critique my website (Animal Corner)

Looks good at first glance. There's a nice logo and colour scheme.

Navigating around, I'm finding it to be a little confusing when I click on a link and the page design completely changes. I think they should be mostly the same for each part of the site. You can make some minor design changes to delineate each section, but not to the entire layout. On some sections the main navigation stays on the page which is also confusing because I can't find where to get the content for that section - it's way at the bottom of the page.

As I navigate around, I'm noticing more of the same problem. The design keeps changing and although I appreciate your attempt to create interesting design for each page, I'm finding it to be confusing and distracting. A consistent style is really important in keeping a sense of place on your site. Otherwise people might think they were sent to a different site altogether. It's also important to make sure the navigation scheme is consistent from section to section. That way people will get used to how your site works and will always be able to find the links they need as they navigate around the site.

I do like the designs you have done for a lot of the pages. It's obvious that you've put a lot of effort into the graphics and it is creating a fun and interesting look and feel.

I think the Wildlife Corner design is the best and should be used as a template for the other pages (although I don't like that each animal is it's own "corner"!). There is a lot of "stuff" floating around the bottom of the page. All those logos should be cleaned up - either removed, or placed in a separate section with a coloured background or something. The navigation is getting lost in there.

From the home page, all of that content on the right side navigation doesn't need to bet there. You've got enough great content - you don't need to provide extra stuff to keep people around. If people want to read the news headlines they'll go to the BBC or something. The games are useful because they do relate directly to the content of the site.

One more thing - I somehow ended up with three windows of your site here. Links within your site should never open in a new window.

I like the logo design. very nice layout as well.

I'm goign to email you about a link swap, i like giving new sites a hand up.

I looked up three animals but didn't find any of them - squirrels (because we don't have them here), deer (which we do have here), monkeys was my third one but the page had flash content which I can't view, only found that through the search function as it wasn't under the rain forest heading

The first page looks quite professional and catered to all ages, where as the animal pages themselves look like they are catered towards kids. I think you should try keep one theme going through out the site as Megan has suggested.

You've put a lot of good work in this, and looks good, just needs that flowing connection

The front page has a good design, i like the layout and the top banners, but each page is not very consistant, i feel like i have been taken to another site, i have to reasure myself by looking at the URL.

I do however feel that the text needs to be bordered a bit better with maybe a background colour to make it stand out more, i keep getting put off by so much other stuff going on, i would break the text up a little with some pictures as well to keep it interesting.

Loose the google ads, i hate them and if you do feel they are necessary put them either at the very top or very bottom, never on the side or amongst the information....!

Hi,

I've bookmarked your site. I'm currently writing a children's book and think that your site will be helpful I like each of your top left logo. Your homepage seems a bit all over the place though. Maybe you can add a "Birds" category and then list out information about the different types of birds? I tried searching for "geese" and ended up at the "duck" section or a site with information about the "The Galapagos Islands".

Nice work, though. I know it's tough putting together a new site, too. We started ours last year (mygeekcommunity.com) and it's still not up to par to where we want it to be Suggestions and comments are always valuable to have

Again, nice work! I'll be checking back to get some info about animals for my book.

Take care!

New layout already in progress. I am aware of the consistency problems and I am working on it at the moment. Thank you for your praise and comments. I appreciate your review and have everything noted.

Thank you,

Your home page is great. But I realized that when I got to the rhino page, I could not get back to the home page? The header image of the rhino just links to itself.

Wonderful job.

Thanks for the input Arcadia, work is in progress, new layout, new design (ish) all errors are being amended. Watch this space. I'm working my butt off. No really, I want this to be my best yet. Animal Corner has come through so many changes, but with advice and input from this forum, I can see what really needs doing.

Thanks everyone.

1) Good domain name!
2) Loading is very slow...
3) Nice impressionas!

Helen,
webmaster of docredits.com

I like it , it`s cleaner than many of the sites I saw , but it could be useful to add more informations on the first page

Regards,
Dks

Thanks for all your responses. Working on consistency, absolutely.

I hope you all like the new design - css does wonders. But I have a lot of imformation to transfer. Large and complex site, I am focusing on easy navigation as I have main menu and lots of sub menus for each animal. Watch this space - site will be uploaded as soon as possible, working on drafts atm.

Thank you all.

All the best mandyjb for ur updations. We are eagerly awaiting AnimalCorner.

By reading the past posts i can see you have already pretty much fixed everything with the layout. It looks pretty good to me, but just try not to make it too complicated because the simple sites are usually the best and easiest ones to use

Jeff
http://www.devilthreads.com

Any comments on the new site format would be appreciated.

At first it appeared a bit dark with lots of lines, but I suppose they do relate.

The site is a bit slow to load, the images needa bit of compressing, the main logo is 107kb while the "click my sign to enter ..." is 48kb, this would be nothing for cable but for dialup it is noticed.

I like the creature feature, I been meaning to look up bass (fish) for ages as have been told they are like our trout.
The display page I don't like as much, the colours are the same but the layout has changed, the search function would be something good to continue with.

I know it's a lot of work but how about making two versions of your site, one for adults and one for kids (a kids version). I think the mix you have now is being lost, while the monkeys work with the adult the icons at the bottom dont fit in. If you did a kids page you could offer pictures of the animals they can print off and colour (with your link at top of page of course).

I wouldn't put anymore ads on the site, I realise the site needs funds to be run but when you ad to many people avoid them.

In some ways it looks like your trying to hard, simple is often better (and cleaner)

nice logo.. looks kiddie friendly

Nice logo, not to sure about all the different shades of green (front page). Move search from top right to the left. Appears cluttered at the bottom

As Busy noticed, those images don't need to be that large, they could be compressed a bit. The navbar is full width, but the rest of the design isn't, that's a bit weird!

That logo might be a little too complicated, what's in the circle, looks like clouds? Strange! The images in that logo are drawn in several different styles, that's noticeable; the elephant and gorilla look more 'cartoony' than the the giraffe for instance.

There's some random clutter that could be removed, the date on the left side isn't needed (everyone has a calendar on their PC), I've never heard of SafeSurf either, looks a little out of place where it is. Also the lines: 'Animal Corner [...] For all your animal information!' look like clutter, not the strap-line for your site. I think they're both the wrong size and in the wrong place, somewhere beneath the logo, or at the start of the text area might be a better place.

Am not a massive fan of the background colour, but the whole colour scheme is appropriate to what you're doing. Otherwise I can see you've been working hard to standardise the design and it looks good! There's a lot of--really good--content on this site, so much that it must be hard to manage by writing all the pages out by hand. You might want to look at getting a CMS to do the hard work for you. I'd recommend Drupal, it's a bit of a learning curve but it lends itself very well to what you're trying to do; it works using taxonomy

Sorry if my review seems a little harsh in places, what you've done here is really good, and the amount of hard work you've put into it is amazing! This site will do well, because of all the great content, and it's solid design. I'd wish you luck, but you don't need it.

The logo is kinda cool, but overcomplicated and much too large. Personally I would shrink it to at least half the height and move the logo text over to the right a bit so it maintains the text size. Remember, not everyone has a big monitor - for people with smaller screens, that logo is going to use up nearly three quarters of the available space!

Is all the information in plain HTML? If so, you should really consider a CMS in the future because updating the site is going to become a nightmare.

I love the masses of information your site has - it's great. I'm a big hamster fan and own four myself (two Syrians and two dwarves) If you want some extra pictures - feel free to use a couple of mine

Thanks for all your feedback everyone, all comments have been noted and work to amend a few things will begin shortly.

Andyk, I would love to put your hamster pics on in the hamster section, what are their names. I will credit them to you if thats ok.

Yeah that's fine. The photos all have the names on them (Minni, Maxx, Rygel and Da'rgo)

Looks pretty f9 2 me, I just think u need 2 add more colour's other than green.

I was not here to see how your site started out but from what I've seen and gone threw today it is amazing. The layout is great, the graphics look good to me, it was easy to navigate. The only thing that I really don't particularly like is the green empty column on the right I think just a single line would be better because when I see something that is blocked off I personally look for specific information in there that was important enough to be seperated from the rest. I like the logo just how it is now (I don't know if you've changed it since the other comments or not though) Overall great site and I think I will use it to find information on animals....

Cheers for all your comments, thanks for all your help. I hope you continue to enjoy the site. Creature features will be changed weekly.