First PHP/MySQL App-- I'm back!

They have: 61 posts

Joined: Aug 2000

It's been a LONG time since I've been a part of these forums, happy to be back! I thought that these forums were dead, so I left, and stopped posting. What a suprise to find them still ticking! The very forums that helped me along my journey into webmastering and my current job(s).

Anyways, while I was away I designed a program called LoadSwap.com. It is a place for users to register and exchange reloading data. Would you all mind looking over it, the navagational system, etc, and letting me know how it looks? It is my first PHP/MySQL application, so it may be slightly ameturish.

URL: http://www.LoadSwap.com

God Bless,

Alex Stanton

[=1]Blamestorming: Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.[/=1]

Mark Hensler's picture

He has: 4,048 posts

Joined: Aug 2000

hey, welcome back... stick around this time Wink

hmmm.... Your profile says your 14, and that's a site about bullets. :blue:

The Webmistress's picture

She has: 5,586 posts

Joined: Feb 2001

However, commenting on the general layout, I would say you have some work to do. You get a horizontal scroll bar at 800*600 for a start.

Get rid of the background, I can't make out what it is supposed to be and it totally distracts the eye from the content (maybe that's a good thing!) Also the navigation bar, top banner and bullet image have a white background to them which shows over the bg.

Onto the navigation, where you have saved the images as jpeg's the writing is breaking down and looks awful. These should be gif's.

The top banner is very hard to read as is the "Premium quality......." bit.

I would say you need to rethink all your images for a starting point.

Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....

KarenArt's picture

She has: 354 posts

Joined: May 2001

Ok, I don't have any problem with the subject myself (I live in West Virginia, USA where 70-80% of the population hunt to feed their families during the winter and most all of them reload their own ammo). I've been to hunting/gun/bullet sites many times for friends.

The only obvious thing I can see that you could do is to do away with your bullet background and use a plain white background instead.

This would help solve the problems with your backgrounds on your navbar and top banner overlapping your page background.
(You have enough content here that you really don't need to have a background image to keep people's attention)

There a lot of great designers here that will be able to tell you the problems that your site may have, but that was the one thing that I saw that could easily be changed to really improve the look.

PS: You might want to update your age in your profile, so no one thinks you're really 14......
Are you? Smiling

gotta finish redesigning my sites so I can show them again.

The purpose of education is... to get more jokes!

mairving's picture

They have: 2,256 posts

Joined: Feb 2001

Ex-babylon, welcome back. The forum continues to grow and expand. We have some good people here.

Anyway as far as a site critique, here goes:

  • Background - I would lose the background, as in never find it again. I prefer solid colors and in the case of your background, it detracts from your site.
  • Logo - 767x97!!! has got to be the largest that I have seen in awhile. It is mostly blank space too and mostly text. Then you have another sort of logo of the bullet. I would try to combine the two into one logo at the top.
  • Page margins - there is a significant gap at the top of your page before your logo starts. I would remove this so that the logo lines up at the top.
  • Graphics - put some graphics on your home page and show a little more creativity. You had the perfect oppurtunity and you blew it with your navbar but it is not too late to fix. What I would do, is make the links in your navbar real bullet points. Create a graphic that somewhat resembles a bullet, and use these instead. It would look good and reinforce what the site is about.
  • Navbar - too many links, so little surfing time.
  • Counter - please tell me you didn't put this counter there on purpose. Counters are very unpro.
  • Shopping cart - it's not the prettiest one that I have seen but it appears to be functional which is the main thing.

Overall I thought that it was a good job. Just do some tweaking and you will be there. 14 yrs old! I have shoes older than you.

Mark Irving
I have a mind like a steel trap; it is rusty and illegal in 47 states

They have: 61 posts

Joined: Aug 2000

Thank You, I think Smiling

I always hate to have my work critiqued because then it means that I need to do some work on it. I really appreciate all of you taking the time to look over it, and I appologize to those who didn't appreciate the subject matter.

The site itself was getting ready for a make over in a few months, but it sounds like I need to do something about it right away, or at least certain aspects of it.

KarenArt:

I really am 14, will turn 15 in about two months.

Mark Hensler

Yes Sir, a site about bullets and reloading

[=1]Blamestorming: Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.[/=1]

andyn20's picture

They have: 52 posts

Joined: Jun 2001

As if you need to hear it again...... I agree with all the others, lose the backround.

I think mairving summed it up nicely but I would like to add one more. It's a nitpick but...

On the bulletselect/index page there is not enough contrast between the links and the text. In particular, I had no idea webmaster was a link.

It's a small point but why not underline it or have more contrast.

Otherwise it worked for me! IE 5.5 1024. I did a shopping spree (I stopped just short of giving my credit details) and everything went as it was supposed to.

Nice

Andrew

They have: 383 posts

Joined: Sep 2000

Defiantly nix the background and consider adding some COLOR! Even a picture of a bullet would help.

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