Site Design Ideas/Current Site Review 1

[Tread42]

Site:

http://www.bruckens.com

I have been asked to start a partial site cleanup. I need to make the site usable and more user-friendly, with the following assumptions.

1. Don't change the look of the main page drastically, (stay with the black background and basic color scheme).

2. Lose the catalog pages and replace with a sample page containing links to a few of the special promotions.

Basically, they are looking to explain what they do to the general public and still have an area where current customers can see some product they are trying to move. If this works out they will expand the offering from there.

The problem is the guy who did the work initialy took them for all the $$$ they and left them high and dry with a site that is at best half-functional.

Just wanted to get your thoughts on possible improvements and major areas that need adjusted.

Thanks for your time/input in advance and sorry this post got so lengthy.

Regards,
Tread42

 

[GUJUm0deL]

Tread42, to start with center align the site, and add some CSS styles to the site.

Can't help with the rest, since most of all the pages lead to a "page cannot be found".

Hope this helps...

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

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

If designing for 800x600 (or any resolution, for that matter), you need to take into account that at full screen, the actual viewable browser area (for IE/Win, anyhow), is about 780x400 or so. This takes into account things like scrollbars, taskbars, etc.

Hope this helps!

Dan

 

[Tread42]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I will take them into consideration.

 

[Tread42]

There were some replies on here from a user named DravenDesign that detailed table layout with %.

Now today when I come to my post all are stripped out? Plus my reply has been altered, I asked a question to him and it is now not in my post?

Does that happen if he had managed to get banned or something? Not sure what is going on but his replies to me seemed all topic centered and not off-base?



Regards,
Tread42

 

[MichiganRon]

Tread42,

Yes, I beleive he posted something a couple days ago in another forum/thread which was against tek-tips policy. As a result, I'm pretty sure he was kicked off and his posts removed. He tried creating a new account yesterday to get around the system, but I don't see any comments from that account today either. I'm pretty sure he's been banned altogether.

He was generally a fairly helpful user. The moral of the story is: Follow the Tek-Tips user agreement if you want to use the site. Nobody is immune to review by management!

As far as his posts in this thread, I remember seeing them, but I'm afraid that I don't remember what he said. Sorry I can't help.

-Ron

-We all play from the same deck of cards, it's how we play the hand we are dealt which makes us who we are.

 

[Tread42]

Ron,

Thanks for the explanation. I totally agree that you have to follow the rules and was unaware of the other posts.

Thanks again for clearing it up.



Regards,
Tread42

 

[viol8ion]

I think he was promoting his own site rather heavily with a lot of his replies. A shame, because he was one of the more prolific contributors.

When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[jrbarnett]

Hi

The catalog and Specials links at the top point to IP addresses rather than machine domain names. Not sure if this is deliberate or a mistake.

No alt tags for the link images, and those for other images are all the same. Make them descriptive.

To give you some idea to see how accessible it is, get hold of Lynx and view the site through that. It gives a pretty good idea of what it will look like when accessed through a screen reader for the visually impaired.

John

 

[MichiganRon]

Wuli,

That may have been part of it. However, I'm pretty sure there was another reason, though I don't wish to discuss it. Yes, he was a helpful user at times. I guess it doesn't matter what he did, the point is that he broke the rules.

Anyway, this is off topic and I don't wish to get red flagged too, so I'm done talking about it.

-Ron

-We all play from the same deck of cards, it's how we play the hand we are dealt which makes us who we are.