Diving Lore - 2nd Draft.

He has: 43 posts

Joined: May 2005

Hello folks, I'm not a wizard yet so it'd be much appreciated if any web-masters could put my site through its paces. All comments appreciated! Smiling

Divinglore.com

:eek:

Thanks.

PS I have reviewed sites previously but it was a few months ago...
I'll review some more to keep the status quo.

Hi all folks,

This is what I hope is the final template to use on my website, I've used a tried and tested one in conjunction with CSS.

divinglore.com

You views, critiques and suggestions are most welcome,

thanks.

He has: 698 posts

Joined: Jul 2005

It's not bad at all. Perhaps you should use the same colors in your banner on your site, to match it a bit more.

Also, I don't think that 1048 x 768 is a resolution. Maybe 1024 x 768 is what you're going for. Wink

Kurtis

He has: 123 posts

Joined: Jan 2005

Your site does a good job with the marine theme and overall information on diving. Good job integrating Google ads in your pages, but I would use the blue-black gradient you used in your logo. I like the image maps you used to sort your pages by regions though I think a drop-down menu would organize your left-side navigation better. You may want to feature UK diving news right there on the homepage to give users an idea of what you've got, but this looks pretty cool already. Nice job!

Click here to submit your site to Haystack Web Search and get five free banner impressions.

demonhale's picture

He has: 3,278 posts

Joined: May 2005

It takes quite some time to fully load...

Looks ok... you could redo the Nav, put in some more texts... Or let the header expand to the width...

They have: 15 posts

Joined: Apr 2004

Here's a weird thing it does. The buttons cover the text.:

Also, I have my browser security settings on high, and it prompts me if I'd like to let your site run ActiveX. If I tell it "no", then your buttons don't appear. I've seen other sites, mine included, that use javascript move over to do this without throwing up the ActiveX warnings.

They have: 15 posts

Joined: Apr 2004

Also, your Asia section should include the Philippines. I've got the Lonely Planet Press "Diving and Snorkling in the Philippines" (I might have got the name slightly wrong), and it seems like an AWESOME place to dive, with 7000+ islands. I might go there in January to do some diving.

richplay's picture

They have: 19 posts

Joined: Sep 2005

Hello,

I'll be honest with you here, I think that you can make a much better layout with as much as couple of hours of additional coding. The first thing I would suggest is using text navigation (on the left), or maybe even rollover images with the alt tag defined. Second, CDNN Headline news text is blue, on a dark blue background, and I think that it's not a good choice. Also, I believe that you actualy need a real background. something that will make the content stand out more.

Keep up the good work, hope to see your website improve!

Busy's picture

He has: 6,151 posts

Joined: May 2001

On dialup with no flash plugin it takes a while to load, your banner is the problem, it's 182 kb, the map is only 50kb

As mentioned I don't have the flash plugin (and don't want it) so am stuck on the index page only. No wait the map is actually clickable, first time must of gone down the ocean. Blue links on black are hard on the eyes.
Some text on the main page would be helpful, something that isn't screaming at you in a heading.

The site doesn't fit 800x600 but you know this as you have "best viewed with ..."

I tried my country, New Zealand and first thing I noticed was the background is a different colour. This page looks like a different site as the links are text and is all centered.
The bottom of all your pages is a link to another site (for Hyperbaric Chambers), you should have a row of your own links at the bottom or people may think this is the end of your site, nothing more to see so go elsewhere.
White text on very dark blue background is also hard on the eyes, water isn't always dark, and diving isn't always to the bottom of the ocean, maybe a more userfriendly colour and a more user friendly navigation (offer text links for us no flash folk), and I'll even push it to making it screen friendly (different sizes)

The USA page has flash links on the right? and the bottom banner overlaps the bottom flash link (possibly)

They have: 8 posts

Joined: Sep 2005

Looks fine but i think if you improve the design of the nav it will look better Wink

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teammatt3's picture

He has: 2,102 posts

Joined: Sep 2003

Why does the Reseach Diving link hover black? The rest hover red.

I think you should add some more red to the pages, right now they are just too blue. The site is also very boxy. If you can, design the header with curves and align it left not centered. And don't forget to link the header to the main page.

The pages aren't consistent either, one page has a different style nav, and the next page doesn't have nav at all. You also should add some content to the main page telling what the site is about and what it does.

dougadam's picture

He has: 87 posts

Joined: Jun 2005

Is that your logo in the bottom left hand corner?

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