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View Full Version : Calling all critics!!!!

jessegut
02-21-2004, 11:21 AM
Dear Critic -

I have just completed putting together my very first website, and would like some real "no punches held," third party feedback on its layout, funtionality, and everything else.

It just a straightfoward 5-page HTML site, with nothing fancy.

http://www.erijes.com

Any and all suggestions are welcomed.

Thanks in advance for your kudos, suggestions, disgust, and/or brimstone.

jessegut:hmmmm:
Szara
02-21-2004, 11:46 AM
Taking a look right now :D

So far, I like it.
It displays better in IE than Mozilla...I'm having the same problem. At least yours wraps! ;)

Not done yet!

Can I take a look at your stylesheet?
azlatin2000
02-21-2004, 12:01 PM
Looks good except for the gigantic empty gaps :)
jessegut
02-21-2004, 12:11 PM
Szara -

Thanks for the heads-up on the Mozilla issue.

And, yes, feel free to take a look. In IE go to "view" in your tool bar and click on "source."

Best,

jessegut
Szara
02-21-2004, 12:15 PM
:( That gives me the HTML, but I don't know how to access your CSS file, the one called "default.css"?

I'm almost done looking :D
jessegut
02-21-2004, 12:24 PM
Szara,

Here's the style sheet.
Szara
02-21-2004, 12:24 PM
Okay, here's what I noticed. This is my first invited critisism of a page, and I'm a bit of a newbie too, so I hope I don't offend:

There's no declaration at top of the pages - the default given by 1st Page is <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
In left side, address section: could use padding rather than "& nbsp ;" - would make it less messy later on if you ever needed to change it.
Make more use of <p></p> for paragraphs - these also eliminate the need for too many <br>s - use <h1>, <h2> etc rather than different <p> classes for headings.
Anchor tags around copyright are missing the closers.
On "services" page, way too many <p> tags, with no closers. The style sheet should be able to define font properties within lists.
I LOVE the use of <br> between <li> arguments, don't know why I didn't think of it. Hope you don't mind if I borrow it?
Also like how the checkboxes are laid out, good job!
although I THINK, not entirely sure (don't use CGI myself) that you can put the name of the "interest" into the <value= ""> space instead of "yes", otherwise ALL your values come back as "yes" and you can't tell one from the other!

And that's my reaction.
I love the way it looks, very easy to read and navigate. This is your first site - how long ago did you start learning?

Keep it up!
pascal
02-21-2004, 12:58 PM
In your external style sheet you've added the <style> tag and the </style> tag. This is not neccesary, if you use an external css file.
jessegut
02-21-2004, 01:45 PM
Pascal,

Thanks for help with cleaning up my external script.

jessegut
jessegut
02-21-2004, 01:47 PM
Szara,

Once again, thanks for such a comprehensive review of my site.
I have already incorporated a number of your suggestions.


Cheers,

jessegut
MikeParent
02-21-2004, 02:39 PM
Looks nice, very visually pleasing - I would only say that the pages could use a little more visual interest (e.g. graphics, photos). Other than that looks very spiffy!
jessegut
02-21-2004, 03:14 PM
MikeParent -

Thanks for the suggestion. I have been considering adding a few more images, just haven't settled on whether they should be conceptual (like the sky photo) or whether they should be something more concrete.

I am open for ideas.

Best,

jessegut
Daybreak_0
02-23-2004, 04:48 AM
Hmmm well sorry I will be a bit more critical.

a) Font is too small, and as it is basically the same colour as the background I found it quite hard to read.

Light foreground on a dark background is always harder to read than vica versa. I have a good monitor and video card, but some of your clients may not.

Try not to have a smaller font than 12px, of course depending on what you font is - Verdana is normally what I use, but for example Arial is slightly smaller.

Consider who your target audience is. Do you really want even 20-30% of your audience/possibly clients struggling to read your web page. Nobody will care if it is slightly larger, but they will if they can not read it.

b) I also could not resize it. Many users do not know they can resize, but for the ones that do!

Try to use 'em' instead of fixed sizes.

I deal with a few older users, and I was surprised at how many actually had the text viewing increased in size as an option they chose.

Regards
Day
jessegut
02-23-2004, 12:42 PM
Daybreak_O

Thanks for your insight on font-sizes, and the color-on-color issue.

What is the best way to standard a font-size while taking into consideration different screen resolutions?

I wrote my web-page while using a 17 in. monitor at 1280 x 1024. I've seen what it looks like at 800x600, and it definitly has a different feel that what I originally intended.

Any suggestions on how I can maintain the original "white-space" of my design eventhough it will be viewed at numerous screen resolution settings?

Also, about the color on color issue, would you suggest that I change my text color to white?

Thanks again for your help.
bigdawg
02-23-2004, 03:10 PM
Under {media and publc relations}
It
goes
like
this
to read
it and
is diff
icult
to
read
in this
manner
Uncase it is misunderstood why I typed in the manner I did above was to show the difficulty in reading sentences in a pargraph that just consisted of one to two words per line!

And like Day said the type is on the small side! Other than that it was nice.


PS You have to be careful when you ask for critisism because sometimes they come out with both guns blazing:p

Cheers to Day

AS far as white goes on text it depends on your intended audience. White looks best against black but if you have users like Day mentioned that have a hard time with viewing small text they too will probably have a problem with white text.
MikeParent
02-23-2004, 03:27 PM
Daybreak has some very good points, (normally I am more critical than this...) and he is dead on about the font size thing, use em to specify font sizes... that way the viewer can at least use their browsers feature to increase the font size if they wish.

I would suggest white or light-grey even a lighter blue (like around #A7B9EF); something with some more contrast.
jessegut
02-23-2004, 05:13 PM
Bigdawg,

Great input with regards to the narrow paragraphs, and on the font-size issue.

This is just the type of hard-nose advice I was hoping to get from the forum.

Thanks a million!
jessegut
02-23-2004, 05:19 PM
Mike -

Thanks for clarifying the font-size issue, and your specific recommendations with reagrds to the color-on-color issue.

I am going to make those changes asap.

Thanks again for following-up.


Happy Monday!
Daybreak_0
02-24-2004, 05:28 AM
Originally posted by jessegut
Daybreak_O

Thanks for your insight on font-sizes, and the color-on-color issue.

What is the best way to standard a font-size while taking into consideration different screen resolutions?

I wrote my web-page while using a 17 in. monitor at 1280 x 1024. I've seen what it looks like at 800x600, and it definitly has a different feel that what I originally intended.

Any suggestions on how I can maintain the original "white-space" of my design eventhough it will be viewed at numerous screen resolution settings?

Also, about the color on color issue, would you suggest that I change my text color to white?

Thanks again for your help.

It hard to know what resolution a user will have, but I build under 1024 * 768 which is the most widely used at the moment. If you build based on that resolution and also allow the ability to change the viewing size you are pretty well covered.

White would be better, but again a light foreground on a dark background is always harder to read than the other way around. Leave that one to you - So many are now doing it the other way around anyway.

Regards
Day
MikeParent
02-24-2004, 06:02 PM
Originally posted by Daybreak_0

White would be better, but again a light foreground on a dark background is always harder to read than the other way around. Leave that one to you - So many are now doing it the other way around anyway.

Regards
Day

Ya but how boring would the web be if some folks didnt deviate :-)
Daybreak_0
02-26-2004, 01:52 AM
Deviation is ok, and light on dark for very small amounts of text is not bad, but at the end of the day it will depend on the purpose of the site. If personal fine, but if corporate.....

Then the site should be easy to read, and with approximately 20% of men experiencing some type of colour blindness, the last thing you want is your client or some bigwig in your firm complaining to you that they can hardly read the text.

Regards
Day
dabbler
02-26-2004, 03:18 AM
I know that problem all too well, Day!

My wife came home yesterday and showed me her new green skirt, and I said:

I like it very much - I love the greyish-brown colour! (I won't put her reply here.)

Honestly - that's how it looks to me! No wonder I have web design problems.

(EDIT: Sorry mods for going slightly off-topic)
jessegut
02-26-2004, 07:08 PM
Daybreak_O

Thank you for tipping the scaling on my decision to change the background of my page from color to a traditional (and more readable) white with black text.

Time again, people have been making the same point - that something was a little distracting about placing color on color in the body of a web page.

Now that the change is made, I like the feel & look, and I am confident that my visitors will focus on my message and not be distracted by something else.

Best,

jessegut
Jeff-o-
08-19-2004, 06:13 PM
my opinion is that i think it needs a background