Site Launch!!! 7

[SPYDERIX]

Hi,

Can you please review:

http://www.spyderix-designz.com/

for me. Tell me what you think of usability, layout, colors, etc.

AND

Please test my Tek-Tips login. There were some problems with it before and I need to know if they have been fixed. You will need the flash player to view it.

Thanks alot and have a nice day! NATE

design@spyderix-designz.com

http://www.spyderix-designz.com

 

[SPYDERIX]

Also,

I need people of this forum to check out compatibility. MSIE 4-6.0 Nescape 4.7-7.0, Mozilla, Opera 4-6, AOL, Macintosh, LINUX, UNIX, WebTV, and anything else you can think of. If there is a non-compatibility somewhere I need to know about it. I will be working on a text only site and a simple site for PDA's too. This site works in 800*600 resolution and up.

Thanks once again! NATE

design@spyderix-designz.com

http://www.spyderix-designz.com

 

[Wullie]

Hi mate,

I have had a closer look and also noticed a few mistakes. Bear in mind that I am Scottish so some of these may not apply to you.

Mistakes to note are as follows:

On the home page,


Spyderix Designz is (are) a small web design company situated in South Central British Columbia, Canada. In addition to Web Design (web design, no capitals) we create high resolution Digital Graphics (digital graphics) to suit any of your graphics (graphic) needs.


We are ready to assist you in creating a good looking and effiecient (efficient) website, both speed and appearance, for you.

I don't understand what you are actually trying to say here, but that sentance does not make sense.



Whether you want a website for fun, or to promote a hobby, local event, or to share information to other friends or family or whether you need it to promote your business, we are here to assist you.

You have too many of the word "or" and also I would steer away from using "assist" as this makes it sound that you will only partly help them to do the site.



We are willing to make your website and any graphics you will require as well as aid you in desisions (decisions) about hosting the site and domain names.

Another thing I would steer away from is "we are willing". The customer will be paying you for this service and you seem to be making out that you are doing them a favour.



Our methods consist of the old fashioned way of making websites.(a website?) We code all our sites manually so as to get the most effective website. We can narrow down redundancies and reducing (reduce) file size so that internet transfer is fast.

In this statement, you are telling the user that the current way is to use a program instead of manually coding. You are like to make them think "Why should I not use a program then and save money?" This is a bad idea to do this.


Unlocking the powers of the World Renound (world renound, no capitals) graphics program Adobe: Photoshop, we are able to assist you in making just (?) any kind of image to suit your needs.

Hope this helps Wullie

sales@freshlookdesign.co.uk

http://www.freshlookdesign.co.uk

http://www.searchit-now.co.uk

 

[SPYDERIX]

wullie,
Thanks for your input. I have corrected everything you pointed out. Thanks for all the tips.

fxcolin,
I have fixed all the stuff you have pointed out (How's that page now?)

GUJUm0deL,
I have eliminated the underline on the mouseovers.
And have made the links "Copyright" and "Privacy Policy" smaller. Why do you think the headers should be smaller? And I changed that line to: "We hope you enjoy your time at our web site."

I have tried numerous different colors for the link buttons, but nothing seems to appeal, so for now I am going to keep the color they are and the size they are. I need them to stand out so people know that they are links.

I am also adding a link button to the flash site so that if people don't have the newest flash player they can download it. I think I might make an HTML login too, so that if someone doesn't have flash or doesn't want flash then they can still login to the site if they are members.

Keep all the great advise coming! NATE

design@spyderix-designz.com

http://www.spyderix-designz.com

 

[cian]

Hi Nate,

Very late coming into this and i hope i'm not rpeating anybody.
(IE6 1024*768)

These are just small points but i'm on of those people who notice these things!

1. the date, i don't like the / after July and it might look better without the time.

2. Í'm not crazy about the text background,i'd prefer the text bg is black like the rest of that center col.

3. On the TT login box, I like to see a blinking cursor to know that i'm actually ON the text box.

4. I always like to see room at the bottom of a page, it lets me scroll content center screen.

5. On WebSite Design, if I take the first partr
We Offer... etc
The header We Offer stands out more than what you actually offer. Personally I think you need to make your services more prominent. Maybe indent them and make them bigger. I also would prefer just the first word capatilised.

then:
Please contact us to... where? I think the words "contact us" should be a link to your contact page.

Also, the services you offer should be a link to more information. From a buyers point of view then haven't found any significant information about these services. Contacting you to get this info should not be the first step. This info should be realidy available and seen on your site. imho.

6. On graphic Design
"Spyderix Designz will be able to assist you in making a graphic" Will you make the graphic or help them to do it?

Again Services, make em stand out!

"If you buy a website package from us then simple web graphics will be included" How simple? this doesn't sell well!

While I on this page can I mention consistency? On WedSite Design you had green lines on the page but not here, why?

7. On Portfolio, I think you should make a short paragraph with each example you give. Give the visitor some info about the example you are showing them!

8. On Contact Us, i think it might look better spaced out a bit more.
And the Spam and Virus notices are a bit too prominent. The contact info should be more prominent!

Hope that help, sorry for the long posting, hope I wasn't too picky! LOL

Good job Nate, great site!



É

http://www.endamcg.com/finland-gaa

 

[fxcolin]

Spyderix,
Thanks for the star.
I'm just glad you're receptive to constructive criticism.

The page is looking much better!
I'm liking the yellow text.

Later,
Colin "In life there are 3 types of people. Some that MAKE it happen, Those that WATCH it happen and some that say... hey! WHAT happened ???"

http://www.chefmedia.ca

http://www.fxstudios.ca

 

[xutopia]

lots of reading to do and I simply have less and less time so I might repeat what others have said. I may sound very negative too but before you flame me know that I realise you have talent and that talented people are the ones that know how to channel comments that are bad and good to get better.

1. links on the home page have a fader effect on it that is inconsistent throughout the site. I recommend using the same colors for all links on your page and either always use underline or never (don't change it on mouseover). Fade looks good.

2. do not have any links that lead to an under construction page. Disable the link until that part of the site is done or do not display it at all.

3. clean up by simplifying your page. for example on the right side of the page you put great effort into putting a border around the title home and right under you have a different box with home page. Visually speaking there is no psychological connection between these two aside from the fact that they are close to one another. You should perhaps attempt to remove the border around the home title and glueing the home page button with it. Or finding another way to simplify is good. Links and site of the month could be fused together into one simple category. Graphic Design and Photoshop should hold their hands a little tighter. Portfolio and gallery should be considered as well.

4. remove some of the image from your home page to make it load faster or make them smaller using imageready. If your page is more than 30Kbytes its a problem. 40 is a real issue. 50Kbytes is a back-button page.

5. try using a different color then black for your site. Black doesn't look professional (look at any big businesses).

Although all of this seems a bit negative I'm not claiming to be the best designer in the world. I recommend reading the yale web style guide. It's one small book. Available for free in its online version (just google it).

Overall I find that you should consider a career in Marketing as you have an eye for things. And I would also like to have photoshop actions for your duotone tutorial. Excellent effects that is.

I hope this helps. Gary

http://www.xutopia.com

Haran

 

[Kjonnnn]

1. PROOFREAD. It looks bad when you misspell "efficient" (effiecient) on your own site.

2. Take "small" out your first sentence. Don't sell yourself short. You'd rather have the option of turning business away, than the business not approaching you at all because you're "small."

3. The sentence about Photoshop sounds like your selling Photoshop more than your customer's graphic needs. The fact that you infer that you're a Photoshop "shop," implies that if there is something Photoshop can't do, you dont have the software to do it. I think you're using Photoshop as a selling point, but as customer, I'd want u to use "whatever it takes" to do my graphics. Focus on the goal ... great graphics ... not the tool ... Photoshop.

4. I hate the gray too. If I wanted an eye catching, exciting site, would I ask a company's who's own website is kinda blah looking, to do it?

5. On your web design page, there is no web design. You say WE OFFER (and take underline off of that, I thought it was a link). Then you list, design, maintenance, etc. Then you say contact us for more information. Guess what.. that's why Im on your site for more information. Give it here. If I gotta call you for basic stuff... I aint.

6. The Our Work section. You really like black, huh.

Just a few suggestions.

 

[GUJUm0deL]

SPYDERIX, I am using MSIE ver. 6 on a 17in monitor (at home) and a 15 inch monitor (at work), and my text size is set to MEDIUM...and on both monitors I still see "Online Help Forums" on two lines, and I also see "© 2002 Spyderix Designz. All Rights Reserved." on two lines...take a look here, I did a screen capture, and you can see what I see on my monitor:

http://www.geocities.com/gujum0del/screenshot.html

Why did you make the text bold?? It kinda hurts the eyes, i'd stick with white, but not bold.
I took a second look at the underlines for the links and they don't look good...

As for the grammer, I did find one thing:

We are ready to make you a website that is effiecient, fast loading and that has an eye catching appearance. Whether you want a website for fun, to promote a hobby, local event, share information to other friends and family or whether you need it to promote your business, we are ready to start your project. We are ready to make your website and any graphics you will require as well as aid you in desisions about hosting the site and getting a domain name.

We are ready to design a website that is effiecient, fast loading and eye catching. Whether you want a website for fun, to promote a hobby, local event, share information to other friends and family or whether you need it to promote your business. We are ready to start your project. We are ready to design your website and graphics. We can also aid you in making the right desision regarding hosting and domain name registration.


The website we make for you is coded with precision so as to eliminate redundancies and reduce file size so that internet transfer is fast.

The website we design for you is coded with precision so as to eliminate redundancies and reduce file size so that internet transfer is fast. In the portion in green, your making a bold statement. I would shy away from it, if the page does take a little longer to load on dial-up connection, the client can say that you didn't code it for that...too much hassle...


Unlocking the powers of the world renound graphics program Adobe Photoshop, we are able to suit your graphic needs.

Not needed. You can try saying:
Using our imagination and our clever techniques, we can design your site that can attract traffic, as well as make your site the best in the business. I have not failed; I merely found 100,000 different ways of not succeding...

 

[SPYDERIX]

Thanks for all your great input. The last 4 posts are perfect. I will need to go through them all quite carefully and make quite a few changes. I will post back in a couple days when I have fixed a bunch of things.

GUJUm0deL,

Is that AOL you are using. I noticed the window said Microsoft Internet Explorer providing by AOL and it has the AOL logo in the top right. Perhaps that is why you see things on 2 lines (different browser). I will have to look into that more.

Thanks everyone. Keep it coming. NATE

design@spyderix-designz.com

http://www.spyderix-designz.com

 

[xutopia]

a star from me to guju for taking the time to do a screenshot and uploading it. Gary

http://www.xutopia.com

Haran

 

[GUJUm0deL]

SPYDERIX, yes I am using AOL, however, I looked at the page outside the AOL window. I never browse anything from the AOL window because they distort the images, and page layout...but at home I have a cable modem (from Earthlink) and I still get that, so it cannot be AOL...


xutopia, thanks for the extra star ...I'm just trying to help... I have not failed; I merely found 100,000 different ways of not succeding...

 

[danielh68]

Hi SPYDERIX,

I didn't read all the posts. In any case, I like the design direction of your site. Some lighter values would compliment the darker ones, though. Plus, a sans serif font would work better than a serif font. Perhaps, Arial or Verdana. Hope this helps.

--DanH

 

[SPYDERIX]

cian,

- I have changed the "/" to a ",", but I think I'm going to keep the time. Not sure though
- the site is dark enough. I don't want to introduce anymore black where it is not needed.
-the blinking cursor in the Tek-Tips login I will have to look into. Not sure if that is possible or not. It's a flash movie.
- as for scrolling down past the page. The answer is a definate NO. That is one of my biggest pet peeves about websites. I think it looks so un-professional. It looks like search engine spamming to me. I always highlight those areas to see if they are spamming search engines.
- I made the services stand out
- contact us is now a link
- I will add more info about services very shortly
- I elaborated what I meant by "simple graphics"
- I added those green <HR>'s to the graphics page
- the portfolio page now has mini write-ups about what the sites are.

Onto the next long post by xutopia.

BTW - I don't care if you're posts are long, and I take no offense to any advise given. It's all very helpful information. NATE

design@spyderix-designz.com

http://www.spyderix-designz.com

 

[SPYDERIX]

xutopia,

- I got rid of all the underlines on the links
- I disabled the gallery page for now
- I made a home button and put it in the box below, is that what you meant, also I will space the sections out so that they look like they belong together (thanks)
- I'm keeping site of the month seperate from links b/c I want it to stand out
- the graphics page is what I offer as a service, whereas the stuff under Photoshop are all free. I need to keep those seperate.
- I will optimize that main picture for a smaller file size, I never did that when I made it (oops)
- I tried using a white background but it just doesn't appeal to me. Some webpages I'll agree look good with white, but some don't. I don't think this ones does. And I would have to completely re-do my color scheme (I don't really want to do that, I like the colors I have chosen. I need something to match the logo, and that defineately isn't changing.
- I will write you an action for that DUO-TONE picture. It's so easy to get that effect. Actually have you checked out my FAQ here on Tek-Tips? All those FAQ's on my site are mirrored versions (better versions, b/c on Tek-Tips I'm limited to VB) from this site. FAQ229-1922 I have added 2 more ways how to achieve this effect. They are much more simple but give the exact same effect.

Thanks for your input. NATE

design@spyderix-designz.com

http://www.spyderix-designz.com

 

[SPYDERIX]

kjonnnn,
- corrected the spelling of effiecient
- got rid of the word small [good call ;-)]
- I got rid of that sentance about Photoshop, I will use whatever is nessessary to complete the task
- What grey do you not like? The grey in the center? What color would you suggest? I'm trying to keep a theme to this site which matches the colors of the logo. I don't want a rainbow of colors.
- got rid of that underline on &quot;we offer&quot;
- I think black suites this site. I like to break away from the bright whites. and the typical webpages. I like to use darker tones of colors personally.

GUJUm0deL,
- first of all, I don't know what to say. I've checked this site at 800*600 screen resolution and in the following web browsers: MSIE-6, NS-4.7, NS-6.2, MOZILLA-1.0, OPERA-5, OPERA-6, WINAMP MINIBROWSER, and I don't see what you see. I'm really clueless and don't know what to do. Is your window completely maximized?
- I got rid of the bolding on the &quot;Copyright&quot; and &quot;Privacy Policy&quot; links, and the bolding is gone on the main text.
- Thanks for re-writing those paragraphs. They are much better. BUT...I substitued the word &quot;CLEVER&quot; to the word &quot;SKILLED&quot;

danielh68,
- I'm going to be keeping alot of the colors the same, but will look into some other alternatives.
- I tried Arial and Tahoma and Verdana, but I didn't like the look of them. I think I might embed one of my fonts into the page and see how that works.

I am still open to suggestions and comments on my phrasing.

Has anyone checked this site out on Macintosh or LINUX, or UNIX or any other OS, or any other web browser???

Thanks everyone! NATE

design@spyderix-designz.com

http://www.spyderix-designz.com

 

[xutopia]

<!-- no visual connection the items in the category are seperated from the title -->
<TABLE BORDER=&quot;0&quot; CELLSPACING=&quot;0&quot; BGCOLOR=&quot;BLACK&quot;>
<TR>
<TD>
<TABLE BORDER=&quot;1&quot; BORDERCOLOR=&quot;#808080&quot; CELLSPACING=&quot;0&quot; CELLPADDING=&quot;2&quot; WIDTH=&quot;135&quot; BGCOLOR=&quot;#808080&quot;>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH=&quot;134&quot; BGCOLOR=&quot;#000024&quot;>
<CENTER><FONT COLOR=&quot;#FFFFFF&quot;>Home</FONT></CENTER>
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
</td>
</tr>
<TR>
<TD>
<TABLE BORDER=&quot;0&quot; CELLSPACING=&quot;1&quot; CELLPADDING=&quot;5&quot; WIDTH=&quot;135&quot; BGCOLOR=&quot;#000000&quot;>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH=&quot;134&quot; BGCOLOR=&quot;#808080&quot; ALIGN=&quot;CENTER&quot;>
<A HREF=&quot;/&quot; onmouseover=&quot;window.status='Home Page';return true;&quot; onmouseout=&quot;window.status=' ';return true;&quot;><IMG SRC=&quot;../IMAGES/home.gif&quot; BORDER=&quot;0&quot;></A>
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
</TD>
</TR>
</table>

<!-- How you can make them seem to be connected visually. the items and the title are connected -->
<TABLE BORDER=&quot;1&quot; BORDERCOLOR=&quot;#808080&quot; CELLSPACING=&quot;0&quot; CELLPADDING=&quot;2&quot; WIDTH=&quot;135&quot; BGCOLOR=&quot;#808080&quot;>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH=&quot;134&quot; BGCOLOR=&quot;#000024&quot;>
<CENTER><FONT COLOR=&quot;#FFFFFF&quot;>Home</FONT></CENTER>
</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH=&quot;134&quot; BGCOLOR=&quot;#808080&quot; ALIGN=&quot;CENTER&quot;>
Home Page
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

Here is an example of what I meant with the visual connection between the title and the items in the category. Also you might consider finding a way that if you only have one item in the category that the title be clickable.

You could do that using JS :

<!-- how you could do it with CSS and JS -->
<style>
.on
{
background-color: #909090 ;
color: #FFFFFF ;
cursor: pointer ;
}
.off
{
background-color: #808080 ;
color: #CCCCCC ;
}
.myTable
{
width: 134;
}
</style>

<TABLE class=myTable>
<TR>
<TD class=off onmouseover=&quot;this.className='on'&quot; onmouseout=&quot;this.className='off'&quot; onclick=&quot;location.href='

http://www.spyderix-designz.com/'&quot;

align=center>
Home
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

Hope this helps. Gary

http://www.xutopia.com

Haran

 

[SPYDERIX]

xutopia,

I tried your code and I didn't like it. It looks too weird. The colors don't work when I do that. You don't think that the header and the stuff below it go together. I think they do. I can space the sections out a bit.

What about loading time now. I have optimized those pictures on the main page now, and a friend on dial-up siad it took 7 seconds to load the entire page. Is that better?

Also, this site is just the base site for now. I will be adding an interface when I get the time, and the site will change completely. I have a great idea of what I want to do, and I think I might change the bg to white, but I'm still not sure yet.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! NATE

design@spyderix-designz.com

http://www.spyderix-designz.com

 

[SPYDERIX]

cian,

BTW - There is a blinking cursor in the Tek-Tips login boxes. There always has been. Are you sure you clicked on it properly? NATE

design@spyderix-designz.com

http://www.spyderix-designz.com

 

[cian]

Hi Nate,

About the black background, I agree its dark enough I just wasn't mad about the dark grey bg on the paragraphs! Just my own personal taste, i dont like bg's on paras.

Login box, yeah I definitly clicked on it cos I can type my name and pass.

What you are saying about the headers not going with the stuff below. This is the feeling I had at first but I kinda like it. A little more space will help though.

Btw, my loading time for your page is under 1 second! Super fast today! LOL


É

http://www.endamcg.com/finland-gaa

 

[SPYDERIX]

cian,

Does the login box still not have a blinking cursor (or I-beam as some would call it)? I see it. Click on it and wait for a second, it'll show up, it should be a blinking yellow cursor the same as the text color.

I will space out those headers in about 5 minutes working on a bunch of other stuff here. I am spacing out that contact page a bit more. And just doing some little tweaks.

Glad the loading time is fast now. I still need to optimize the rest of the graphics on the site but that won't be too hard.

Please let me know about the Login as soon as you can.

Thanks! NATE

design@spyderix-designz.com

http://www.spyderix-designz.com