New Design -

Wow! I must say I love your new layout design! When you get it up the site will be so much easier to see. That orange on white is kind of tricky to catch. Getting rid of the popup was a good idea too. It kind got annoying after popping up each time when coming here

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Ryan Kuhle ICQ: 22165209
Owner & Maintainer
http://www.webmasters-pub.com
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Ryan,
Thanks for your comments. I know the orange. white and blue can look terrible on some machines and that was one of the main reasons for the update.
Re the popup, it might be annoying but it boosted my newsletter subscriptions by 400%, this has now died down to 50% and I will not keep it with the redesign. Thanks.
JP

Just put in a few *teeney* little changes that might make it look less messy and busy. Anyone like it?
JP

I've been taking a very close
look at it so I can give you my not-so-expert, but still good opinion.
I appreciate your asking my opinion, I tend to get long winded so forgive me if I ramble on .

first off, this site "works", you know that already, so I'll just tell you why it works for me.
I AM an expert at "surfing", most recently for research and see exactly what "works" and the percentage of sites in my travels that don't "work" far exceeds those that do (my opinion only . Your site "works" for
these reasons:

1. It fits on my tiny 14" monitor

2. Loads fast, I'm terrible impatient about that (must be all the coffee)

3. Your newspaper style 4 column format is perfect for for the type if site it is -- information. I can look at the first page and be one or two clicks away from finding EXACTLY what I need, the tabs on the top
(like sections of the newspaper direct me to the area I want and are very clear. You are able to present a limitless amount of information this way without overwhelming your visitors, and assuming some of your
visitors are still learning and easily overwhelmed (like myself) I think
it will "work" for them as well.

4. Your newspaper style format also "works" because most people are familiar with newspapers and can figure out/navigate it, almost subconsciously, without having to "think" very hard.

5. I like the way your site looks, I'm a "visual" person (schooled in
design, most of my recent work has been in printing) bad graphics and typography jumps out at me like a sore thumb, and are very abundant and readily "for sale" on the internet. Your graphics are small enough to
not interfere with your info based content but nice/clear enough to catch my eye and create curiosity about the articles/links they refer to.

6. The professional well designed appearance of your site also leads me
to trust the content, sponsors etc... If I were to go to a site on "design" for example, and the graphics were slow loading or the images didn't mesh with the background (even one pixel off) I wouldn't bother
to read what they have to say about their professional graphics service,
and certainly wouldn't hire them for that purpose -- amazing how much of THAT I see on the net these days.

7. Your small column of banners are also placed in a way so they don't
interfere/compete with your content, like advertisements in a newspaper, they are useful, I know they are there, and am likely to check them out if they suit my needs when I'm done looking at what I came to your site
for. it's really frustrating for me to go to a web site and accidentally click on a banner thinking it's part of the site and zapped to another web site. I understand that is probably their intent for money making
purposes but I feel "tricked" when they do that and who wants to feel tricked"?????

I can't comment on the colors because my tiny 14" monitor is "sick" right now.

take care,

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Carolyn

Hi again,
Carolyn - thanks for your tremendous review.
Hope your monitor is better.

I am still (sort of) working on the design of the Wn? site.
Could some of you please take a look at:
www.what-next.com/ (just that page) and tell me what you think.
ideas...
- Do in need to use vertical separator lines on both sides of the middle column?
- center the whole page?
Thanks.
JP

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The Webmaster Promotion and Resource Site
www.what-next.com
The NEXT step in Designing and Promoting your Website

[This message has been edited by JP Stones (edited May 05, 1999).]

JP:

It looks great at 640x480, but when I expand the screen to 800x600 or larger the vertical lines seem like a sharp cutoff into emptiness at the right side of the page. At a higher resolution, it seems like everything is smashed together in one area.

It seems like more vertical lines would be distracting. Maybe a very light background on the side columns, maybe an off-white color.

Centering the entire thing might reduce the uneven feel I get at a higher resolution. Otherwise, it looks very sharp.

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John Pollock
www.pageresource.com
www.javascriptcity.com

John,
I admit it looks best at 640:480. I will try centering it and see what it looks like then, thanks.
Any other opinions?
JP

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The Webmaster Promotion and Resource Site
www.what-next.com
The NEXT step in Designing and Promoting your Website