UncleMortis
Programmer
Hi, can I get some constructive criticism for a site I've made. . Would appreciate thoughts on improving or pointers on where I may have gone wrong. It's my first site without the use of Tables for positioning purposes.
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constructive criticism needed for my site... 2
- Thread starter UncleMortis
- Start date
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Seriously, it's a good start and you are well on your way. Keep it up, and full marks to you for using a CSS layout.
However here are a few initial observations....
As a start I would say that the white on light grey navigation is hard to read. Needs a bit more contrast.
The rollovers stick out of the right side of the nav (tested in Firefox). Is this intentional?
The header image might look nicer if it wasn't distorted/squashed.
Red/blue gradient is a bit harsh on the eyes, thought by far not the worst thing I've ever seen!
On the gallery page you could probably get the thumbnails' file sizes down a bit. 14Kb for an image that size is a bit hefty, 3-5Kb would be a better target size.
Having your email address on the contact page is probably going to get you on a whole load of spam lists. Try and use a form that doesn't have your email address visible on screen or in the code.
When working on CSS layouts it is absolutely IMPERATIVE that you specify a valid DOCTYPE at the start of the document. You may find that by doing so you avoid a number of problems further along the line.
On the homepage, you have escaped the ampersand in the Title of the page, yet not in the body.
Try and reskin the forum so it looks more like your site. Even changing the colours and adding a logo would help.
Make links obviously links, underline them, bold them, whatever. It's just important that they look different to ordinary text.
Finally (for now!), more pictures through the site would liven up the content. A good photo can encourage a visitor to sit and read a page. If they are confronted with just text, it's less compelling and they will more than likely skip it.
I'll stop there. I've not read the copy on the site or really examined the code closely. I think I've given you enough to get on with!
Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Buy Languedoc wines in the UK
However here are a few initial observations....
As a start I would say that the white on light grey navigation is hard to read. Needs a bit more contrast.
The rollovers stick out of the right side of the nav (tested in Firefox). Is this intentional?
The header image might look nicer if it wasn't distorted/squashed.
Red/blue gradient is a bit harsh on the eyes, thought by far not the worst thing I've ever seen!
On the gallery page you could probably get the thumbnails' file sizes down a bit. 14Kb for an image that size is a bit hefty, 3-5Kb would be a better target size.
Having your email address on the contact page is probably going to get you on a whole load of spam lists. Try and use a form that doesn't have your email address visible on screen or in the code.
When working on CSS layouts it is absolutely IMPERATIVE that you specify a valid DOCTYPE at the start of the document. You may find that by doing so you avoid a number of problems further along the line.
On the homepage, you have escaped the ampersand in the Title of the page, yet not in the body.
Try and reskin the forum so it looks more like your site. Even changing the colours and adding a logo would help.
Make links obviously links, underline them, bold them, whatever. It's just important that they look different to ordinary text.
Finally (for now!), more pictures through the site would liven up the content. A good photo can encourage a visitor to sit and read a page. If they are confronted with just text, it's less compelling and they will more than likely skip it.
I'll stop there. I've not read the copy on the site or really examined the code closely. I think I've given you enough to get on with!
Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Buy Languedoc wines in the UK
- Thread starter
- #3
UncleMortis
Programmer
Thanks heaps for that. There are a few things in there that I haven't even thought of and some that I probably should get thrown in html prison for. I did know about the firefox problem with the menu and when I saw it my mind's gears all locked. No it's not intentional 
I haven't had trouble with seeing the links on the menu, I have had someone tell me they found it hard, so perhaps a different colour would be a good idea.
I don't know why it is, but I seem to have trouble with pictures. I used photo shop to make an album for me and then used the resulting thumbnails etc and put them into my own page. I didn't realise how big they were, would have thought that because they are being made smaller they'd be smaller... I noticed the header picture looked a bit squashed to me last night, what can I do to make it "right"?
The red and the blue are part of the shop's colours and I wanted to incorporate them somehow, should I dull it down a bit. I haven't dared touch the forum yet, You'd think I'd have no problem if I'm using CSS in the site, but I've looked at it and have been daunted.
So would I be better off doing a form for email contact? I new the link was a bad idea, (touch wood, the email address has been pretty untouched by naughty spam), I keep seeing a java script where it breaks up the email address so it can't be harvested, but all of the explanations of it were airy fairy and I'm not a javascript wizard. I was of the impression the email address would still be in the form to send it out?
Links I agree, probably should stand out more, I'll go back and add the underline to them in the body. And more pictures to break up the text is something that I'll see if I can add as well. Yes You've given me a heap of things to do and food for thought, Thanks heaps.
Had to add, the site was proudly done in Notepad++ all hand coded. I love that little program.
Paul
I haven't had trouble with seeing the links on the menu, I have had someone tell me they found it hard, so perhaps a different colour would be a good idea.I don't know why it is, but I seem to have trouble with pictures. I used photo shop to make an album for me and then used the resulting thumbnails etc and put them into my own page. I didn't realise how big they were, would have thought that because they are being made smaller they'd be smaller... I noticed the header picture looked a bit squashed to me last night, what can I do to make it "right"?
The red and the blue are part of the shop's colours and I wanted to incorporate them somehow, should I dull it down a bit. I haven't dared touch the forum yet, You'd think I'd have no problem if I'm using CSS in the site, but I've looked at it and have been daunted.
So would I be better off doing a form for email contact? I new the link was a bad idea, (touch wood, the email address has been pretty untouched by naughty spam), I keep seeing a java script where it breaks up the email address so it can't be harvested, but all of the explanations of it were airy fairy and I'm not a javascript wizard. I was of the impression the email address would still be in the form to send it out?
Links I agree, probably should stand out more, I'll go back and add the underline to them in the body. And more pictures to break up the text is something that I'll see if I can add as well. Yes You've given me a heap of things to do and food for thought, Thanks heaps.
Had to add, the site was proudly done in Notepad++ all hand coded. I love that little program.
Paul
Whoa, color schemes way to bright. The navi menu color too light, hard to see the menu options in front of the neon blood red color.
having your email in plan visible sight is a no go, create a form where people can fill out and submit the form, much cleaner and more controlled enviornment for feedbacks.
Good attempt.
____________________________________
Just Imagine.
having your email in plan visible sight is a no go, create a form where people can fill out and submit the form, much cleaner and more controlled enviornment for feedbacks.
Good attempt.
____________________________________
Just Imagine.
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2
- #5
mkrausnick
Programmer
Regarding Foamcow's suggestion about posting your email address, there are ways to hide the address in javascript code but so the user doesn't see any difference. The free "email encoder" (as it is called) that I use is Hiveware Encoder -
You plug in your information and it responds with a window full of javascript, which you copy and paste into your document. The result is that your email address is displayed on-screen for users to click but does not exist in your html, so spambots can't see it.
Mike Krausnick
Dublin, California
You plug in your information and it responds with a window full of javascript, which you copy and paste into your document. The result is that your email address is displayed on-screen for users to click but does not exist in your html, so spambots can't see it.
Mike Krausnick
Dublin, California
More information about spam bots and how you might protect against the email harvesters here:
Cheers,
Jeff
[tt]Jeff's Page [/tt][tt]@[/tt][tt] Code Couch
[/tt]
What is Javascript? faq216-6094
Cheers,
Jeff
[tt]Jeff's Page [/tt][tt]@[/tt][tt] Code Couch
[/tt]
What is Javascript? faq216-6094
- Thread starter
- #7
UncleMortis
Programmer
Thanks for the comments everyone I'm taking everything on board. Thanks for the links too, I know almost nothing about robots,etc, and the email encoder looks like it should work a treat, (make me look really technical when I show the code, hehehe).
Something most of you have mentioned are the colours of the navigation and the red strip behind it. I don't have any trouble seeing the links on my pc or any of the others I've used. Is it just me who doesn't have any trouble seeing the links etc, or is it way too bright and needs colour changes or the red toned down?
Something most of you have mentioned are the colours of the navigation and the red strip behind it. I don't have any trouble seeing the links on my pc or any of the others I've used. Is it just me who doesn't have any trouble seeing the links etc, or is it way too bright and needs colour changes or the red toned down?
I took the the top image from your site and improved it a litttle bit. I could mail it to you if you want. Just click on my website and you will see how to find me.
- Thread starter
- #9
UncleMortis
Programmer
I'd like to thank Jazz88 for fixing the top image for me and coming up with alternatives to the colour. now has a new look. When I looked at the old version compared to the new version, whooooo, I was amazed. Thanks again Jazz88 for your help. If anyone's got any more input I'd appreciate it.
- Thread starter
- #11
UncleMortis
Programmer
Yes forgot to thank mkrausnik for his post, I've since used that for encoding my email addresses.
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