New Site: Comments? Criticism?

Well, I always hate it when music automatically starts playing. At work I'm always listening to other music through my computer, so it's really annoying when a webpage starts playing music on top of mine.

You said that "Brio Design Studios uses his 'Less is more' theory" on the About Us page. Sorry for being so picky - this just makes it sound like it's your theory and not something that has been generally accepted in many design fields for years.

[This message has been edited by Megan Jack (edited 19 June 2000).]

Okay, I see where you're coming from. I can understand how that could be understood to mean that I invented it. I've put it on the list .

But I thank you for being picky, oft you don't see something that someone else does.

Thanks again

-jim

I'm not too hot on Flash movies, but you let me skip through it, so that's okay. The first page looks somewhat empty with that large blue box. Maybe put some text in there as an intro.

The buttons at the top don't flow well with the rest of the site. They look kind of clunky. I think it's the gradient.

Other than that, it looks good. Clean, clear layout and nav, and an attractive design.

Goth Girl
"If you close your eyes in the darkness, you can see many things."

Dun make the buttons fade from right to left. Looks kinda irritating to me.

If you like fading stuff, try fading all of the buttons from top to bottom or bottom to top.

The logo is very nicely done.

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1) For the splash page and the flash movie, make the logo background the blue color, then make the "brio" text white. It will look better on those parts.

2) The flash movie is cool (loads fast!) but you need to a) include a skip button, and b) include a music turn off button.

3) You need some sort of introductory text on the main page. Looks empty.

4) I don't really like the fading menu either. I think you need to experiment more. Although I do like where the menu is on the page.

5) You need to make the width of the main content area the same as the width of the logo and menu combined. Right now it's smaller.

Everything else is very nice! Good logo, good layout, etc...

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Critiquing over 1000 sites on the Internet today...

I always find it really annoying (and confusing) when there are two menus on a page that are almost but not quite the same.

You need to work on your writing style - the text just doesn't flow very well. Get someone to rewrite it for you if you have to. The "vision" page is mostly good for the most part but the rest needs to be reworked.

Edit: Did you invent the "less is more" theory??? Don't say you did. This seems to be a very popular concept in many design fields. My Urban Design prof was always very fond of it. (from the "About Us" page)

Another thing - the blue background of the flash movie does not exactly match the page background for me. You may not be able to get around this though.

I like how you've successfully used a dark content area against a white background - this doesn't usually work very well. I like the logo, but I think the drop shadow should be smaller. I agree with the others about the nav buttons. Mouseovers would be a nice touch - newbie clients seem to be impressed with simple things like that.

[This message has been edited by Megan Jack (edited 19 June 2000).]

Thanks for the comments everyone-

Regarding the buttons, they were from an old design, and are there as no more than a placeholder. I agree, they are annoying.

On the Flash Intro, there was a skip button? But since it is just an intro, and not the whole site, why would someone turn the music off?

The "confusing" menu that occurs only one page was only there because I initially had planned it to be there. Since I haven't figured out exactly what I'm going to put on the main page yet, I just left them there so that the text area wasn't totally empty.

The copy is there, again, just as a placeholder. It was written on the fly, and wasn't planned, proofread, or anything. And I don't remember where I said that I "Invented" the less is more theory...

I guess I should have called this post "Beta Site: Comments? Criticism?". Or maybe I should have waited until it was all done before I asked your opinions.

Nevertheless, I appreciate your time, and thank you for your comments.

-Jim

[This message has been edited by jimbo (edited 19 June 2000).]