New Site Design

I'm moving this to the web site critique area.

Welcome to TWF Rekcus - I hope you'll find the time to give others some advice in this forum.

I think this URL should work better than the one he posted:

http://business.unbsj.ca/sbic/New%20Site/home.html

At first glance the new site looks a whole lot better - less dark and dingy, more upbeat and friendly. The banners link isn't working for me but I can comment on the template.

Okay, correction - I like the banner part. That's good. The rest of the deisng isn't working all that well with it though. The top navbar is really ugly looking with that 3D effect - the one at the bottom looks much better so change the top one to match the bottom. The photos underneath the navbar are similarly ugly. I feel like I'm looking at them through a darkly tinted window. Take those out and replace it with one nice business-type photo.

Now, what you also need to do is take the colour scheme you have in the banner and carry it through the rest of the design. The content area looks like it was taken from a completely different design - carry some of the blues through that section. It also needs a more organized layout - the various sections there look like they were just slapped into the page without regard to their relative alignment. I'm also getting a big hunk of white space at the bottom of the page.

I managed to click on the "About Us" link - the main navbar doesn't seem to be working (why is that in Flash anyway???). This layout would be quite good with the banner that appears on the front page. The navbar is better looking and actually seems to work! Clicked on Tools - why is it green now? Don't change colours from page to page unless you're going to be consistent with that (ie. use a different colour for each section). And when I click on "my home" I get a different home page??? I'm guessing that these are just work in progress type problems...

The new color scheme makes the site look 1,000% better than the old one. However there seems to be a color missing. What goes with light blue? You just have one color. You need to find one more that goes well with light blue. It will make it looks a lot more interesting having two colors. Use shades of these colors to break up the page.

Your logo image at the top is 732 pixels wide and you set your table width at 100%. Not a good idea to set the table width at 100%. You see when your site is viewed in different resolutions the logo and the upper top of the table will be out of alignment. I always prefer to set the table width in pixels so that my images line up with the edge of the table. Just looks better.

Gavin

Thanks for your comments..
The reason a lot of the links don't work is because we have got to that point yet.. still working on a home page template..
I agree the flash buttons on the navbar are very nice to look at, but I was outvoted on that one.
Curious as to what everyone thinks about the new logos..
And any ideas on how to make the content in the site flow better and not be so choppy..
appreciate any comments..

A few quick ones ...

Lose the flash. You could reproduce the navigation using javascript and no one would miss it.

Tighten up your table. At 1152x864, there appears to be a third unused column and the navigation is off center.

Your sub-header graphics (Current News, etc.) are very poor quality. I'd suggest gif over jpg here.

Your "Expert" photo should be a jpg, not gif.

I can barely discern what your shopping car image is.

I think your banner would look better without the dropshadows.

tip: avoid spaces (and caps imo) on the web. ie, /newsite/ rather than /New Site/

You wanted some critique on your logos.

I like #15 the best - but I like the drop shadow on #10 or #11.

I am not thrilled with how they stop on the left and right. If that was a logo on a piece of paper it wouldn't seem right. But I am not sure what to do with that blue except to drop it. Maybe make something else with that blue color.

Brooke