Site Review Part II 3

[tjcusick]

Ok I tried this once before but I'm going to try this again. I really don't need too much of a site review but I wanted to thank everyone for giving me a kick up the arse and get out of my "OLD" html ways. CSS is the way to go and I have a long road ahead of me... BUT I have managed to Update this site (

http://www.roadknightsmc.com)

using CSS. I think it is pretty good and so does the client.

I know I know I know, you all hate the BLACK background picture BUT when the client says, "this is what we want", even after giving them many, many options, a BLACK background picture is what they get.

Please give me feed back as to what you would change as far as the layout, what you hate, what you like (maybe?), etc...

The other thing that is bugging me is on the inmemoral.aspx page, the validator webpage is telling me the <embed> function is not defined correctly. If someone can give me some tips and points on how to update this using CSS I would appreaciate it or even point me to an example I would greatly apprecated it. What they want is the amazinggrace.mp3 to play when people go to that page.

Also I know what you are all going to say the initial page (when you type

http://www.roadknightsmc.com)

goes to index.html and I have it auto forwarding to index.aspx. I have been in contact with the Host site to figure out how to change the home page, but have not received an answer yet.

Thank you for all your feed back, I really appreciate it all. And I'll try not to take anything said from this point forward personally...

Thanks again,

Tom C

 

[glenmac]

Hi Tom, You may want to look at this site.

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/begin.htm

.

Glen

http://lantzvillecomputers.com

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

Please give me feed back as to what you would change as far as the layout, what you hate, what you like (maybe?), etc...

- Using images for navigation sucks accessibility-wise, as most browsers will not scale them. Credit for using meaningful "alt" attributes when images are disabled, though.

- The left of the two images in the headers look dreadful. I can't even work out what it's meant to be. Get a better version!

- The "Please visit and sign our Guestbook!" text on the first page is barely legibile against the background. Again, another big negative for accessibility. Perhaps use a lighter font? This goes the same for anywhere that dark blue is used against the black background.

- Re. the music / embed tag, why have music at all? I hate websites that not only force me to download music (1.8 Mb in your case!) and then to listen to it. Make it optional, but default to "off". That way, it saves my bandwidth, my hearing, and my sanity.

- The "News" page has far too many colours on it. It's not meant to be a "see who can use the most garish colours on a web page" competition... Keep it simple, and use a few colours from a well-defined palette across the site as a whole.

- The map on the location page sucks. Can you not buy / beg / borrow / steal / scan a clearer version?

I'll probably add more later, but that should keep you going for now.

Hope this helps,
Dan



Coedit Limited - Delivering standards compliant, accessible web solutions

[tt]Dan's Page [blue]@[/blue] Code Couch

http://www.codecouch.com/dan/

[/tt]

 

[johnwm]

Bit of a list I'm afraid, but here goes.

1. The header images on most pages need to be resized in Photoshop or whatever image manipulator that you use. They are being sent at a much larger size that they are displayed at, which wastes bandwidth, slows page loading and relies on the vagaries of each browsers' resizing mechanism.

2. Gallery
a. Gallery uses odd proprietary mechanism
b. No titles or descriptions
c. many very similar repeats with no explanation
d. Poor navigation - no exit to main site, no fast forward or reverse
e. Adult content with no warnings
f. Pictures different sizes

3. News page uses a hideous mixture of text colours for no apparent reason.

4. Location page has crudely drawn, hard to read map with no zoom - you might consider something like googlemaps. There is an example of how it looks on one of my sites:

http://www.ttkc.co.uk/map.asp

5. Guest book looks as if it has been copied from some free code site. Appearance not at all matching rest of site.

6. Contact us uses a mailto: link to guarantee lots of spam. You should consider using a webmail page.

7. Links page uses dark text colour on a black background

8. Inmemmorial links to a different (though equally duff) free code album. Looks completely different and has no proper link to the rest of the site.

9. Spell check required - even in US English Remembrance doesn't take an 'e' between the 'b' and the 'r'

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[BigRed1212]

On your front page you have

<a href="inmemorial.html">
<img src="images/Candle-07-june.gif" width="26" height="82" alt="Candle">
<span class="style10"> In Rememberance </span>
<img src="images/Candle-07-june.gif" width="26" height="82" alt="Candle">
</a>

which is two images inside a text hyperlink. I would put the images outside the link. If you really want them in there, then consider taking the blue border off like this:

<a href="inmemorial.html" border="0">
<img src="images/Candle-07-june.gif" width="26" height="82" alt="Candle" border="0">
<span class="style10"> In Rememberance </span>
<img src="images/Candle-07-june.gif" width="26" height="82" alt="Candle" border="0">
</a>

Although probably not needed, I always put in both places just to be sure the various versions of IE behave.

If you want that xxlarge blue text to consistently be a link, then you may want to consider making it a more obvious. Your style sheet could be simplified to remove the current conflicts on text decoration to something like:

a:link, a:visited {
	color: #006699;
	text-decoration: underline;
}

a:hover {
	text-decoration: none;
}

That will make link text have an underline that clearly signals "link" but which goes away when it is hovered on to provide user feedback that they are on the link.

HTH.

 

[tjcusick]

Ok i've gone through and done some of what was suggested.
Things i didnt do:
I didnt change the nav buttons, client wants them. (Suggestions as to how to make something that looks like buttons?)
Working on normalizing the pictures/slideshows.
Can't for some reason use a contact us form. The site keeps telling me that my PHP file does not exist when it clearly is there.


Things i did change:
i did get a new logo picture should be clearer.
I updated the location with an actual google maps map.
I changed the link color to a lighter blue and added the underline to the links.
News page colors changed.

I could use some suggestions for the Guestbook (its one that they used previously and i would need to keep their previous comments) and also for the slideshows? Is it just the In Remembrance pictures or do you all hate the microsoft slideshow one also?

Honestly i didnt realize they were different until you mentioned it. I did the first set of pictures a while ago and the second ones were more recently.

 

[ca8msm]

Suggestions as to how to make something that looks like buttons?)

http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/vertical13.htm

Can't for some reason use a contact us form. The site keeps telling me that my PHP file does not exist when it clearly is there.

I'd persevere and contact your host for help. Otherwise you will get lots of spam.


-------------------------------------------------------

Mark,
[URL unfurl="true"]http://aspnetlibrary.com[/url]
[URL unfurl="true"]http://mdssolutions.co.uk[/url] - Delivering professional ASP.NET solutions
[URL unfurl="true"]http://weblogs.asp.net/marksmith[/url]

 

[tjcusick]

From ca8msm (Programmer):
I'd persevere and contact your host for help. Otherwise you will get lots of spam.

I emailed the host site this question:

I put a PHP file on the website but when I use my form to submit it, it tells me:
Please try the following:
Contact the Web site administrator if you believe that this request should be allowed.
Make sure that the Web site address displayed in the address bar of your browser is spelled and formatted correctly.
HTTP Error 405 - The HTTP verb used to access this page is not allowed.
Internet Information Services (IIS)

The host site response to my question:

Hi,
Sorry, but the web server your site sits on is a Windows server, and does not support PHP files at this time.
We are looking at making changes to this whole community server thing, is PHP important to your project?

I responded with another email:

Well I wanted to get away from the Mailto: links for sending emails and wanted to use PHP for the contact form section.
So I would say yes it is pretty important.

I suppose the only thing i can do is keep asking them until they allow PHP code...
I can guess what some might say but I cannot move the web site because I have no control over where it is hosted. I believe the person who runs this company is part of the organization and thus it will always be at this host.

Are there any other ways to so submit forms without using PHP?

 

[johnwm]

You could check (since it's a IIS machine) whether you can use ASP or ASP.NET. They both have methods to handle email forms.

___________________________________________________________
If you want the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first.
'If we're supposed to work in Hex, why have we only got A fingers?'
Drive a Steam Roller
Steam Engine Prints

 

[tjcusick]

ca8msm (Programmer) 19 May 08 16:50
Quote:

Suggestions as to how to make something that looks like buttons?)

http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/vertical13.htm

Ok that seems pretty straight forward but my next question is what if i have some of these html codes defined in another css file that is used on the forms?

Or does the ul#<-- define it as different from ul{???

 

[tjcusick]

johnwm (Programmer) 20 May 08 8:53
You could check (since it's a IIS machine) whether you can use ASP or ASP.NET. They both have methods to handle email forms.

yes the site does support ASP. do you have a site/examples of asp forms?

 

[johnwm]

A quick google for 'asp email' brings up

http://www.w3schools.com/asp/asp_send_email.asp

which will get you started

___________________________________________________________
If you want the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first.
'If we're supposed to work in Hex, why have we only got A fingers?'
Drive a Steam Roller
Steam Engine Prints

 

[tjcusick]

johnwm (Programmer) 20 May 08 9:41
A quick google for 'asp email' brings up

http://www.w3schools.com/asp/asp_send_email.asp

which will get you started

Thanks it did help me, but i think i am running into issues with the host site again. When I press the submit button it gives me a HTML 500 error. It appears that anywhere i have <% code the website just dies...
Does that make sense that it would be server side?

 

[johnwm]

Sounds like the server isn't processing your ASP. Speak to your webhost

___________________________________________________________
If you want the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first.
'If we're supposed to work in Hex, why have we only got A fingers?'
Drive a Steam Roller
Steam Engine Prints

 

[tjcusick]

Working on the Picture Slide show I came across this nifty little CSS Slide Show. Its not a true slide show but i think it's nice. Unfortunately it takes forever to load and i only did 1/4 of the pictures... Suggestions/Comments?

http://www.roadknightsmc.com/new-pictures-new.aspx

 

[johnwm]

CSS slide shows of this type (disjointed rollovers) are most effective for fairly small numbers of small images, as the page initially loads all the full size images and all the small images which, as you have discovered takes a long time, even on a quick connection. You could look at loading thumbnails only, and making each thumbnail link to a page containing the matching full size picture.

___________________________________________________________
If you want the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first.
'If we're supposed to work in Hex, why have we only got A fingers?'
Drive a Steam Roller
Steam Engine Prints