critique me!

disaster-master posted this at 17:35 — 3rd August 2001.

Joined: May 2001

I posted this site about two weeks ago but since it is now at its new address I thought I would
start a new thread.

This is a business site that sells hydrants to fire departments and large companies who need alternative
ways to assure that they have adequate water supply should there be a fire. He also sells training tapes
and other speciality tapes. I don't really want the content critiqued as it is what the customer wants.

I am mainly concerned about the layout and the dhtml menu at this point. I know that the menu is not
compatable with older browsers and IE 4.0 on a Mac. I have looked at it in IE 5.0, 5.5 and NS 4.73 and
it is rendering pretty much the same. NS 4.08 doesn't show the menu I don't think. The customer
understands that the menu doesn't work in older browsers and is ok with this so we will keep the menu
for now. I changed some of the script and would like a new browser check.

There is a huge white space under the menu on the left hand side of the page that definately needs
something. Any suggestions? Or does it look ok without anything to you??

I have played around with different ways of secondary navigation for the sub menu items and have
placed links at the bottoms of the pages (in the light blue box)for items within each section. Is this
workable and easy to follow?

Only the first three sections of the menu are working at this time.
Home
Videos
Dry Hydrants
The others are under construction.

Megan had suggested earlier about doing something different with the logo at the top but that
is what is on the clients business cards and catalog so it will stay as is.

Any suggestions about layout/navigation will be appreciated.
EDIT: url removed by disaster-master

bilbong30 posted this at 03:06 — 4th August 2001.

They have: 406 posts

Joined: Feb 2000

Hey,

Your site looks good. I agree with Megan on the logo. If you client wants to keep it though, there isnt much you can do about it

Regarding the white space under the navigation menu. You do need to do something about that. I am on my laptop and seem to be scrolling down alot. There is a awful amount of whitespace. I suggest filling it in, or maybe taking some of the main content off the front page.

Lastly, I didnt really like the roll over colors you used. The menu worked fine, but the colors are not that great together. Try using some other colors or something. Just my opinion though

Best Regards,

Adam Lee
DigitalONE Design
President - Internet Division
[email protected]
digitalonedesign.com

Annette35 posted this at 05:10 — 4th August 2001.

They have: 46 posts

Joined: Aug 2001

Hi,

Opera - The menu does not show on Opera 5.12. Looks unbalanced with all the white space on the left. I understood the navigation using the text links - no problem there.

Netscape 4.08 - page wouldn't load properly at all (but no other site was either so not your problem), but could tell that the menu doesn't show.

IE 5.5 - Ahh, can see the menu. Umm ... I just don't like the look of the menu nor the menu combined with all the white space. Again not balanced, and colour not right for such a heavy block of colour. Just a suggestion - could you try the links without background colour - would take away the out-of-character heaviness??

Is it possible to code the menu so that it degrades to pure html links? I know a site that does this. Email me if you would like the link, then you can check how it looks in Opera and earlier browsers. Or check the Web Page Authoring forum for advice.

Otherwise the site looks good!

Logo does not link to home. Would be helpful to have the logo link to home for those the dhtml menu doesn't appear.

I would be concerned that the possible customer base would use older browsers / systems, but I guess the business owner has done his business plan and researched the market adequately regarding this.

Cheers,

Annette

disaster-master posted this at 05:35 — 4th August 2001.

She has: 2,154 posts

Joined: May 2001

Annette,

Thanks, I e mailed you so that you can send me that link. Got your address off of your site.

I am not comfortable with the menu but I need the subs. I just have to figure out what to use. I think the navigation has been the hardest for me to figure out on this site. I have never had one this big. It will probably have about 25-30 pages when finished. There are lots of products to be listed.

I see sites all over the net using menus like this. If anyone knows where I can find a menu similar to this that will work in more browsers please pass it on. Even Microsoft uses a menu similar to this so there has to be one out there.

disastermaster

taff posted this at 14:00 — 4th August 2001.

They have: 956 posts

Joined: Jun 2001

I use sidebar navigation (but not dHTML) quite a bit so the white space doesn't shock me so much. On the other hand, the width is somewhat excessive at 1024x768 and up.

Overall, I think the site is looking pretty good.

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