ITSweatshops.com

Well - Like I said earlier blue, is not my favorite for web-sites. Bur not letting that influence me. The index page is to long, believe me nobody scrolls more than two licks.

I would try to conjure up some kind of navigation. The great amount of blue does make it a little cold. And you need the following in your meta-tags.

Thanks for the heads-up on the tag. This was in the HTTP headers but not in the document proper. Fixed. I'll defer any changes on the background till I get some more feedback

I think decrease size of font on left table of contents
and the header should be expanded up top...
maybe take the bg image without the logo stuff and append it to the right
That would bring out the IT sweatshops to the eye

Modified the "Recent Forum Posts" area to use smaller font point. By Header are you referring to the Menu Area (Home/Company Surveys/News/Forums)?? I agree this could be larger but I'll need to re-cut the menu background image... At some point the logo will need a do-over but it was a severe stretch of my Photoshop abilities to make it look as good as it does. Next time I think I'll get a pro to help out

First impression - slave labour (sweatshops).

The IT doesn't really stand out in the logo, not as well as the rest.
As it's a long page and english is read left to right the first thing I read is "Recent Forum Posts Contracting Nice site. Forums are kinda empty so I thought Id try to start a discussion ..." not an ideal first impression content wise, also this will be first thing search bots read too, maybe switch the side section to the other side.

In Firefox the text size is good but the lined background is not needed, makes it hard to read if anything.
The main content isn't very rewarding either, talks about the decline ... You need the first paragraph to be about your service/product, try capture the person in 25 words or less.
Your slogan makes a statement but is not followed through, you have "Will your next tech job suck? Find out before you start" but no where on the first page you give any info on any of this.
The company survey page however is ideal for your index page.
But you have many faults, such as:
where are these compnaies based? US, UK, world wide ... ?
How are they ranked? personal experience (yours), clients, ex employees ...(is sort of mentioned) but are they moderated from dis gruntled ex employees etc?

While running your site from a database can be good the down side is your URL's, you have it all off default.asp, ideally using page names that suit the topic will help in search engine placement (use .htaccess mod_rewrite - whatever that is in asp)

I'd say it's a little cold (your words) and less beveling and lighter colours could improve it.
Good luck

Yep not too bad. The logo does need a little work. Lose a colour is the easiest fix for it. You have 5 colours in the logo and they're clashing, especially the blue/green/yellow. I'd say cut the green and it will look a lot better.

I can't really tell at a glance what this site is for. I go by the one second rule - I have to be able to tell in one second what the site is called and what it's about. Either a subheading or a brief one line description at the top of the home page to instantly tell you what it's about. The most frustrating thing when surfing is having to click through several pages and work out what the site is about.

Good start though and good idea for a site.

Blue

I think blue and white can make a good combination, but a simpler logo would be better I think.

The logo just terminates on the right hand side to the dark blue background. You have no transition or tiled background, which looks a little rough.

My resolution is 1024x768 and I didn't even notice the register and login links which are strung out over the right hand side of the bar. They are blue, just like the background, and they just don't stick out at all.

The content area is good with the striped background and the blue and black text is easy to read and contrasts well. I'm not a fan of the font you're using, Lucida, but after checking, I don't even have that font on my computer, so it's using the next font in the font family, tahoma. The closest one I have to it is "Lucida Console". Using Windows 98 (normal default installation) on a school computer. Might be something to consider?

Overall it's a pretty good site.. although the content and forum activity are lacking.

Here's my opinion.... when i hit the homepage it looked o.k. but didn't draw me in. Then I clicked on the suvey page and "i got it"... meaning I understood what the site was about. You might consider making that your main page.

I see so much stuff that you need to grab me instantly. If I knew what the site was going there that might be different.

Thanks to everyone who gave feedback. I know everyone's super-busy & I appreciate those who took some time out to help a newb.

I've implemented some changes including:
-Punch up the color a little
-Remove background img and go to straight white
-Changes to logo (still needs help, hopefully better than it was though??)
-Redo logo tagline
-Redo menu bar color scheme (not sure if it's better or worse?)
-Add site introduction before the news summary
-Font->Georgia (peeps who know apparently say it's easier to read)

I agree that eventually, the survey index should "lead" the site. For now though, it's a little spartan (topic for another thread). Decided to compromise & put a decsription & link on the home page. News summaries underneath. The site does have a friendly-URL engine installed but it only shows up on "Deep" links (ie, not the top-level page). I still need to RTFM & figure out how to alias the top-level links...

Changes planned soon-ish to have the ratings database support RSS & will add better support for geographical searching at that time (there is some in place already on the actual surveys).

RE: Screen res, I did run the site at 1024 x 768 & everything seemed to fit. I realize the register/login link is kinda small but I don't want people to think, "Oh I need to register to see the good stuff. Forget it..." In terms of browsers I tested on the latest versions of IE/FF/Opera. Given the troubles I had getting it to look decent on these three I gave up on supporting older versions.

I kept a copy of the "before" on the server here:

Sweatshops 1.0A (jpg)

The Sweatshop is still open for more feedback if anyone else wants to pile on

Best Regards,
Pleb

well dont mind but it is not an extra ordinay web site