Before I go off to reviewing your site, here's what I'm viewing your site on:
- IE 5.5
- 800x600 resolution
- 24bit screen color
- Late at night where my mind is not thinking so well.
Generally, I would say your site is not too bad and not too good. So it's somewhere in the average range. Ok, your header seems a little to plain. Maybe the "Contact us, FAQ, etc" should be in the long gray table strip you have, which also should be stretch to 100% to fully fit the broswer screen. Also the "::" should be white. Your slogan "''We do that for less''" should be in a normal face font. I couldn't read it initially when I saw it. Your content area where it says "Once in a lifetime offer..." should be on the main page rather than in an iFrame. And the "News" should be above it. On the left side where the light blue rectangle is, I think it should be stretch down to the bottom of the page. Or you could make a background with a light blue rectangle on the side. The old business guy holding some money pic is not too visually appealing. Perhaps you should replace that with some hotties like a hot babe.
That is what I think so far. And of course, it is all my opinion. So we'll see what others think. Oh and I was just kidding about the old guy pic.
We do ask that before you post your site for a critique that you help others by reviewing theirs. So can you please participate in some of the other threads in the section and this will also help you by giving you ideas as well.
I have looked at the site and it's not bad if this is your fist attempt but needs some work. Both the logo & picture of the man are blurry and the 'We do that for less' looks scratchy and is quite hard to read.
I would suggest changing the font to Veranda as it's cleaner and much easier to read and will make the site look more professional. Don't underline text unless it's a link.
The 'Once in a lifetime offer' frame thingy isn't working well at all (at larger resolutions it covers half the blue side section which is something to do with layout but I haven't looked to see what exactly), frankly I would get rid of it as you could quite easily just have the text on the page, which will help fill it out a bit.
I would also just make the left side panel the complete navigation and not split it. The links top right look disjointed and so put them on the left with the other two and make them all similar to those ones, big text generally looks awful IMO as it tends to just look blocky.
You have a good starting point, now change the font and rethink the layout as at the moment it's just a bit here and another bit here, oh and one more bit there.
Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....
disaster-master posted this at 09:32 — 17th January 2002.
The gray bar at the top seems to adding a "drab look" to the site. Why not use a more exciting color like yellow? Use a different font beside the default like veranda or arial. I see that you have veranda on the FAQ page for the Faqs and the links on the left are default. The mistral font that you are using for "We do that for less" is jaggie looking and not very readable. Why not make youself a little image for this?
The image beside Media Discounter at the top....hard to tell exactly what that is. And the little man holding the money is blurry and it needs a border.
The iframe needs a border too beside just the scroll bars. In fact, I would probably not use the iframe at all. You don't have that much content to warrant using one. And the News section in the body isn't a good idea in my opinion. Your clients really don't care when you "go live".
Add some text links to your other pages at the bottom.
The money image on the Web Hosting page has a different effect and looks like it has been optimized too much.
The image on the web design page needs to be manually resized in a graphics program instead of using the image width and height tags to do this. That image is actually 1032 X 233 and is distorted because you changed its dimensions when you resized it using the width height in your code.
Loose the whatever is making the Aesop pages pop up behind your pages. That is very annoying.
Good luck!!
Frankster posted this at 12:56 — 17th January 2002.
The first thing that really bugs me about this is the fonts. Serif fonts just tend to look really bad on a screen - they're great for print but ugly for web. So change all of those.
I also think that you need to get some more organization to your layout. It seems to me that the layout is lacking in strong alignment and there's a lot of oddly shaped white space. One thing that might be helpful is to do a rough diagram of your design just using a series of boxes. It would look something like this:
That isn't perfect - you'd want to make sure the spacing between boxes was the same, and I'd probably be inclined to do something different with the top navbar.
Well, I for one don't dislike your site. I think you've got some potential here.
I am going to give you some criticism on your usability, however. (Remember, since you are selling website hosting and design services, every graphic and punctuation mark SHOULD be viewed even more critically than a standard "look at my personal site" website)
First, Your alignment is way off.
On my Mac screen the words "-Starting as low as 5.99/month!" run out of your blue border and overlap your text in the white area. Your nav bar on the top has the same problem because it is pushed down into the text area and overlaps part of your text.
I notice that you use "div" tags to separate your sections.
This can cause problems when your site is viewed on different size monitors.
Since you're not using any complicated roll-over effects that would require a separate layer, you can simply place your elements by using tables.
This will make sure everything stays where it supposed to be no matter what monitor it's viewed on.
Second, Navigation problems...
There is no way to get back to your home page and when I go to the forum section, I'm stuck. There's no way to get back to any of your pages from there.
I would suggest at the very least making your logo a link back to your home page and definitely include your nav bar in the header of your forums.
Third, Just a nitpick...
You need to un-center your text on the "Web Design" page. It just looks bad.
Lastly, I need to ask, does your company have a privacy policy?
(Ok... this is my egocentricity)
Before I sign up with anyone, I want to know that someone got my information because, I'm silly enough to list my address and phone# on my own site, not because my website designer sold my information to Publisher's Clearing House.
As I said, there is some potential there, but before I'd buy your services, you'd have to show me that your site design is a lot more polished than it seems right now.
Keep working with it... the more you do, the more you'll enjoy it.
The purpose of education is to
get more jokes.
Frankster posted this at 21:54 — 17th January 2002.
The IFrame is a bad idea, you have tons of space leftover on a page that is viewed on a 15" monitor! I cannot imagine viewing this on my 19".
Lose the guy on the top, he's just creeping me out...*LOL*
I would also change the way you have written your text in the IFrame.
Quote: We would like to welcome you as one of our first client. Having opened only in December, we want to spoil our first 100 clients. For a very limited time obtain the following:
:: 20MB of web hosting.(7.99$/month value)
:: 5 pages, custom design website.
(apx. 350.00$ value)
:: 5 seconds of professionally designed Flash Intro.(100.00$ value)
:: Maintenance including one reasonable upgrade per month. (23.99.00$/month value)
Total price: 21.99$/month
Buy Now
-All For the crazy low price of 21.99$/month. Basically, you're getting the hosting, 5 pages website, 5 seconds flash intro for free! Doesn't that word ''Free'' sound good? Aren't you glad you're one of the first customers to have found this site and that you can save 450.00$ and 9.99$/month thereafter? We cannot guarantee that this offer will be available for long, so don't delay, buy now! This small window might not be here next time you visit.
I'm not planning on reading all that, I just want the bottom line! Tell me what you do, how much it will cost and what I will gain out of the whole dealie.
I like the colors and you can make this a kickin' site, I know you can.
Doesnt look very pretty IN NS4.7 (doesnt support iframes)
IN Netscape6 the borders are default, add marginwidth="0" to your body tag, the top right nav bit is too small, the underlines are under the grey box (doesnt suit the rest of the layout anyways), the blue background on the left doesnt display (does in NS4.7 and IE5). Why are you using layers when you have tables with plain html? the iframe displays in NS6 but has a slight horz scroll bar and has an extra "var id = '28721';" at the bottom left of your page, source code shows
<script language="JavaScript">
var id = '28721';
Also have a slight horz scroll bar at 800x600 in NS6
In Opera6 (as Opera6 with everything on), it displays pretty much the same as NS6, except the iframe doesnt display, body margin problem, top nav bit to short, blue side shows but is to skinny, and the javascript var displays at the bottom.
I only checked out the index
Frankster posted this at 16:43 — 25th January 2002.
Alright, I really apreciated the comments I got here, for those who remembered the site, I modified what you told me to modify in most cases I think, do you like this one better? Oh and got rid of all the layers, they were new to me and went crazy and put them everywhere lol http://www.media-discounters.com/indextemp.htm
add marginwidth="0" to your body tag for 0 margin in Netscape and Opera
I think you need to play around with some CSS (dont go overboard ) change your link colors, use the a:hover esp (changes the link color on mouse over) also you need to resize the very bottom line of links, again this can be done with CSS.
That design laptop picture looks a lil corny, makes it look like an advert, try a more casual approach
keep to one font style and keep font sizes the same, hadings one size, links one size, content text one size, headings usualy are one size bigger than text and bold, but this is written in stone. also use whole numbers for font sizes (which all can be controlled by CSS), use 3 or 4, not 3.5
your code is realy messy, it displays similar in IE and NS4.7 but you make it hard for it to, heres an example: Welcome
the default font size is 3, so you dont need to size=3" font tags
Quote: Originally posted by Busy
your code is realy messy, it displays similar in IE and NS4.7 but you make it hard for it to, heres an example: Welcome
This is an example of how even Dreamweaver can write bad code when you don't know what you're doing.
Look at this one:
Quote: ...Plusevery thing else you need from a web host.>>Details>>test drivethe Control panel
This is also an example of why it's a good idea to use stylesheets
Want to join the discussion? Create an account or log in if you already have one. Joining is fast, free and painless! We’ll even whisk you back here when you’ve finished.
elusivemind posted this at 09:18 — 17th January 2002.
They have: 5 posts
Joined: Jan 2002
Wassup Frankster,
Before I go off to reviewing your site, here's what I'm viewing your site on:
- IE 5.5
- 800x600 resolution
- 24bit screen color
- Late at night where my mind is not thinking so well.
Generally, I would say your site is not too bad and not too good. So it's somewhere in the average range. Ok, your header seems a little to plain. Maybe the "Contact us, FAQ, etc" should be in the long gray table strip you have, which also should be stretch to 100% to fully fit the broswer screen. Also the "::" should be white. Your slogan "''We do that for less''" should be in a normal face font. I couldn't read it initially when I saw it. Your content area where it says "Once in a lifetime offer..." should be on the main page rather than in an iFrame. And the "News" should be above it. On the left side where the light blue rectangle is, I think it should be stretch down to the bottom of the page. Or you could make a background with a light blue rectangle on the side. The old business guy holding some money pic is not too visually appealing. Perhaps you should replace that with some hotties like a hot babe.
That is what I think so far. And of course, it is all my opinion. So we'll see what others think. Oh and I was just kidding about the old guy pic.
The silent rant
The Webmistress posted this at 09:28 — 17th January 2002.
She has: 5,586 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
Welcome to TWF,
We do ask that before you post your site for a critique that you help others by reviewing theirs. So can you please participate in some of the other threads in the section and this will also help you by giving you ideas as well.
I have looked at the site and it's not bad if this is your fist attempt but needs some work. Both the logo & picture of the man are blurry and the 'We do that for less' looks scratchy and is quite hard to read.
I would suggest changing the font to Veranda as it's cleaner and much easier to read and will make the site look more professional. Don't underline text unless it's a link.
The 'Once in a lifetime offer' frame thingy isn't working well at all (at larger resolutions it covers half the blue side section which is something to do with layout but I haven't looked to see what exactly), frankly I would get rid of it as you could quite easily just have the text on the page, which will help fill it out a bit.
I would also just make the left side panel the complete navigation and not split it. The links top right look disjointed and so put them on the left with the other two and make them all similar to those ones, big text generally looks awful IMO as it tends to just look blocky.
You have a good starting point, now change the font and rethink the layout as at the moment it's just a bit here and another bit here, oh and one more bit there.
Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....
disaster-master posted this at 09:32 — 17th January 2002.
She has: 2,154 posts
Joined: May 2001
Hi Frank,
I just few quick comments and opinions.
The gray bar at the top seems to adding a "drab look" to the site. Why not use a more exciting color like yellow? Use a different font beside the default like veranda or arial. I see that you have veranda on the FAQ page for the Faqs and the links on the left are default. The mistral font that you are using for "We do that for less" is jaggie looking and not very readable. Why not make youself a little image for this?
The image beside Media Discounter at the top....hard to tell exactly what that is. And the little man holding the money is blurry and it needs a border.
The iframe needs a border too beside just the scroll bars. In fact, I would probably not use the iframe at all. You don't have that much content to warrant using one. And the News section in the body isn't a good idea in my opinion. Your clients really don't care when you "go live".
Add some text links to your other pages at the bottom.
The money image on the Web Hosting page has a different effect and looks like it has been optimized too much.
The image on the web design page needs to be manually resized in a graphics program instead of using the image width and height tags to do this. That image is actually 1032 X 233 and is distorted because you changed its dimensions when you resized it using the width height in your code.
Loose the whatever is making the Aesop pages pop up behind your pages. That is very annoying.
Good luck!!
Frankster posted this at 12:56 — 17th January 2002.
They have: 12 posts
Joined: Jan 2002
Thanks alot!
, I'll modify it soon.
Megan posted this at 14:44 — 17th January 2002.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
The first thing that really bugs me about this is the fonts. Serif fonts just tend to look really bad on a screen - they're great for print but ugly for web. So change all of those.
I also think that you need to get some more organization to your layout. It seems to me that the layout is lacking in strong alignment and there's a lot of oddly shaped white space. One thing that might be helpful is to do a rough diagram of your design just using a series of boxes. It would look something like this:
http://www.meganjack.com/layout1.gif
Now, if you rearrange those boxes a bit you can get a much better arrangement of space:
http://www.meganjack.com/layout2.gif
That isn't perfect - you'd want to make sure the spacing between boxes was the same, and I'd probably be inclined to do something different with the top navbar.
Megan
Connect with us on Facebook!
Karen Cardinal posted this at 17:30 — 17th January 2002.
They have: 62 posts
Joined: Jan 2002
Well, I for one don't dislike your site. I think you've got some potential here.
I am going to give you some criticism on your usability, however. (Remember, since you are selling website hosting and design services, every graphic and punctuation mark SHOULD be viewed even more critically than a standard "look at my personal site" website)
First, Your alignment is way off.
On my Mac screen the words "-Starting as low as 5.99/month!" run out of your blue border and overlap your text in the white area. Your nav bar on the top has the same problem because it is pushed down into the text area and overlaps part of your text.
I notice that you use "div" tags to separate your sections.
This can cause problems when your site is viewed on different size monitors.
Since you're not using any complicated roll-over effects that would require a separate layer, you can simply place your elements by using tables.
This will make sure everything stays where it supposed to be no matter what monitor it's viewed on.
Second, Navigation problems...
There is no way to get back to your home page and when I go to the forum section, I'm stuck. There's no way to get back to any of your pages from there.
I would suggest at the very least making your logo a link back to your home page and definitely include your nav bar in the header of your forums.
Third, Just a nitpick...
You need to un-center your text on the "Web Design" page. It just looks bad.
Lastly, I need to ask, does your company have a privacy policy?
(Ok... this is my egocentricity)
Before I sign up with anyone, I want to know that someone got my information because, I'm silly enough to list my address and phone# on my own site, not because my website designer sold my information to Publisher's Clearing House.
As I said, there is some potential there, but before I'd buy your services, you'd have to show me that your site design is a lot more polished than it seems right now.
Keep working with it... the more you do, the more you'll enjoy it.
The purpose of education is to
get more jokes.
Frankster posted this at 21:54 — 17th January 2002.
They have: 12 posts
Joined: Jan 2002
ok, thanks, keep it comming
nicora posted this at 07:27 — 18th January 2002.
He has: 267 posts
Joined: Nov 2001
res(X,Y) : 1600X1200
OS : Win2000
browser : MSIE 5.5 sp2
OK, well this is an interesting site. I think that you are possibly hours from a much cleaner website. I'll just start from top to bottom...
Your top navigation should strech the width of the site, and take out the "::"'s. Or use a different font.
Your header looks like it got cut-off, what's up with that? Try to fill up more room to give a cleaner look.
Left navigation. I think that smaller text would look a lot better, and display the description in a tool tip AKA: title="my description"
I think that a better place for the "position:absolute;" old man image can be found.
And lastly, why are you using a frame set like that? I think that you could drop it all together.
Of course these are just my opinions, and I'm giving it this way because I too, see potential. Good job... but keep at it.
Hope I helped...
Joe Nicora
nicora.com
DC_Sara posted this at 10:57 — 18th January 2002.
She has: 392 posts
Joined: Jan 2002
Well, what can I add to this?
The IFrame is a bad idea, you have tons of space leftover on a page that is viewed on a 15" monitor! I cannot imagine viewing this on my 19".
Lose the guy on the top, he's just creeping me out...*LOL*
I would also change the way you have written your text in the IFrame.
I'm not planning on reading all that, I just want the bottom line! Tell me what you do, how much it will cost and what I will gain out of the whole dealie.
I like the colors and you can make this a kickin' site, I know you can.
Sara
~*Sara*~
Busy posted this at 21:46 — 18th January 2002.
He has: 6,151 posts
Joined: May 2001
Doesnt look very pretty IN NS4.7 (doesnt support iframes)
IN Netscape6 the borders are default, add marginwidth="0" to your body tag, the top right nav bit is too small, the underlines are under the grey box (doesnt suit the rest of the layout anyways), the blue background on the left doesnt display (does in NS4.7 and IE5). Why are you using layers when you have tables with plain html? the iframe displays in NS6 but has a slight horz scroll bar and has an extra "var id = '28721';" at the bottom left of your page, source code shows
<script language="JavaScript">
var id = '28721';
Also have a slight horz scroll bar at 800x600 in NS6
In Opera6 (as Opera6 with everything on), it displays pretty much the same as NS6, except the iframe doesnt display, body margin problem, top nav bit to short, blue side shows but is to skinny, and the javascript var displays at the bottom.
I only checked out the index
Frankster posted this at 16:43 — 25th January 2002.
They have: 12 posts
Joined: Jan 2002
Alright, I really apreciated the comments I got here, for those who remembered the site, I modified what you told me to modify in most cases I think, do you like this one better? Oh and got rid of all the layers, they were new to me and went crazy and put them everywhere lol http://www.media-discounters.com/indextemp.htm
thanks
Media-discounters.com
--Web hosting and design
at the lowest prices--
Busy posted this at 21:21 — 25th January 2002.
He has: 6,151 posts
Joined: May 2001
add marginwidth="0" to your body tag for 0 margin in Netscape and Opera
) change your link colors, use the a:hover esp (changes the link color on mouse over) also you need to resize the very bottom line of links, again this can be done with CSS.
I think you need to play around with some CSS (dont go overboard
That design laptop picture looks a lil corny, makes it look like an advert, try a more casual approach
keep to one font style and keep font sizes the same, hadings one size, links one size, content text one size, headings usualy are one size bigger than text and bold, but this is written in stone. also use whole numbers for font sizes (which all can be controlled by CSS), use 3 or 4, not 3.5
your code is realy messy, it displays similar in IE and NS4.7 but you make it hard for it to, heres an example: Welcome
the default font size is 3, so you dont need to size=3" font tags
Megan posted this at 21:42 — 25th January 2002.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
This is an example of how even Dreamweaver can write bad code when you don't know what you're doing.
Look at this one:
Megan
Connect with us on Facebook!
Want to join the discussion? Create an account or log in if you already have one. Joining is fast, free and painless! We’ll even whisk you back here when you’ve finished.