Do you know where you are?.. i hope so.

you're right, the interface does need some work. By reading the text here I can figure out what this site is about. It's not immediately obvious though and it should be.

If you look at the Wikipedia home page you can see right away that there is a lot of content there. There are immediatlely a lot of ways to get deeper into the site and find out more information. I don't know anything about acne, but there should be some way to structure information on the front page to draw people in further. You could do something graphically to present a list of things that people can do and promp them to jump in and go further (like read advice from others, add your own advice, whatever else you've got there). The "start here" link isn't working in this way - it's forcing people to go to a separate page, and I wasn't even sure what I was going to get when I clicked on it.

For a site like this, the search MUST be on the front page. Forcing people to click a separate link to get to the search is just annoying.

The visual design could use some work here too. There is no logo to speak of, which is vitally important if you want the site to get anywhere. There is also no real visual cue that this is a site for medical information. The flowers along the bottom look nice but they aren't related to the topic at all. Perhaps a photo of a dermatologist at work or something like that would be better.

I notice your "acnetreatmentinfo at googlemail dot com" contact bit at the bottom. Putting an email address up like that is not helpful to people at all. Sure, it might help you by preventing spam, but that's pretty self centered. Focus on the needs of the users - they are not going to contact you if it's not super easy. people are too lazy to bother translating "acnetreatmentinfo at googlemail dot com" into a proper email address. Here is a thread where we talk more about this:

http://www.webmaster-forums.net/showthread.php?t=33519

I was also thinking that with a site like this you will need a big fat disclaimer. You do not want anyone mistaking this with proper medial advice and suing you because they did something damaging based on something posted on your site. Actually, you should probably do some research and possibly consult a lawyer about what you can do to cover yourself from possible legal action.

the site looks good though it needs to add some more content.
when i visited the second page, i found some spaces in the navigation that is looking odd.

Was a bit hard to find my way around, the description has several links but those links don't seem to have links back. I see in the black line there is the bread crumb but they do not look like links, nor do the tabs.

I ended up on the search page and tried 'pus' and 'adult' as I remember seeing those words, but the results came back empty

Your blue is to light, a visited link (purple) becomes blackish against that blue hiding it.

The tabs should be more rounded, even if just on one end to look like folders if thats the effect your after, along with a banner to give it a less boxed look

I quite liked the site. thought it had frames at first though.

Hi henster,

I'll try to give you an honest assessment of what I think, as I am by no means an expert on building webpages.

Here are a few things that I noticed:

- i'm not too sure abuot the color scheme with the blue and the green (I guess they just aren't my favorites )

- Once I clicked on the Start Here and looked at the different tabs, I was wondering why all of them are the same color when you are not viewing them, except for the 'Uses' tab which is pretty much clear. Is there a reason for that? or are you just experimenting with different colors?

- Also, is there anyway to align the tabs closer together...there seems to be no standard form with the tabs, just kind of spread out any which way

- I clicked on Adult Acne I think...and then I eventually saw the link tree above with 'History: Testosterone > Acne > Sebaceous Gland > Acne Rosacea but as I clicked on Sebasceous Gland I thought it was take me back to it, but it when I did is just showed as History: Testosterone > Acne > Acne Rosacea >Sebaceous gland and just changed the names around. So is this not necessarily supposed to be a link tree? It just kind of confused me, but then again as I said, I am by no means an expert.

- And why did you decide to spell out the email addy? I don't think I've ever seen that before...

I hope this helps you tweaking your site and wish you the best of luck with it!

About Google adsense: I think the top and bottom 468x60 text ads need to be centered but good job with the colours. Adding 'banner only' ads, not just text ads, around the site would also make them more visually appealing.

Site in General: For the main top logo I would probably make the text 'Coffee Mall' Stand out much more, maybe just a full coffee color with white shadow. You may also want to add a little picture of a coffee cup or something on the banner, because their are only two pictures on your homepage and very few on the other pages. Pictures are important because a website full of text is boring for any visitor to look at!

I like the navigation of the site and the colours reflect well with the nature of the site. Good luck with it.

I had a look and I don't know, it didn't do anything for me.
I found it confusing and I hate being forced to become a member to view content.

Oops,

Thanks to everyone for replying! I just completely forgot to reply which was totally rude of me. Following a "see the light" moment I blew the whole thing away and started again in the end. I thought I had a great concept for the old site but it just wasn't usable... ( to the extent that you couldnt even see the concept )

Was it here that I read "Useabilty beats ideology everytime" ? ... Not catchy, but nicely to the point.

Cheers
-henry

Oh yeah, and the new one is up. Lacking a bit in content but I'm working on it... (the visibility of the content anyway)

http://www.acnetreatmentinfo.org

-h

I think I liked the last one better, this one is just too blah (of a better word)
It could be dressed up thou. The reflection in the links could work but showing reflection on mouseover instead of all the time, this way it would suit the site logo, which could be a size bigger.

Use a:hover (CSS) for your link, even if you kept them blue you could do text-decoration:none on a:hover or change the colour slightly.

I think your headings and titles need to be bold, you have font weight normal, maybe try default (bold), it will help seperate the sections as well as give some direction.

Also a few to many (which should be as your using xhtml) at the bottom of the page gicing it that frontpage feel.

It might even suit a vertical border between the two bottom bits, just add a border-left to the right div, or right border on left.

The picture in your logo looks like a poppie, the icons are good but it just needs something else. Acne is depressing so you need to add some life into it so as to make it interesting, exciting to cure ... I'm lucky I never had acne (the odd pimple) but if i did I'd want to come to your site and think - wow, this site could be the answer to all my problems ...

Thanks for the comments, good point on the non xhtml compliant tags. Old habits die hard.

I think I am using the pseudo class :hover. Thats a tad worrying if you're not seeing it. What platform/browser combo do you run?

The pics a blueberry actually but I see where youre coming from.

Cheers
-h