Site Check / Review

[nevets2001uk]

I have just created a site to document a bet that a friend and I are taking part in.

I would basically like to know what you all think of the design. I rushed it online last night and as I'm still in the process of tweaking the design I thought it was a good time to get opinions.

I would like to know how it works on different browsers nad resolutions and also an artistic critique of the appearance in general.

The address is

http://www.celebrity-hunt.co.uk

Thanks for your time,

Steve

 

[deecee]

site looks fine -- IE6 winxp 1152 rez

nice idea for the site

Sometimes the Answer You Are LOOKING for can be FOUND BY SEARCHING THE FAQ'S @&%$*#!!!

 

[GUJUm0deL]

nevets2001uk, hey nice idea for a site. Checked in IE6/winXP Pro/1024*768 resolution.
A few things though:
1) Main page has toooo many words, have some more pics or short blurbs instead. You want the users attention with catch-phrases and pics, not paragraphs...

2) I have no idea what the "thumbs up" means, is the logo?? If not, use some other eye-catching image.

3) Have some kind of a bg image, its too simple the way it is, anf if no image, then use some nice color scheme.

But its a great idea, and nice start...

[sub]I have this little thing, Advanced Delusionary Schizophrenia with Involuntary Narcissistic Rage. It's no big deal really...[/sub]

 

[nevets2001uk]

Yeah the thumbs up has sort of become our unofficial logo so we're using it on the pages.

As for the amount of text. Yes I agree there is a lot there! That was just something quick I knocked up after one of our nights searching for a celebrity. When the site is more complete we plan to have that main page for listing recent events and linking to the detail pages for each story / article. We have a little work to do with the page formatting within the actual content area.

We were going to have a faint thumbs up symbol in the lower right hand corner of the page but couldn't work out an easy way to do it. I set the image a cell background but it just tiles and looks stupid. If there is a way to just have the background image in the lower right of a cell then advice on how to do that would be cool.

Thanks for looking it over!

Is there anyone who users a non MS browser that could make sure it is mostly compatible? Thanks!

 

[GUJUm0deL]

nevets2001uk, hmmmm, have you tried to create the image effect desired in PS?? Like create a new image in PS (size about 780*500 perhaps) and then place the thumbs-up sign in the lower right (or anywhere you want that image) then play with the opacity and level, you can also saturation level to get a diff. color...


[sub]I have this little thing, Advanced Delusionary Schizophrenia with Involuntary Narcissistic Rage. It's no big deal really...[/sub]

 

[ChrisHunt]

Well, I like to think I'm something of a celebrity Hunt myself... (and NO, that's not rhyming slang!)

OK. To the point:

1) Like Guju says, home page is too busy. Keep it simple: A clear statement of what this bet is all about (I had to delve around halfway down the "About" page, most people don't have that patience). You should also have links to, and descriptions of, other sections of the site. The picture you have is good, how about a graphic showing how near you are to your target? like a "church roof fund" thermometer or something?

2) Look into using some kind of blogging software to do your day-by-day journal. It'll look better, and it'll also do a lot of the work for you with archiving and stuff.

3) "the thumbs up has sort of become our unofficial logo". You mean you're going to have an "official" logo too? The thumbs up is fine - though you might use it in more interesting ways. I wouldn't bother putting a background image under the main text, but you can align it how you describe easily with CSS.

4) On a stylistic point, I'd lose all the bits where you say stuff like "Katie and James we will have your pictures soon I hope" - it just makes your site look unfinished. When you get the pictures, post 'em up. Till then say nothing.

5) I'm afraid I think your prose style sometimes tries too hard to be funny, and only succeeds in being irritating. Pity, because when you're telling the story of meeting a celeb it can be pretty good. Let some of your text just be functional and to the point!

If you want to be (fairly) sure that your site will look ok on all browsers, declare a DOCTYPE for it (HTML 4 Transitional is easy to do) and validate it at

http://validator.w3.org/

. You don't pass at the moment, but there's nothing too difficult to fix.

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.extracon.com

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk