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Redesigned Site Review 4

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I rather like that.

It's very CSS boxy, but that's not a bad thing.

Yellow is perhaps a little overpowering, a tad too dark? This is personal preference of course.

Some of the edges of the graphics are a bit iffy, but nothing major.

Looks like it might be potentially useful.. I bookmarked it. ;)

 
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Thanks Foamcow!

I agree on the yellow and have planned to change it, along with the page background which I don't think is quite right.

Graphics...I see what you mean, i'll try to improve (crap at graphics)!

Thanks again!
Nice sites yourself btw. Toccoa in particular is excellent.

<!--#sig value=''É'' url='' -->
 
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Another redisign, Enzo? Leave it alone and write some new content! :)

Seriously, though, it looks pretty good to me, including the colour scheme (maybe make the main content area white and the menu yellow?). I found some nit-picking points that you may want to consider...
[ul]
[li]You should size (most of) your text in relative units - percentages or ems, or named text sizes. Using points or pixels means that it can't be re-sized in IE (many might find it too small as-is).
[/li]
[li]Why do you have two menus - a brown horizontal one and a white vertical one - and why do they have different things in them?
[/li]
[li]The search facility needs to be accessible from every page in the site, not just the home page. The search results pages should be laid out like the other pages in the site (and no doubt will be when you get it finished!)
[/li]
[li]The <title> of your page has a different layout at each level of the site. For more consistent branding, I think they should all be "SSI Developer: Page Title Here" or maybe "Page Title Here - SSI Developer" (the latter being supposedly better for SEO, the former being more readable).
[/li]
[li]Are you getting much income from the animated ads in the "Extras" box? Hope so, cos they're really irritating!
[/li]
[li]Consider making the picture of the keyboard a few pixels narrower, to crop off the lighter coloured blobs at the top- and bottom-left corners. Or paint them out with your favourite graphics program.
[/li]
[li]The pile of HTML-Kit screenshots have a slight white halo around them. Another job for the graphics program!
[/li]
[li]Make sure your image [tt]alt[/tt] text conveys the information in the image. For eye-candy images, [tt]alt=""[/tt] is what to put. Remember to add [tt]title=""[/tt] to stop IE putting the [tt]alt[/tt] text in a tooltip.
[/li]
[li]Do you really need a [tt]title[/tt] in every link? 9 times out of 10 it seems pretty redundant, eg:
Code: 
<a href="/main/terms.shtml" title="Terms of Use">Terms of Use »</a>
[/li]
[li]Under the hood, I still see a couple of layout tables. Time to "eat your own dogfood" vis-a-vis CSS Layouts? You might also consider using CSS-styled <ul>s for your menus.
[/li]
[/ul]
Enough to be going on with? You can get your own back when I realease my new site in a week or two...

ps. How do you pronounce "cian"?

-- Chris Hunt
 
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Hi Chris,

Apologies for the slow response, I didn't get a notification and have been too busy to drop by the site.

Some responses:

>>>Another redisign, Enzo? Leave it alone and write some new content!

Yeah yeah I know!!! ;)

>>>maybe make the main content area white and the menu yellow?)

I was playing with this but the left col when yellow looks totally out of place. The best option might be a complete colour change. Colour schemes are not my strong point.

>>>You should size (most of) your text in relative units - percentages or ems, or named text sizes. Using points or pixels means that it can't be re-sized in IE (many might find it too small as-is).

You're right. I just always had trouble with relative units. I'll try it though.


>>>Why do you have two menus - a brown horizontal one and a white vertical one - and why do they have different things in them?

I always believed in two navigation menus, one general and one more specific. I'll change the top one to be more like the left one.


>>>The search facility needs to be accessible from every page in the site, not just the home page. The search results pages should be laid out like the other pages in the site (and no doubt will be when you get it finished!)

There's a search link on the top right of every page. I hope that's enough.
Search results: true, i'll have to see if I can modify the Cgi script.


>>>The <title> of your page has a different layout at each level of the site. For more consistent branding, I think they should all be "SSI Developer: Page Title Here" or maybe "Page Title Here - SSI Developer" (the latter being supposedly better for SEO, the former being more readable).

Dead right, i'll change that.


>>>Are you getting much income from the animated ads in the "Extras" box? Hope so, cos they're really irritating!

Zero income, i've been planning to remove those ads.


>>>Consider making the picture of the keyboard a few pixels narrower, to crop off the lighter coloured blobs at the top- and bottom-left corners. Or paint them out with your favourite graphics program.

Well spotted! Will do.

>>>The pile of HTML-Kit screenshots have a slight white halo around them. Another job for the graphics program!

I don't see that actually but i'll double check each to make sure.

>>>Make sure your image alt text conveys the information in the image. For eye-candy images, alt="" is what to put. Remember to add title="" to stop IE putting the alt text in a tooltip.

Dead right again!

>>>Do you really need a title in every link? 9 times out of 10 it seems pretty redundant, eg:

Links have to have titles but I guess I could leave them blank.

>>>Under the hood, I still see a couple of layout tables. Time to "eat your own dogfood" vis-a-vis CSS Layouts? You might also consider using CSS-styled <ul>s for your menus.

I had serious problems using CSS for this layout. The last layout was almost totally CSS but one gave me problems so for now i'm sticking with tables. I also wanted the left col to go full length but had trouble achieving this with CSS.
It would only take me minutes to remove the main table and switch to css, the stylesheet is ready but i'll definitly keep tables for some of the trickier stuff. I gotta study CSS a bit more.


>>>ps. How do you pronounce "cian"?
Almost like "keen" or "Keane"(as in Roy Keane)


Excellent feedback Chris, thanks a million!!
It'll take me a week to make all these changes ;-)

<!--#sig value=''É'' url='' -->
 
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Hi mate,

Hope all is well. Just had a quick look at noticed a few things.

1) As mentioned above, the search link is on each page but because there are 3 different navigation sections, it's not too easy to see it at first. Possibly removing the URL from below the search may make it easier to pick it up when scanning the page.

2) I agree the colour is too overpowering. I'm on a laptop just now and the blue links don't stand out enough with the current background colour.

3) Probably for future use, but Sponsors is blank, might be better to hide it until you need it.

4) "Welcome to SSI Developer, your web design and development resource. This web site is about sharing the knowledge." The last sentance might be better as something like "This web site is all about sharing knowledge."

5) Get an image up somewhere (maybe the grey box next to the keybaord pic) stating that you were fetured on the BBC. This is a point you should play on as it provides some credability to your views. I just browsed the site for 10 minutes and never saw it anywhere other than the About Us page. (And only because I knew it was there)

All in all, these are small things. Other than that, looks great. [smile]

Wullie

Fresh Look - Quality Coldfusion Hosting

The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails. - John Maxwell
 
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Hi guys,

Glenmac - where do you get the error? I've never seen that.


Wullie -
1) Possibly removing the URL from below the search may make it easier to pick it up when scanning the page.

>>OK, will do.

2) I agree the colour is too overpowering.

>>This is a big problem. I'll have to take some time to play with colour schemes. On my laptop it looks ok though ;)

3) Probably for future use, but Sponsors is blank, might be better to hide it until you need it.

>>The 'sponsors' are actually Google adsense, so I have no idea when ads will be displayed or not. Maybe I can change the title and put something else below there ahead of the ads??

4) The last sentance might be better as something like "This web site is all about sharing knowledge."

>>Will change that.

5) Get an image up somewhere (maybe the grey box next to the keybaord pic) stating that you were fetured on the BBC.

>>I didn't want to milk this to much but perhaps I should. I'll put something on the front page about it.


Thanks for the feedback guys!

<!--#sig value=''É'' url='' -->
 
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With regards to the blank adsense things, I think you can specify an alternative in your adsense control panel for when they cant think of anything to display.

Could also be that user has Javascript turned off since AdSense is put on the page with JavaScript. Dunno.

 
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Hi,
I made a slight change, this any better?
I'm on a laptop at the mo so i'm not getting a true feel for the colours.

<!--#sig value=''É'' url='' -->
 
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hmmm... dunno
lol

How about putting a margin at the top, above the banner so there is some of the background colour there too?

And the colour, well it's still not quite right. I think it needs to be very light. I'm such a fussy git ;)

 
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Cheers Wullie ;-)

i'll need to de a bit more on it anyway, the top nav bar and footer bar colour is horrible too. I'm glad i don't do this for a living, i'd be in the "poor house".

<!--#sig value=''É'' url='' -->
 
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