Faded Me
Faded Me - site for a local band. The subdomain is just temporary, their real domain (fadedme.com) will be pointed to it when the site is finished. There are a few holes in the content that'll be filled before the site goes live.
The only validation errors are for the embedded Flash MP3 player and character/line break issues with content pulled from the database -- which is submitted by the band members -- So I don't wanna hear any whining about it
Megan posted this at 13:42 — 20th July 2005.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Looks good. Excellent look and feel, good design. I like the scrolly graphics and navbar. That looks really good. Have you tried toying with the logo position? I'm feeling like it's a little too far to the right and maybe a little too small too. It's leading me off the edge of the page. Right side logos are sometimes fun but in this case it might be better to put it on the left. Because of the tapered text it really works to lead the eye to the right, whoch would be a good thing if placed on the left.
Oh, I see, that's rotating. Cool! I like the one with the boots the best. You can really see the difference with the logo there. I would consider keeping the logo in the exact same position all the time and just rotating the background.
I actually don't hate the use of iframes here. I thiink this is a first! The front page looks excellent overall. When browsing the other pages, though, I'm noticing a relative lack of attention to detail. They don't look as well cared for as the front page. Maybe some scrolly separators would work on the journal page, for example, and the tour page could be divided into two or three columns with borders of some sort. That column is way too long and narrow as it is.
The "merch" label didn't make sense to me. "Store" would be better.
Megan
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BRCI posted this at 13:58 — 20th July 2005.
He has: 26 posts
Joined: Jun 2005
Great Site!! Great band!!
chris_bcn posted this at 16:18 — 20th July 2005.
They have: 56 posts
Joined: Jun 2005
Looks good.
I would suggest a little feedback on the top nav though - even just a hover state would make a world of difference.
The text links a re also a little bit too similar to the background. Not a problem for most people, but some slightly vision impaired people might have problems reading it.
The contact form lines up horribly in FF - looks a bit of a messs to be honest
The buttons seem yo have been copied form Paypal - and they don't fit in with the theme of the rest of the site.
I know you didn't want to hear it but ... 902 validation errors!!!!!!!! and not all of them as a result of the mp3 player
I don't mind iframes especially, although I think 3 is overkill, but I don't like proprietary CSS being used for IE - the scrollbars.
Sorry if I'm being harsh, but I think the site has a lot of potential, it just needs much more attention to detail (remember, that's where "God" is. allegedly)
IanD posted this at 17:33 — 20th July 2005.
They have: 222 posts
Joined: Sep 1999
Thanks for the tips
It's not actually iframes, it's just a CSS element with the overflow attribute set to auto. I was given PSDs from the graphics guy to build the back end, and that's how he had it setup. I think it's a good way to handle it anyway.
"merch" stands for "merchendise."
What do you mean about "feedback"? It has alt text. Do you mean the image changing colors on hover?
How'd you get 902 errors? W3C's validator returned 173, all of which are either from the MP3 player or character/line break issues which I'm not concerned about.
The scrollbar colors are not a big deal at all. It doesn't have any negative effects in browsers that don't support it, all it does is add color to the scrollbars in IE. I'm all for standards, but no one is hurt by IE allowing some control over the browser's appearance.
I agree about the news, tour and journal pages needing some details. I'm not sure about splitting them into multiple columns though because it could be confusing as to the chronology of the entries. I'm definitely open to suggestions about how to separate them visually though.
Fighting for a Lost Cause.net
Megan posted this at 18:11 — 20th July 2005.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Yes, I see that, but the point is that its not clear right away. Users shouldn't have to think to figure out what a navigation item means, it should be obvious. Store is obvious.
What about putting some photos along the side? Some action shots would be a good way to liven things up there. That would be a good connection for the event listings.
Megan
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locatepeople posted this at 17:56 — 20th July 2005.
He has: 377 posts
Joined: May 2005
looks awesome.
I have a question though. Take a look at my website tracepeople.co.uk and tell me what you've done to make the whole thing look more professional.
You see what I mean? Your website just looks smoother than mine.
Trace UK People -UK People Searcher -Find People UK - Learn Martial Arts Online -Private Detective Agency - Cheap Website Design UK - Business Small
chris_bcn posted this at 18:02 — 20th July 2005.
They have: 56 posts
Joined: Jun 2005
run the validation tool on the news page.
feedback means letting the user know that are clicking a link - usually achieved by a simulated botton, add/remove underline or change colour...
The scrolbars are not a big deal, but they serve no semantic purpose whatsoever. If you're going to uss CSS for your site, then the reason must be for slimmer code and semantic markup. The scrollbars just bloat HTML and CSS, while serving no good purpose at all. It's just not good design practice to employ that kind of markup.
I think the design is good, it looks pretty good, but pull back the curtain and it's just nowhere near as pretty
I don't think there's anything worng with ahving a long page for a blog - you could maybe movable type or even blogger, and then archive the journal by month - this would reduce the amount of text on the page
IanD posted this at 18:05 — 20th July 2005.
They have: 222 posts
Joined: Sep 1999
locatepeople, it's a lot of little things. border size/color, fonts family and color. The colors (pure white and the blue are pretty boring. Deeper hues of the primary colors (like the blue I used) are more contemporary. I'd make the spacing between your elements more uniform, maybe 5-7px each. More graphics would help too, but make sure they're used tastefully. Just find a lot of sites you like and pay attention to the details, then copy then
Fighting for a Lost Cause.net
IanD posted this at 18:18 — 20th July 2005.
They have: 222 posts
Joined: Sep 1999
The cursor changes onmouseover, that's pretty standard feedback for an image link.
Actually, I used CSS because it makes it easier to design and maintain the site, not for slimmer markup. It's 6 extra lines, I wouldn't really consider that bloated.
You're right about the news/journal pages being too long. Editing the query to pull older entries in sections of 25 is at the bottom of my TODO list, but I should probably do it now.
Fighting for a Lost Cause.net
IanD posted this at 18:24 — 20th July 2005.
They have: 222 posts
Joined: Sep 1999
That's a really good idea Megan, I hadn't thought about that. Thanks
"Merch" is a pretty standard term in the subculture, I think most people will get it right away. And I don't think everything always has to be obvious. I realize people don't care about exploring a site most of the time and just want information, but in this case I don't think it's a big deal. Plus, I don't have the font the graphic designer used, so I can't change it anyway
Fighting for a Lost Cause.net
chris_bcn posted this at 19:17 — 20th July 2005.
They have: 56 posts
Joined: Jun 2005
I shall respectfully disagree and withdraw from the thread!
IanD posted this at 19:45 — 20th July 2005.
They have: 222 posts
Joined: Sep 1999
Cool, thanks for the concern, I just don't have the same view towards it as you do. In most cases we'd probably agree about the need for conforming to standards, but this time I think it adds value without hurting anything, so I don't have a problem with it.
Fighting for a Lost Cause.net
IanD posted this at 21:33 — 20th July 2005.
They have: 222 posts
Joined: Sep 1999
I had our graphics guy come up w/ a small image to separate entries on the front and also news/journal pages, I think that's helping some.
I also added some photos to the tour page. I'll probably choose different ones (ones that are actually from shows) and play around w/ them in Photoshop to blend them into the page and each other, but it at least gives an idea of what it'll look like.
Does anyone know how I can set the Journal div on the front page to only have a vertical scrollbar? It's not an inline frame, just a CSS element set w/ "overflow: auto". There isn't a horizontal-only/vertical-only property for overflow. It shouldn't actually have a horizontal scroll since the content doesn't overflow horizontally, and originally it didn't, but when I changed the font size it did. I guess the browser thinks it is overflowing. I tried adding extra padding but that didn't change anything.
Fighting for a Lost Cause.net
IanD posted this at 01:42 — 21st July 2005.
They have: 222 posts
Joined: Sep 1999
Ok, I rewrote the News and Journals pages so that they're split up into 25 entries/page. If anyone's interested here's the script for it:
<!-- #include virtual="\header.asp" -->
<!-- #include virtual="\database\dblink.asp" -->
<%
Dim newsQuery
Dim page
Dim pages
page = Request.QueryString("page")
strLowerBound = Request.QueryString("page")
' Determine number of pages based on how many records in DB
objRS.Open "SELECT TOP 1 news_id FROM tbl_news ORDER BY news_id DESC", objDBConn
pages = int(objRS("news_id") / 25)
' Setup query
If page = "all" Then
newsQuery = "SELECT * FROM tbl_news ORDER BY news_date DESC"
Else
If page = "" Then
Response.Redirect "/news.asp?page=" & pages
Else
strLowerBound = strLowerBound * 25
End If
strUpperBound = strLowerBound + 25
newsQuery = "SELECT * FROM tbl_news WHERE news_id > " & strLowerBound & " AND news_id < " & strUpperBound & " ORDER BY news_date ASC"
End If
' Write navigation links
Response.Write "<p style='text-align: center;'>"
If page = "all" Then
Response.Write "<a href='/news.asp?page=0'>Oldest</a> | <a href='/news.asp?page=" & pages & "'>Newest</a>"
Else
If page > 0 Then
Response.Write "<a href='/news.asp?page=0'>Oldest</a> | <a href='/news.asp?page=" & page - 1 & "'>«</a>"
Else
Response.Write "Oldest | «"
End If
Response.Write " | <a href='/news.asp?page=all'>All</a> | "
If cint(page) < pages Then
Response.Write "<a href='/news.asp?page=" & page + 1 & "'>»</a> | <a href='/news.asp?page=" & pages & "'>Newest</a>"
Else
Response.Write "» | Newest"
End If
End If
Response.Write "</p>"
' Get records
getNews newsQuery, "large"
Set objRS = Nothing
objDBConn.Close
Set objDBConn = Nothing
%>
<!-- #include virtual="\footer.asp" -->
Fighting for a Lost Cause.net
totalnewbie posted this at 05:41 — 6th August 2005.
She has: 24 posts
Joined: Aug 2005
I really like it!!! Very original!! Maybe I would change the word "merch" to "swag", but I did know what was meant right away! Maybe it's a more common term than "swag" anyway..
baldrick posted this at 15:43 — 8th August 2005.
He has: 388 posts
Joined: Apr 2005
It reminds me of grand theft auto san andreas for some reson i think it has the same font
kazimmerman posted this at 14:44 — 8th August 2005.
He has: 698 posts
Joined: Jul 2005
It looks pretty good. The layout is very well done and the colors are great. I don't like how the links are set up. The link color is too dark for the background it is on, and then when you hover, a box appears around it and the color changes. That's not how I would've done it. You have a lot of links up in the top navigation bar. Maybe try combining some similar pages. Overall, nice work.
Kurtis
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