links just underlined.[/li]
[li]I think having a CONTACT form is a better idea so users can directly ask a question off the site as opposed to having me outlook pop open.[/li]
[/ol]

____________________________________
Just Imagine.

http://www.imajinarts.com

 

[monksnake]

Here's what I see.

On the Projects page, those jpgs that load are WAY too large of files. I noticed a slow load on them so I looked at the size of one and it was over 800k. You can keep the images, just knock the resolution way down, they are so small you can't see the detail anyway.

In your menu, you have a green - black gradient background with black font for the menu, it's kinda hard to see. The menu options should just out at you w/o blinding you.

It looks like 3 different color schemes at one time on the page, as everyone said, the footer color contrast is crazy.

I personally like seeing the W3C icons on a page, it makes me think that the designer took some time and care into his/her work. However, the icons are not at their proper dimensions, they are squashed up, especially true with your business icon. I would also think of putting the W3C icons to the side.

I do like your gradient effects, but they are in the wrong color.

On the About Us page, you have the images of the people drop shadowed with some weird looking stuff underneath the shadow. IMO, those pics don't need to be drop shadowed.

Like chrissie said, hover over "Main Roads" on the Projects page and your content overlaps the footer.

Besides that, it's a perfect page.

<.

 

[johnwm]

If you want don't want (or can't afford) a web designer for your colour scheme you might try something like

http://www.degraeve.com/color-palette/index.php

which will help you avoid serious blunders (like 3 vastly different hues of green on the same page)

To see why you pages load so slowly try a site like

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/...hp?url=http://www.brocks.com.au/Projects.aspx

which will give some clues to the problems. You may also find that using thumbnails as links to bigger versions of the pictures will make the site easier to view.

Try viewing the site with javascript disabled and note the effect on the 'Projects' page

Unless you want to be deluged with spam I would suggest removing the 'Mailto:' link and using a server-side mail solution

___________________________________________________________
If you want the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first.
'If we're supposed to work in Hex, why have we only got A fingers?'
Drive a Steam Roller
Steam Engine Prints

 

[kim00]

ascotta - I hope you don't feel beaten up (or bashed as you say) - this is some very constructive feedback you're getting and you've dared to come to the right place. I'll start with what hurts me the most - "Specialities" - I think you want that to read "Specialties."

Other than that - lose those tourquoise boxes and drop shadows - they do take a loooong time to load and white space goes along way on a colorful site sometimes. And bravo on your first attempt.

...kim

 

[ascotta]

No I asked for and got honest answers, of which I am appreciative. Sure I was a bit hurt but hey if it gets that personal then it cant be professional. So I got over it.

Unfortunately those are the corporate colours. However I shall rework the backgrounds, and images and spelling, it was checked, but obviously not that well. See what I can acieve.

I was never really comfortable about the turquioise but the white just seemed dull. Anyways as I said I shall see how much time I get and change it.

Thanks all.



[blue] A perspective from the other side!![/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

Unfortunately those are the corporate colours.

That's fine - use the corporate logo in turquoise in the header... but it doesn't have to be used as the background colour for the whole body.

For example, AOL's corporate colours are light blue & dark blue. The sites they're launching all around Europe right now (e.g.

http://www.aol.nl)

have blue in the header & footer, but don't have a garish blue background to all of the text.

Dan



Coedit Limited - Delivering standards compliant, accessible web solutions

[tt]Dan's Page [blue]@[/blue] Code Couch

http://www.codecouch.com/dan/

[/tt]

 

[monksnake]

That's fine - use the corporate logo in turquoise in the header... but it doesn't have to be used as the background colour for the whole body.

I agree totally.


<.

 

[ChrisHunt]

The guys seem to have picked the bones out of this one, but I'll add a couple of points...

Give your text a little less line height - it looks almost double spaced at the moment, and that's too much. You should also add a little padding to the left & right of your areas of text - they look really cramped when the text butts right up to the border. I'm not wild about the green colour either - I'd keep it for headings but switch to black or very dark grey for the body text.

You've got a serif font in the title bar (is it me, or is the "PTY" bit in a slightly different font to everything else?), sans-serif for the menu, serif again for the content and sans-serif for the footer. That's too many switches of font for my money. Serif fonts can look classy in a title or logo, so I wouldn't necessarily change that too much, but I think you should pick one font for the rest of the site. Personally, I favour sans-serif for technology businesses, but if they're after the "traditional" look, go with serif.

Under the hood, I've seen a lot worse. It was a pleasant surprise not to see any table markup there, so kudos for that.

There is acres of Javascript at the top of each page. For some reason you've got your photoshuffler script repeated twice, on the pages that don't use it at all! I suggest to wrap up all your bits & pieces of JS into an external file and just load it into your pages like this:

<script type="text/javascript" src="/brocks.js"></script>

It'll help your pages load quicker and also no risk confusing any validators.

Use the <p> element for paragraphs. You're doing this on most of the pages I looked at, but the home page has <br>s instead.

Resist the temptation to use inline CSS in your pages - it helps maintain discipline over keeping a consistent look and feel across pages, and it makes it easier to tweak things globally as you fine-tune the look.

You could consider marking up instances of the company name like this:

<span class="coname">Brock &amp; Associates</span> is a bonzer company.

You can then decide globally how (if at all) to highlight it. Your current look would be

.coname {
   font-weight: bold;
   font-style: italic;
   text-transform: capitalize;
}

Personally, I think bold, italic and all caps is a bit too much - but that's why I'd mark it up with easy tweaking in mind!

Despite all the above, it's very impressive for a first attempt.

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[monksnake]

Your page is definitely improving.

I'm going to make a suggestion though. I don't think the green font is a good idea, black is better. You want the page easy to read and black on white is the best contrast.

<.

 

[ascotta]

I managed to get a bit of time to re work the stuff yesterday, and boy am I glad I used mostly CSS!!

Thanks for the Javascript suggestion Chris as that is exactly what I was looking for. I couldn't figure out how to get it to work withoout including it when I didn't actually use it.

Dan again thanks for your suggestions, althoough I haven't figured out the non-javascript and non-mousey bits I was aware and it is work in progress.

I also figured out that tables were not the way to go, as the coding I have seen for them looks awful.

A contact form will be going in, again it is work in progress. I had one originally but then I thought seeing as the original plan was for us to host it internal like, that might not be such a good idea. However now we host it external then I don't have such an issue with it. Work in progress.

I work for Brocks although I have a pseudonym as Business Network Specialists, and the people in here really liked the drop shadows etc, I argued that you people knew better than I, and that I would be taking the advice from here rather than what they thought looked good. (Well they will win some design arguements, the ones I am prepared to aquiesse to.)

My thinking again was that peer review is good for the soul, and allows a step back from something that has taken a fair amount of time and learning to accomplish.

[blue] A perspective from the other side!![/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[chrissie1]

Yes it is much better. The only thing now is the black border around the content. Either leave it out or let it go around everything header included.

Christiaan Baes
Belgium

"My old site" - Me

 

[kim00]

ascotta - it's looking awesome - great work. I noticed your W3C images are sized incorrectly. They should be 88 x 31 instead of 66 x 29. They'll look alot crisper if you change the dimensions.

Again - good job... kim

 

[ascotta]

Thanks Kim, I tried to follow guidelines for images for link sites etc but had difficulty finding some for the W3C stuff, either that or I am blind, or both. Thank you for the sizing info.

[blue] A perspective from the other side!![/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[mmerlinn]

Things are definitely improving. You have done a lot of work on your pages and they look immensely better.

However, I do agree that most of your text should be black. If you think you must have some green text, think about leaving the headers green and using black text in the boxes.

Also, I have been looking at your Projects. Here is what I see when you hover over

1) Main roads: The prequalification box flows over and past the footer making the page look clunky. Maybe this should be split into two pages??

2) Land development: Bargara views does the same thing. No easy way to split this page, so the only solution I see is to condense the text on the page somehow.

3) the last letter of any of the left menu items: The link alternates back & forth between selected and unselected giving the link an unnerving flutter.

Overall, the whole site looks much much better than when I first replied.


mmerlinn

"Political correctness is the BADGE of a COWARD!"

 

[ascotta]

mmerlinn, I have had difficulty reproducing that issue, correction, I have not been able to recreate that issue. I will confinue to look at it, it all looks ok from here, If you could let me know your configuration then I can test and sort, thanks.

[blue] A perspective from the other side!![/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[mmerlinn]

Firefox on a Win machine.


mmerlinn

"Political correctness is the BADGE of a COWARD!"