Site Review Please 1

[treebean]

This is my first big site for a client on my own (formerly a project manager for a web company)...now freelancing, working with another designer, writing content, editing and creating my own code. Please review and provide any suggestions for improvement. I have some ideas for Phase II already. In addition, any information regarding successes in marketing a client site would be appreciated. Thanks.

http://www.crc-flex.com

treebean

 

[SPYDERIX]

Hi,

Very nice site.

A couple of things:

1 - I don't like your background image, you might want to stick to a solid color
2 - Would you consider making your color scheme more of a bluish color instead of the purple?
3 - You should make those aqua tabs look more sharp and clear and in focus, they look kind of blurry to me.
4 - Some of the text on the top banner part looks too faded, try increasing the intensity or the saturation or the opacity of the slogan.
5 - Why do you use imagemaps for your links. That purple bar with the two links should be made differently. Make a 1 pixel width by whatever height of that gradation from that bar and set that as the table cell background image. It will tile itself horizontally across the page and will help in your load time. Then just cut out your buttons and make those as pictures within the table cell. Same goes for your grey bar below it, and the very bottom bar.
6 - You might want to consider having some of your links either be CSS hover links so that people know absolutely that they are links, or if you want the images, perhaps rollovers to so that they do something when someone mouses over them.
7 - And finally, seeing as how this is a client site, you might consider making your custom error pages look exactly like the rest of the content, so that people have the option to quickly navigate to another part of the site that is within easy reach.

Other that that, the pictures and layout and load time are all very good. Loads nice and fast, (ADSL for me though), and I like the redundant navigation. Works on IE-6, NS-4.75, NS-6.2, Opera-6 and at 800*600 resolution.

Once again, very nice site, 9/10 from me.

Hope this helps!

NATE
design@spyderix-designz.com

http://www.spyderix-designz.com

 

[treebean]

Thank you, thank you, thank you - all of your comments are greatly appreciated! I just need a little bit of clarification:

1 - by background image, do you mean the animated .gif (rotating images).

2 - Color scheme: Believe it or not, the palette was not what I originally proposed to the client. The purple was design number two and only proposed because their letterhead uses a deeper purle than the color used for the Web site. I can definitely see using a more bluish tone. I'll check into that.

3 - aqua tabs: do you mean the tabs for the main navigation (e.g., About CRC, Products & Services, etc.)

4 - increase the intensity/saturation/opacity of the slogan - Will do!

5 - Imagemaps for links. The designer coded that piece of the site. I'll ask her.

Make a 1 pixel width by whatever height of that gradation from that bar and set that as the table cell background image. Can you point me towards the correct code or method of doing this so I can research this and understand fully.

6 - Links as CSS hover links: I haven't done this yet or if I did it was a long time ago while in web design school. I will try it out. I think I was counting on the users knowing what a link looks like. You make a very good point here.

7 - Custom error pages: planned for Phase II. I agree with you. I think that is very important. When I was testing the site I got a very unplesant Error Page generated by the host company.

 

[SPYDERIX]

Hi,

Ok my clarifications:

1 - I'm talking about whatever you have in the background outside the site. You have your site in a table top and center, well all around it there is what looks like a pattern. Just make that a solid color.

2 - If the letterhead and stationary is more purple then maybe you should leave it so that everything looks uniform. The website is promotional material too, so it should look similar to the other promo material that they have. I just don't see how that color scheme fits though. Not my personal choice I'd go with a more muted blue color tone. Your decision though.

3 - Aqua tabs - Yes the main navigation. And now that I think of it, you might want to put all those links together, either make more room for the tabs or puts all the links on the purple bar and perhaps stylise them a bit.

4 - [checkmark]

5 - I notice that you have removed that image. But this is what I meant.

<-- see that line it's width is 1 and height 23. Simply code this <TABLE><TR><TD BACKGROUND=&quot;line.gif&quot;> then put the link images

in the table cell.

6 - the CSS links are just text links that when hovered over change color or have the background color change, or bold, or get rid of or add the underline. I'm sure you have seen what I'm taking about.
<STYLE TYPE=&quot;text/css&quot;>
a:link.link
{
COLOR: #E5E5E5;
FONT-FAMILY: Arial;
TEXT-DECORATION: none;
}
a:visited.link
{
COLOR: #E5E5E5;
FONT-FAMILY: Arial;
TEXT-DECORATION: none;
}
a:hover.link
{
COLOR: #FFD700;
FONT-FAMILY: Arial;
TEXT-DECORATION: none;
}
</STYLE>
<A HREF=&quot;#&quot; CLASS=&quot;link&quot;>Click Here</A>

7 - [checkmark]

Hope this helps!

NATE
design@spyderix-designz.com

http://www.spyderix-designz.com