Need some advice

First of all, the logo is way too big. It takes up all of the space above the fold. It should be a lot smaller. I do like the logo, but the button text around it, and the flashing slogan thing are kind of ugly if you ask me. The flashing thing is annoying and pointless and the copier brand things have colour scheme problems (see below). The logo should probably go at the top of the screen - it should be the first thing people see. The explaination text could be better too - that white rim effect is kind of weird.

Ah, the colour scheme. It is a problem. Pick a few colours (like two or three, that match!) and stick to them. You've got way too many colours here.

The introductory paragraph should be more concise. Watch your spelling and grammar too - it would probably be better to use a more straightforward and simple writing style if you don't write English very well (and if your visitors don't know english very well either. I'm hope I'm not making the wrong assumptions here ). If you have access to MS Word, run this through the grammar checker in there - it should catch most of the major problems. Even better - find a native English speaker to go over it for you.

Now, navigation. First of all, there are too many choices on there. It's usually best to stick to the "rule of 7" - keep the number of choices below 7 (because too many options confuses people - there are exceptions but this doesn't seem to be one of them). It would probably be easy to divide these options into categories - like About this site, Members Area, Sales & Support etc. How am I'supposed to know where that "next" button at the bottom will go?

After all that, I'm finally getting to the layout! When the page first loaded, I liked what I saw with the blue and orange (yes, I did like something - it's not all that bad ). Then came the nav buttons. Bevels, basically, are out of style. They're hard to use well and they usually look kind of cheesy. It's also hard to fit text on them, because it looks bad when some buttons have smaller text than the others. I would just change this to a plain text menu with some CSS to make it look interesting.

One more thing - lose the counter. Those things are rather tacky and very unprofessional. Find a good stats program instead.

Hehe, I do agree that there are lots of grammatical mistakes not only in the introductory message but also on most of the other pages, most of the text were copied from a diskette that he gave me which he wrote and compiled and I only try to fit those text according to his requirements, although I notice many errors(grammar) and his style of writing but maybe I would recommend that he get it checked later on by a professional copy writer.

Even the colours, buttons(rollovers), animation, logo(design by another friend) and text counter was suggested by him where he provided me with examples and insisted that his web site incorporates all these.

Being a stubborn person and having things done his way as I know him from many years of friendship, it takes a lot of convincing to change his thinking.

Haha, I will email him a copy of your reviews.

Thanks Megan and appreciate very much your feedback.

Regards,
NSS

[Edited by NSS on Dec. 06, 2000 at 05:39 PM]

I have done some changes and basically copied some of Megan's classic design and suggestions which my friend also agreed after refering him to her site and reviews.

He has viewed the site after the changes and is very satisfied with it, however I would also like a second opinion and some more ideas or comments before proceeding further to complete the site for him.

http://www.copiertrade.com/arcd

Thanks and would appreciate any help.

Hmm.

Spell checker will remidie all spelling problems for you.

While the red, green, orange, and blues dont go together, they clash. Try using more traditional colors. Blues, Whites, Maybe Green(s). stuff like that.

Could be a good site, as its unique in nature.

Hehe, again spelling mistakes!

Thanks Grandmaster for your comments.