Analysis Please

That "musical" image on the left is jagged. I can see some white spots.

Remove the borders around your table. They look kinda "old". Build up a proper navigation system and not cramp up everything on 1 page.

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Goodbookmarks.com - If you understand the name, you'll understand the site.

1) Well, I hate to say this, but the site does look amateurish. I'll explain why...

2) Get rid of the splash page. It's just covered with your small logo, three ****py clip-art images, and a tiny enter button which looks like was taken from some other site.

3) The main site needs some help. In general you should look at the colors. You have a pink background with rainbow color rule bars. Not the best!

4) A second general rule is a good navigation system. You sorta have it all spread out, with the bulk of them covered a whole section. Not what you want. If you visit some professional sites you'll see that they use as little space as possible for a navigation system, and the rest is used for content.

I could keep going on but I'll stop. Overall I'd say you need to re-think a design, but before that maybe read a few books, and look at a few sites with good design. But if this was your first try then it wasn't half bad...

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Is this signiture short enough?

Splash page - they aren't alwasy bad, but if you want to give people access to your content as quickly as possible, a splash page isn't the way to go. Besides, those graphics aren't exactly of the highest quality, and they don't work well toegether.

A couple of things on here that scream "amateur": patterned background, default table borders, and rainbow graphic lines. Get rid of all of that. Learn about table backgrounds - those are really popular, and attractive design solutions.

As Justin mentioned, your navigation needs to be streamlined a lot. You've got a cramped little text link menu on there. It would be a better idea to put that in a left side column or something like that, where the headers are all listed in a nice organized column. Those brackets that just surround the inside of the text are confusing too. It's nice to see that you have a menu at the bottom of every the page, but it should be in one long row across the bottom.

Then you've got that list again, with explanations. You shouldn't need this. Maybe make a site map or index page that explains all of that and put more real content on the first page.

That's all I'm going to say right now - really, really look at what good sites are doing. They are not using patterned backgrounds. They are not using rainbow graphic lines. They are using things like table background colours, css for link hovers, table-based layouts, sans-serif fonts!!, left aligned text (do not center paragraphs of text), custom graphics (even if you can't do them, or find someone who can, there are a ton of free page sets out there that might be helpful).

Sorry to be so harsh, but hey, it's the truth. You've got a lot of great content on here, but you need a better design to compliment it.

Thanks one and all for the feedback. That is what I was after. I don't mind harsh as long as it's intended to be constructive.

Justin, the pink and the rainbows are intended to convey a subtle message. I can find other ways to do that however.

Megan, Guess I do need to do some research. I have no idea what 'css for link hovers' or 'default table borders' are.

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"mercy triumphs over judgement" James 2:13b

www.eighthday.org

Ok, here is some more info...

DEFAULT TABLE BORDERS = the borders around the tables. To get rid of them put border="0" in your <table> tag.

CSS FOR LINK HOVERS = css means cascading style sheets (or however you spell it). It's a language like HTML which goes right into your page like JavaScript. Link hovers are just a "feature."

COLORS = I can see why you want subtle colors, but I would research into design more then choose a different method for making the site seem subtle.

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Bill,

I agree with what the others said and in addition I would make the following changes.

1) The Scriptures Link - Break that down into smaller pages. You know, Old Testament, New Testament and maybe even smaller divisions.
2) Use a larger font on the Scriptures link, I think If you follow my advice on item number one, you could use a larger font on the smaller pages.
3) Don't center sentences, it makes it too hard to read. If it were a good idea, newspapers and books would do it too.

John

Off Topic - Where are the books Sirach and Third Maccabees come from, I'm unfamiliar with those?

quote:Off Topic - Where are the books Sirach and Third Maccabees come from, I'm unfamiliar with those?

I didn't figure this out either until I visited a Catholic Church and they have those added to the bible... At least I think it was Catholic, yeah.

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Thanks for the added info.

Sirach and III Maccabees and several others are what is called Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books. Protestants do not accept them, but the Catholic and Orthodox churches do consider them Scripture because they were used in the early church, e.g. Paul and others refer to them in the New Testament. A link for info is http://wesley.nnc.edu/noncanon.htm

Thanks again. In a few weeks or so when I make some changes I will pop back in.

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"mercy triumphs over judgement" James 2:13b

www.eighthday.org