Hi guys, need a site review:
Just redid my site, and need an opinion. Thanks!
____________________________________
Just Imagine.
Just redid my site, and need an opinion. Thanks!
____________________________________
Just Imagine.
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site review 6
- Thread starter GUJUm0deL
- Start date
Yes, sorry I meant vertically. I'm using 1280x1024 and viewing the site in the latest version of Firefox.
I only see two errors (about closing paragraph tags) and they are not complaining about the above line so have you changed it? The part that is does complain about though does have a closing tag without an opening one. Also, you've glossed over my suggestions about semantic markup and (in my opinion) this is your biggest problem and will stack heavily against you when looking for work.
Oh, and I'm sure johnwm wasn't trying to come across as rude. It was (in my opinion) a perfectly valid point even if you did find it harsh (after all, he's only trying to help you!).
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- Thread starter
- #22
ca8msm,
Which is why I rolled it off my back after first my reply to him. My other exchanges were civil and I also star'd him for his help. If I had held a grudge I would have ignored him, but I didn't.
In any case, thanks to all, there are no more validation errors. Can anyone point out something I missed?
____________________________________
Just Imagine.
Which is why I rolled it off my back after first my reply to him. My other exchanges were civil and I also star'd him for his help. If I had held a grudge I would have ignored him, but I didn't.
In any case, thanks to all, there are no more validation errors. Can anyone point out something I missed?
____________________________________
Just Imagine.
Yes, my original #1 point about semantic markup and inline styling.
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GUJUm0deL said:
To be perfectly honest, no, I can't. I've never worked in Cold Fusion, but it looks to be coming in via the HTTP headers as UTF-8 and you're attempting to change it to ISO-8859-1 in the HTML itself. I'd suggest taking a look in the Cold Fusion forum (forum232) to see how to fix it, then post it up to the hosting company.
Alternatively, just remove the Meta tag and all is well.
Hope this helps!
- George
My jaw actually dropped when I began reading this post. GUJUm0deL, I know you've been on here a while which actually makes your responses all the more shocking.
you ask us to give you a site review. would you rather us say "hey there, good job with the mediocre site! good luck getting more clients!" or would you rather us tell you the things we'd look for in a web developer?
your answers to johnwm were flat out offensive.
how does a web developer leave out a DTD as "an oversight"? understandably, you may leave out a title in an oversight, but a DTD should (and I thought was) the bible for web developers. it is for me.
then, you go on to tell johnwm that he is the only one that can possibly get that 404 error on your contact page, because hundreds of people have used it with no problems.
how would you know if they had a problem? the page wouldn't send you the message!
about the clients -- i'm glad you've got a few, but what do the "coming soon" links really tell us as potential future clients? only that you may be a little bogged down and not able to handle the load. i would consider removing them until your development work is complete.
and, not sure if this was already covered above, but may i suggest never saying "I" in a website that alleges to be a company with more than one person ("we") on the same page? i am referring to your FAQ page.
be more open-minded next time you ask for a site review. that's what you're going to get.
*cLFlaVA
----------------------------
[tt]mr. pibb + red vines = crazy delicious![/tt]
[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.coryarthus.com/[/url]
you ask us to give you a site review. would you rather us say "hey there, good job with the mediocre site! good luck getting more clients!" or would you rather us tell you the things we'd look for in a web developer?
your answers to johnwm were flat out offensive.
try telling your client that, or your clients customers, when they complain about functionality or accessibility.
how does a web developer leave out a DTD as "an oversight"? understandably, you may leave out a title in an oversight, but a DTD should (and I thought was) the bible for web developers. it is for me.
then, you go on to tell johnwm that he is the only one that can possibly get that 404 error on your contact page, because hundreds of people have used it with no problems.
how would you know if they had a problem? the page wouldn't send you the message!
about the clients -- i'm glad you've got a few, but what do the "coming soon" links really tell us as potential future clients? only that you may be a little bogged down and not able to handle the load. i would consider removing them until your development work is complete.
and, not sure if this was already covered above, but may i suggest never saying "I" in a website that alleges to be a company with more than one person ("we") on the same page? i am referring to your FAQ page.
be more open-minded next time you ask for a site review. that's what you're going to get.
*cLFlaVA
----------------------------
[tt]mr. pibb + red vines = crazy delicious![/tt]
[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.coryarthus.com/[/url]
also, go for a tableless layout. not an immediate need, but something you should address sooner rather than later. you could cut the clutter considerably.
*cLFlaVA
----------------------------
[tt]mr. pibb + red vines = crazy delicious![/tt]
[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.coryarthus.com/[/url]
*cLFlaVA
----------------------------
[tt]mr. pibb + red vines = crazy delicious![/tt]
[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.coryarthus.com/[/url]
-
1
- #27
Front page, towards the bottom
Should Coldfusion have a capital C? In the previous bullet, MS Access has capitals.
I'm not sure about starting a sentence with the word "And". When I was at school we were always told not to do this, although I believe it's more accepted nowadays.
Not sure if it's a short term issue, but the server is extremely slow to respond... actually it just fell over when I tried to go to the FAQ page.
Here's the error.
Perhaps some more error trapping could be added so the failure is more graceful should this happen.
At the moment the database appears to be down and out.
It's possible to enter invalid email addresses into the contact form. No biggie really.
Also, when an invalid entry is made, there is no indication of what is actually wrong with it. Which field was wrong and why? Also, it's necessary to re-enter all 3 required fields as the form is cleared.
The word "clientele" doesn't look right. It's spelt correctly but it doesn't feel right within the paragraph (to me anyway).
You aren't using page titles effectively. All the pages I can access have the same title, "Imajin Arts". Page titles are possibly the single most important SEO feature on a page. Trust me, they are gold dust for SEO.
As a case in point, I recently took a page that ranked nowhere in Google for an obvious search term. It now ranks in the top 3 results for a term returning 1.9 million pages. All I did was give it a relevant page title. The page itself is not well put together and the content isn't great (in my opinion) - it's something I inherited. That simple change to the page title did more than all the tweaking and fiddling the previous developer was doing.
Use your page titles effectively!
That's all for now....
<honk>*:O)</honk>
Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web site design in Cheltenham and Gloucester
Earl & Thompson Marketing - Marketing Agency Services in Gloucestershire
Should Coldfusion have a capital C? In the previous bullet, MS Access has capitals.
I'm not sure about starting a sentence with the word "And". When I was at school we were always told not to do this, although I believe it's more accepted nowadays.
Not sure if it's a short term issue, but the server is extremely slow to respond... actually it just fell over when I tried to go to the FAQ page.
Here's the error.
Code:
Error Occurred While Processing Request
Error Executing Database Query.
coldfusion.sql.DatabaseConnectionException: Timed out trying to establish connection
The error occurred in F:\Domains\imajinarts.com\[URL unfurl="true"]wwwroot\faq.cfm:[/URL] line 2
1 :
2 : <cfquery name="getFAQs" datasource="#IA_DB#">
3 : SELECT F.FAQ_ID, F.Question, F.Answer, F.TypeLookup_ID, TL.TypeName
4 : FROM FAQ F INNER JOIN TypeLookup TL ON F.TypeLookup_ID = TL.TypeLookup_ID
SQL SELECT F.FAQ_ID, F.Question, F.Answer, F.TypeLookup_ID, TL.TypeName FROM FAQ F INNER JOIN TypeLookup TL ON F.TypeLookup_ID = TL.TypeLookup_ID ORDER BY FAQ_ID
DATASOURCE downloadables
Please try the following:
* Check the ColdFusion documentation to verify that you are using the correct syntax.
* Search the Knowledge Base to find a solution to your problem.
Browser Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.0.6) Gecko/20060728 Firefox/1.5.0.6
Remote Address 82.33.18.83
Referrer [URL unfurl="true"]http://www.imajinarts.com/projects.cfm[/URL]
Date/Time 17-Aug-06 03:13 PM
Stack Trace
at cffaq2ecfm46892787.runPage(F:\Domains\imajinarts.com\[URL unfurl="true"]wwwroot\faq.cfm:2)[/URL] at cffaq2ecfm46892787.runPage(F:\Domains\imajinarts.com\[URL unfurl="true"]wwwroot\faq.cfm:2)[/URL]
java.sql.SQLException: coldfusion.sql.DatabaseConnectionException: Timed out trying to establish connection
at coldfusion.server.j2ee.sql.pool.JDBCPool.requestConnection(JDBCPool.java:746)
at coldfusion.server.j2ee.sql.pool.JDBCManager.requestConnection(JDBCManager.java:123)
at coldfusion.server.j2ee.sql.JRunDataSource.getConnection(JRunDataSource.java:138)
at coldfusion.server.j2ee.sql.JRunDataSource.getConnection(JRunDataSource.java:125)
at coldfusion.sql.DataSrcImpl.getCachedConnection(DataSrcImpl.java:120)
at coldfusion.sql.DataSrcImpl.getConnection(DataSrcImpl.java:75)
at coldfusion.sql.SqlImpl.execute(SqlImpl.java:214)
at coldfusion.tagext.sql.QueryTag.doEndTag(QueryTag.java:447)
at cffaq2ecfm46892787.runPage(F:\Domains\imajinarts.com\[URL unfurl="true"]wwwroot\faq.cfm:2)[/URL]
at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage.invoke(CfJspPage.java:147)
at coldfusion.tagext.lang.IncludeTag.doStartTag(IncludeTag.java:357)
at coldfusion.filter.CfincludeFilter.invoke(CfincludeFilter.java:62)
at coldfusion.filter.ApplicationFilter.invoke(ApplicationFilter.java:107)
at coldfusion.filter.RequestMonitorFilter.invoke(RequestMonitorFilter.java:48)
at coldfusion.filter.PathFilter.invoke(PathFilter.java:80)
at coldfusion.filter.ExceptionFilter.invoke(ExceptionFilter.java:47)
at coldfusion.filter.ClientScopePersistenceFilter.invoke(ClientScopePersistenceFilter.java:28)
at coldfusion.filter.BrowserFilter.invoke(BrowserFilter.java:35)
at coldfusion.filter.GlobalsFilter.invoke(GlobalsFilter.java:43)
at coldfusion.filter.DatasourceFilter.invoke(DatasourceFilter.java:22)
at coldfusion.CfmServlet.service(CfmServlet.java:105)
at jrun.servlet.ServletInvoker.invoke(ServletInvoker.java:91)
at jrun.servlet.JRunInvokerChain.invokeNext(JRunInvokerChain.java:42)
at jrun.servlet.JRunRequestDispatcher.invoke(JRunRequestDispatcher.java:249)
at jrun.servlet.ServletEngineService.dispatch(ServletEngineService.java:527)
at jrun.servlet.jrpp.JRunProxyService.invokeRunnable(JRunProxyService.java:192)
at jrunx.scheduler.ThreadPool$DownstreamMetrics.invokeRunnable(ThreadPool.java:348)
at jrunx.scheduler.ThreadPool$ThreadThrottle.invokeRunnable(ThreadPool.java:451)
at jrunx.scheduler.ThreadPool$UpstreamMetrics.invokeRunnable(ThreadPool.java:294)
at jrunx.scheduler.WorkerThread.run(WorkerThread.java:66)Perhaps some more error trapping could be added so the failure is more graceful should this happen.
At the moment the database appears to be down and out.
It's possible to enter invalid email addresses into the contact form. No biggie really.
Also, when an invalid entry is made, there is no indication of what is actually wrong with it. Which field was wrong and why? Also, it's necessary to re-enter all 3 required fields as the form is cleared.
The word "clientele" doesn't look right. It's spelt correctly but it doesn't feel right within the paragraph (to me anyway).
You aren't using page titles effectively. All the pages I can access have the same title, "Imajin Arts". Page titles are possibly the single most important SEO feature on a page. Trust me, they are gold dust for SEO.
As a case in point, I recently took a page that ranked nowhere in Google for an obvious search term. It now ranks in the top 3 results for a term returning 1.9 million pages. All I did was give it a relevant page title. The page itself is not well put together and the content isn't great (in my opinion) - it's something I inherited. That simple change to the page title did more than all the tweaking and fiddling the previous developer was doing.
Use your page titles effectively!
That's all for now....
<honk>*:O)</honk>
Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web site design in Cheltenham and Gloucester
Earl & Thompson Marketing - Marketing Agency Services in Gloucestershire
-
1
- #28
GUJUm0deL - The site looks good - I agree with ca8msm about the semantics but it's really come a long way in one day. Under the Guarantee section it reads: "Its your site, why not have the best of the best take care of it?" The Its should have an apostrophe "It's".
Also in the about section you say "Imajin Arts is more than just another web development firm" twice in one small paragraph.
...kim
Also in the about section you say "Imajin Arts is more than just another web development firm" twice in one small paragraph.
...kim
OK, here's a few more comments and points that haven't come up yet...
Overall it looks OK, though I'm not sure how well the orange works with the white and the grey backgrounds. I'd consider trying a beige/brown tone instead of the grey, and maybe a pale yellow background for the main text area.
The yellow area to the right of the menu looks a bit like a button, as if clicking it should do something.
I think it would look better if the orange bar behind your headings - "About Imajin Arts" etc. - stretched the full width of the text area rather than stopping short. The contrast between text and background could be better too, I'd either use a paler shade of orange or use white instead of black as the text colour.
I find the text a little uncomfortable to read. Maybe it's a little bit on the small side (the titles should certainly be bigger). At the very least you need to give it more [tt]line-height[/tt] to space the lines out and make them easier to read. I'd suggest a value of 1.3 (line height's one of the only things you don't need to specify units for! 1.3 = 130%).
The central "What Services Does IA Provide?" box looks a bit ugly. I'd give the whole thing a pale coloured background instead of that ugly grey border. It also needs some top padding to give the title some breathing room.
Within that box you have subheadings that are underlined, which makes them look like links. Never underline anything that isn't a link!
All that "satisfaction guarantee" stuff just reads like standard corporate BS to me, but it's no worse than the sort of copy you read on lots of sites.
Now let's take a peep under the hood. As others have pointed out, it's not a pretty sight to standards-aware developers. I don't think that's necessarily going to lose you much business - not many clients are techie enough to know, or care, about such things. But it should be a matter of professional pride to "do it right", and there are other benefits to be had too.
So let's get the table-based layout out of the way first. CSS layout is difficultif you're not used to it, so if you're happier using a table to do the complicated layout bit at the top go for it. You can always modernise it later on. But there's no reason to use a table to lay out the main part of the site, when you could just use a div with top & bottom borders and some left & right padding. It's the same with the What Services... box - there's no reason to use a table (still less two nested tables) to lay a simple box out this way in 2006.
You should give index_02.jpg an [tt]alt[/tt] attribute of "Imajin Arts - Just Imagine" - that's what people see on the image, so that's the alternative. Remember, anywhere you have a non-null [tt]alt[/tt] attribute, you can suppress the tooltip that appears in IE by adding [tt]title=""[/tt].
You've got a slight dose of classitis in places. For example, why give all your [tt]h5[/tt]s a class of "headerName" and apply the CSS to the class? Why not just apply it to [tt]h5[/tt]? (and, for that matter, why make it an h5 instead of h1 or maybe h2?)
As noted, your main text area is made up of three table cells instead of using CSS borders and padding. It's also using a background image to get a plain white background. That's just silly, what's wrong with [tt]background: white;[/tt]?
You've marked up the title of the inset box as
Surely this is a heading? So use some level of h element and set its alignment and boldness with CSS. You should also consider writing your headings in mixed case and using the [tt]text-transform[/tt] CSS property to push them into all capitals. That'll make it easier to change in the future if you want to (I think you should, btw).
Personally, I find that indenting code with tabs slews everything so far off to the right that it makes it more, rather than less, difficult to read. YMMV though.
This is an HTML document, not XHTML, so you should be have [tt]<br>[/tt] not [tt]<br/>[/tt] elements. Actually, those line break elements are mostly superfluous anyway.
There, that's enough to be going along with.
-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd
Overall it looks OK, though I'm not sure how well the orange works with the white and the grey backgrounds. I'd consider trying a beige/brown tone instead of the grey, and maybe a pale yellow background for the main text area.
The yellow area to the right of the menu looks a bit like a button, as if clicking it should do something.
I think it would look better if the orange bar behind your headings - "About Imajin Arts" etc. - stretched the full width of the text area rather than stopping short. The contrast between text and background could be better too, I'd either use a paler shade of orange or use white instead of black as the text colour.
I find the text a little uncomfortable to read. Maybe it's a little bit on the small side (the titles should certainly be bigger). At the very least you need to give it more [tt]line-height[/tt] to space the lines out and make them easier to read. I'd suggest a value of 1.3 (line height's one of the only things you don't need to specify units for! 1.3 = 130%).
The central "What Services Does IA Provide?" box looks a bit ugly. I'd give the whole thing a pale coloured background instead of that ugly grey border. It also needs some top padding to give the title some breathing room.
Within that box you have subheadings that are underlined, which makes them look like links. Never underline anything that isn't a link!
All that "satisfaction guarantee" stuff just reads like standard corporate BS to me, but it's no worse than the sort of copy you read on lots of sites.
Now let's take a peep under the hood. As others have pointed out, it's not a pretty sight to standards-aware developers. I don't think that's necessarily going to lose you much business - not many clients are techie enough to know, or care, about such things. But it should be a matter of professional pride to "do it right", and there are other benefits to be had too.
So let's get the table-based layout out of the way first. CSS layout is difficultif you're not used to it, so if you're happier using a table to do the complicated layout bit at the top go for it. You can always modernise it later on. But there's no reason to use a table to lay out the main part of the site, when you could just use a div with top & bottom borders and some left & right padding. It's the same with the What Services... box - there's no reason to use a table (still less two nested tables) to lay a simple box out this way in 2006.
You should give index_02.jpg an [tt]alt[/tt] attribute of "Imajin Arts - Just Imagine" - that's what people see on the image, so that's the alternative. Remember, anywhere you have a non-null [tt]alt[/tt] attribute, you can suppress the tooltip that appears in IE by adding [tt]title=""[/tt].
You've got a slight dose of classitis in places. For example, why give all your [tt]h5[/tt]s a class of "headerName" and apply the CSS to the class? Why not just apply it to [tt]h5[/tt]? (and, for that matter, why make it an h5 instead of h1 or maybe h2?)
As noted, your main text area is made up of three table cells instead of using CSS borders and padding. It's also using a background image to get a plain white background. That's just silly, what's wrong with [tt]background: white;[/tt]?
You've marked up the title of the inset box as
Code:
<div align="center"><strong>WHAT SERVICES DOES IMAJIN ARTS PROVIDE?</strong></div>Personally, I find that indenting code with tabs slews everything so far off to the right that it makes it more, rather than less, difficult to read. YMMV though.
This is an HTML document, not XHTML, so you should be have [tt]<br>[/tt] not [tt]<br/>[/tt] elements. Actually, those line break elements are mostly superfluous anyway.
There, that's enough to be going along with.
-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd
After all of this, you may want to think about dropping the "best of the best" claim... (j/k) ![[tongue]](/data/assets/smilies/tongue.gif "[tongue] [tongue]")
Hope This Helps!
ECAR
ECAR Technologies
"My work is a game, a very serious game." - M.C. Escher
Hope This Helps!
ECAR
ECAR Technologies
"My work is a game, a very serious game." - M.C. Escher
- Thread starter
- #31
[b}ECAR[/b], LOL
Thanks for the extra insight. Will fix those.
____________________________________
Just Imagine.
Thanks for the extra insight. Will fix those.
____________________________________
Just Imagine.
- Thread starter
- #32
Ok, I made several changes and add some other features. I also added two clients in the sections where I had a default blurb. I cleaned up the "Project" link as well.
Thanks all for the very thorough site evaluation.
____________________________________
Just Imagine.
Thanks all for the very thorough site evaluation.
____________________________________
Just Imagine.
I stopped posting my work on here ;-)
The critics are swines.
<honk>*:O)</honk>
Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web site design in Cheltenham and Gloucester
Earl & Thompson Marketing - Marketing Agency Services in Gloucestershire
The critics are swines.
<honk>*:O)</honk>
Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web site design in Cheltenham and Gloucester
Earl & Thompson Marketing - Marketing Agency Services in Gloucestershire
I think you should also take notice of what Chris said above.
Also, your contact us, FAQ and project pages don't validate:
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Hi
Now I remembered an accessibility advice for webmasters : never rely only on colors, because some people does not perceive them as you or not at all.
So the color-blind users may be confused when they read "Required fields are in red". I am not fan of the old fashion asterisk for required fields, but seems they are stil the best way.
I found this related document between my bookmarks :
Feherke.
Now I remembered an accessibility advice for webmasters : never rely only on colors, because some people does not perceive them as you or not at all.
So the color-blind users may be confused when they read "Required fields are in red". I am not fan of the old fashion asterisk for required fields, but seems they are stil the best way.
I found this related document between my bookmarks :
Feherke.
thanks to everybody, except cory, who spoke his mind and was punished for it.
damn critics.
*cLFlaVA
----------------------------
[tt]mr. pibb + red vines = crazy delicious![/tt]
[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.coryarthus.com/[/url]
damn critics.
*cLFlaVA
----------------------------
[tt]mr. pibb + red vines = crazy delicious![/tt]
[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.coryarthus.com/[/url]
And me ![[smile]](/data/assets/smilies/smile.gif "[smile] [smile]")
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GUJUm0deL said:
You can yourself by adding the following code to your application.cfm
Code:
<cfcontent type="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<cfset setEncoding("form","iso-8859-1")>Hope this helps
Wullie
Fresh Look - Quality Coldfusion 7/Windows Hosting
YetiHost - Coming Soon
The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails. - John Maxwell
- Thread starter
- #39
Wullie, thanks for that.
____________________________________
Just Imagine.
____________________________________
Just Imagine.
- Thread starter
- #40
ca8msm, I fixed those links, they are now validated.
____________________________________
Just Imagine.
____________________________________
Just Imagine.
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