Critiques by Professionals only? (No!)

IF you don't want critisism, then don't post here. Simple as that. This isn't the sycophantic webmaster thread

I'm waiting for one of my sites to appear here, and so you can rip into mine if you want.

Just to add oil to the fire, if you don't know what's wrong with tables, then you're in the wrong industry! Anyone still designing with tables for layout in a couple of years time will be considered a joke. I would read this:
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200512/ten_reasons_to_learn_and_use_web_standards/

Chris - there's also been an interesting thread going around the blogs about whether people who code with the old methods can still be considered "professionals". That's another topic though - if you want to debate tables vs. CSS please start a new thread!

Now, lets get back to the original site, shall we?

sorry Megan - but felt the link was important

I think the problem with the site is that it just looks generic - there's nothing to capture the interest of the viewer - it's a site that has been seen so many times before. I found the colours to be a bit jarring too - made it difficult to focus on the content (which is kind of ironic)!

Rude? how so? Would you take financial advise from someone whos in collections? Would you take health advise from a smoker or an alcoholic. Would you take driving lessons from some who has a huge record of car accidents. There were some harsh comments mentioned here about the site, and the people posting them had absolutley nothing to back their comments with! Megan, you work is great and if you look I always say "And everything Megan says" I respect your work. I would think people would like to get honest feedback from people who can deliver. Of course I could be wrong and maybe this is what Webmasters-Forum is all about. Thats why I post my own sites, so people can at least see if my comments are from a decent sourse.

If you took my comment more rude then the comments for the site amberstar702
has done. Then I deeply apologize. If I'm out of line. I'm sorry.

I just figure folks were looking for professional comments on how they can help make their site better. Peace

It doesn't make any difference who is critiquing the site.

If it is a professional designer, then you can take the advice from someone who knows the ins and outs of the field. If it isn't you can take the advice as being from someone who uses the web. (By the way, I consider myself professional - in the sense that design is how I make money! I don't put my work in my sig as I don't wants lots of form referals showing up and making my stats meningless)

Quite frankly any crits from "Joe Public" are far more worthwhile - they are the people who will use the site, they are the target audience for the vast majority of the sites. If they find it easy/difficult to use etc. then so will your target audience.

Yeah you do have a point mate, just sometimes people will know what looks good on a site without actually being able to do it for themselves. It's like a football coach knowing a player is good and knowing his strengths but without being able to match his skill level at all.

I do appologize, I "Thought" this was a place to get professional advise. I was wrong.

I just put my links in my sig so the person who I am pointing out some tips can actually see if I practice what I'm commenting.

Megan I only have 45 posts and you have over 5,000 soo I know whos out of line here. Me. Sorry

I don't listen to Movie and Resturant critiques as I find I'm in difference with what they think. If the Critique is only a matter of taste and personal preferences for something then I took this forum totally in the wrong manner.

I thought it was so others can improve on their site.

I've always wanted to live in an Ivory Tower - bet the view is great. Or is it a glass house?

Sorry to be fasicious - but you have take all comments on their own merits. Nor do I think that you are such a good designers that you can denegrate other peoples work with one sweeping generalisation.

The whole purpose of any request for critique is get advice from a large cross section of people. Look for people that you rate and only listen to them if you must, but why should "non professionals" be muzzled?

I wonder why jeeves isnt here... Anyways, my .2 if I might add, when I first started at TWF I had made sites that was horrendous (maybe I still do), because I was taking seriously what our teachers said before about designing sites, I noticed that styles and technology changes very fast on the net that what you learn in school before may not apply again after you finish it.
Well anyways as I started I got harsh feedbacks, put-downs, constructive criticisms, suggestions and all of those eventually helped me become better. Its like having support from friends, its not really that they hate me as a person, they love me enough to tell it straight to my face. I like it that way, so then and there I can change my mindset. I have deep gratitude for TWF, we all get frustrated sometimes, but Im glad i have these circle of people that are honest to say what they feel and get a well-recieved comment in what I feel at certain times...

Yeah i think i have gained more from asking people on MSN - "this site look ok to you mate?" - and having them saying 'menu is a bit confusing' or 'text is a bit hard to read' etc than from people saying 'oooh i see your coding is sloppy' which is what fellow designers usually say. A non-designer will judge it on the things i want it to be judged on - can they navigate round it ok, does it look nice, and in some cases are there any bad spelling errors, etc. No way would I just want the opinions of professionals; as long as they make valid points about the functionality of the site or the look of it etc. then i am of course going to listen to anybody who offers their opinion on the site. Whether they're still making geocities abortions or making some of the best, cleanest work in the world. I think saying that you only wanna listen to the people who are also in the business is the wrong approach, merely because you are limiting the amount of opinions you get. I'd rather i knew that 50 people could use the site properly than just knowing that a handful of pro's can use it.

It's the same as if you ask for a web site to be reviewed and somebody who isn't the best designer says something like 'wow that's awesome, beautiful' etc. Do you take it to mean less than if another designer said it? I don't, because that person still has eyes and is still getting that initial impact of the site and of course are entitled to say their thoughts, good or bad. After all, not everyone who visits is going to be a professional. If that's what you want to happen, you'd have some pretty pathetic hit stats come the end of the year

But when the code is sloppy or contains errors it can and will affect display hence screwing up the design of it.

There are many aspects to web development and a good design can fall apart when it's foundation has flaws.

Also...critques from a variety of people is good. You can have graphic designers who can make it look wonderful, but know nothing about code, you can have programmers who know code but have no talent for design, you can have people who do can both design and code properly, you can have people who can design and code properly, but who know nothing about backend programming.

Everyone who offers something can help.

Well, yes...it just annoys me that cos i use tables still (yes if they get phased out i'd stop) that people say it's wrong etc. and plus i still check my sites in every conceivable resolution and browser, on PC and Mac and they all display ok after a bit of playing, Dreamweaver-code or not. Just cos it's not Standards-compliant doesn't make it so shockingly bad or anything - that's just my opinion and i can't be bothered arguing about it again, it's why i left here in the first place ages ago. I concentrate more on how it looks, the colours, the placement etc, not the source code. If it looks ok on my screen and every screen and browser i test it on, i think that's ok. Just my opinion that, and while it might be wrong, it's worked fine for me for the past 3 years.

Anyway, moving on

I use tables. I use css to control everything, and I use css positioning even with tables, and my code is valid XHTML. It is not hard to learn how to write valid code..I'm almost 50 and I learned despite my middle aged memory problems. It's not hard to learn how to code it all by hand and do it correctly.

'correctly' is what annoys me

Still, like i said i'm all written out about this subject, my code usually isn't valid, yours is. End.

Nice sites btw

If anyone wants to debate tables use, now and in the future (in another thread) ... bring it on

Lex, you said "Would you take financial advise from someone whos in collections? Would you take health advise from a smoker or an alcoholic. Would you take driving lessons from some who has a huge record of car accidents." Strange that as a lot of health professionals smoke, a lot of athletes are alcoholics and/or drug users, taxi drivers have a lot of accidents ...

Professionals are trained one way, usually someone elses way, no matter what they are a pro in. Being a semi pro or not even a pro means you are still open to learn new styles, new methods ... without upsetting your balance of knowledge (or lack of).
If I ask friends or family what they think about my sites or things I do, I know I will get a "hey thats cool" or "nice" even if complete crap. Ask someone else and hopefully you will get the truth.

Talk to a rude person find out the truth, talk to a nice person and find out what you want to hear.

demonhale wrote: I wonder why jeeves isnt here...

Lack of time mate, otherwise I'd love to wade on in.

But let's not get into the bloomin' tables vs semantic design thing again, that's not what this thread is about!

Although I'd quickly like to add what the W3C has to say about using tables for layout (WCAG 1.0 Guideline 3):

W3C wrote: Using markup improperly -- not according to specification -- hinders accessibility. Misusing markup for a presentation effect (e.g., using a table for layout or a header to change the font size) makes it difficult for users with specialized software to understand the organization of the page or to navigate through it. Furthermore, using presentation markup rather than structural markup to convey structure (e.g., constructing what looks like a table of data with an HTML PRE element) makes it difficult to render a page intelligibly to other devices (refer to the description of difference between content, structure, and presentation).

And remember that the automated checks are far from perfect, to make something accessible we actually have to read the recommendations!

As for the type of person who reviews a site, it is important that both normal users and web professionals do reviews. Often a normal user will find something a professional will miss, a user is particularly likely to find anything that's too "tech" or ambiguous in normal terms, or any aspect of usability that might seem normal to a professional (mystery meat navigation is a good example.)

It's not only learning for non-professionals we're trying to promote. We're also trying to help professionals get into the mindset of the average user. Since the average user is - by definition - the type of person who is likely to visit your site, this perspective is invaluable.

Don't think this is all aimed specifically at correcting you, Alex. If you didn't realize it, there are probably others that did not realize it as well, so we just want to make sure we're clearer now and in the future.

Yeah sorry Lex, Busy's getting a bit slow in his old age. He's been typing that reply since this thread started.

But really I think he's just spoiling for another argument about table based layouts. Not again!

JeevesBond = 1217
Busy = 4,366
Lex = 53

I know where I stand. I appologize. Peace

Oh by the way . I use Tables for all my sites with CSS

Works for me.

I had an old thread about CSS and Tables combination, a good read for you lex...

Very nice site

You got to get constructive critizism. Even me, a website developer and internet marketing millionaire likes feedback. I just got some recently from a different forum and I used it to improve my site today. That's why I like this section of the forum. It's great for website owners.