A new Winter travel themed site for you to review

As a fellow Canadian I was excited to see this site! The overall design looks really good. I like the logo a lot - it's rather Roots-ish. Very Canadian.

There are some problems with the graphics, especially the navbar but also some of the graphics in the main body area. THey just look like they're really over optimzied. In the navbar the text gets hard to read in some cases. I do like the animated mouseover. That's a nice unique touch.

The big problem with the front page is first of all there's not enough to draw me in. (Reading: Great Homepages Really Suck, by Cameron Moll). There should be more on here that I can click on to get into the site and find out more. Offers and attractions, special deals, maybe a list of top destinations or resorts - give people lots of ways to go deeper.

The other big problem here is that there is almost no regular HTML text, which means there is almost nothing for the search engines to index. It will be a lot harder to get a good ranking if you have no words for them to look at.

Clicked on an article - the font size is a little too small. It shoudl be a little closer to the default so it can be read comfortably. The headers are also hard to read in that pale green, and the breadcrumbs are too small as well.

Oh, this is a magazine! I couldn't read the subtitle under the logo (and ignored the text to the rigth) so I didn't realize that. I was expecting something a little different - more of a typical travel site that sells vacation packages and that sort of thing. This is good though. Interesting, different. I feel like there should be some connection to travel resources though - you know, taking the next step to actually visit. As a user, I don't think I'd mind if there was more commercial integration - like suggesting vacation spots in a sidebar next to an article, or specific clothing options (and links to buy) with the Dressing for Canadian Winter" article).

I think that's enough for now - there are more usability problems in here but you can start with that and if you want more I'll take another look sometime I think this design is great. It's really communicating the feel of what winter in Canada is like. I especially like the outer background and the logo, and the pictures are really good too.

I have the same feeling with Megan about the graphics problem. One more thing, there is some problem with the left graphic. It was divided into two parts- bule part and white part (a woman there). The two parts did not match well, I think. One background color or gradient colors should be better.

I do not know where to start first after entering your homepage. The mouseover effect is what I like, but the font size of the nav is a little small.

I think the design is brilliant aesthetically but it doesn't jump out as a magazine to me. I expect to see titles like 'This Month's Hot Stories,' 'Reviews,'Features' etc. It just took me a little too long to realise what i should be doing on your site. There are plenty of online magazines around so i'd do some research there...

One glaring omission was that you have no easy way of forwarding the site onto other people. We developed this for a client which i think is the best way to go about it.

There is no home button. I know your logo does the equivalent but it's just not obvious enough.

As Megan says you have SEO problems for your home page (bad title tag and keyword tag). You need more text in there!

-Rob

Using all images for your home page can be very deterring to a visitor. First of all, there aren't a lot of obvious links or attracting sections that someone would go "Wow! I want to check that out!"

The links in your navbar could use a better font. That one is a bit hard to read at that size. You also need a home link, as mentioned. I also noticed that when you get to the smaller links in the navbar, the mouseover animation goes behind the actual text, so you can't see it as well. You could try setting them all at equal widths so the animation works. Lastly, I noticed that the link "Cool Stuff" has a lot of empty space around it while the link "CW Interactive" barely even fits. This should be taken care of, possibly with set widths, as I already mentioned.

I think your articles are very interesting. It's good that you have some good content up, but your text needs to stand about a bit more, especially the light green headers. Also, on your "About Us" page, you shouldn't post your email addresses. You will end up getting a lot of spam this way. Instead, use a contact form to have visitors contact you. You won't get the awful spam, and it will be easier on the person trying to contact you.

About the idea of a forum for your site, I'm not sure if it's necessary. It depends on what you're thinking about using it for. I can understand a few ways a forum could be good for your site. People could post about their personal experiences visiting Canada, tips for future visitors to the country, and many other things. On the other hand, it doesn't seem as if there is enough to post about (not that Canada isn't interesting, but the idea of "traveling to Canada").

Good luck with your site. It's very well designed and the content is great.

nice site, I liked the effects when the cursor goes over the link buttons.

the multiple windows give the user too much info to take in perhaps?

like it, especially the buttons, could play with them all day

Good site!!! Great pics.

Sorry I didn't read all the above posts, am a bit short on time.

First up the index page doesn't flow, the top image is flash (which I don't see - don't have the plugin), the image under that is snow capped mountain range (nice image), how the image under that to the left is a darker blue gradient with fake snow fakes (psp tube ?) and under that a pale blue image with a girl looking up (hope theres no birds in that dark gradient), she's cut off just above the waist line and there is a white gap then a green line - nothing blends or fits. (am at 800x600).

There is no logo or name so I'm guessing thats in the flash image.
Half of the text is done in images, the rest is CSS (on hover) links which is already getting confusing as the image links have blue and green 'more' links but the text has green headings with blue links (which are a shocking green on hover).

The clickable Canada or about us pages would be the first I'd look at being from another part of the world, but the clickable Canada is done in flash so can't see that but the text is semi-informative. Some more details like how flat or bumpy it is, mountain size (above sea level). you have "The country is made up of 10 provinces and three territories." but fail to tell us what or where they are (maybe the flash image shows this ?).
I've been to Canada twice so know a little about it, but things like the language (french in the East), lifestyle etc could be very informative for say someone in Australia who's country is mostly desert. The northern lights (is that what's called) is worth a page by itself, that alone (well and the F1 haha) would be enough to get anyone there

You have some very detailed images in there (which is good), but the thumbnails are a little on the heavy side for dialup users (some are 30kb each). n the cc_gallery page, under the thumbs there is a link to quebec_stlaurent_small.jpg or << Back to Clickable Canada, the first displays an error.
When you click on the images you are just given the images, no back button or site logo, so if I'd opened a few in different tabs (or windows if was using IE) and closed the main one I would have no way of getting back (some people don't use the address bar).The image under the flash thing shows people in a tub, thats kinda cool but can't find that picture/story/part.
On some of the pages like ab_gallery the links to other pages (top and bottom) are very small.

The sitemap offers a lot more pages that is on offer within the site, the Olympics for example is mentioned on the sitemap but not on the current issues page.

Nice site

[edit] now I am really late lol

i think that this is a very well designed and layed out site. it is not too cluttered, perfect mix of text and images.

the only problem i have is with the small text in the logo under the words "Canadian Winter" they are a little blurred and hard to read. I have to squint to read the words.

Cool....refreshing..I like it. My only issue is, that on hover the buttons on the top navbar become hard to see. I very much like the effect that happens, but I think it's the gradient thing that happens on hover that interferes. Maybe keep that little splashy thing that happens on the left of the buttons and tone down the gradient effect?

Oh also... the whole header area is a bit weak..it seems to get lost. I should really be drawn in by a header...

The logo is great, how about making it bigger, so that it really grabs the eye?

Nice site, I liked the pictures. I have 2 comments and 1 suggestion.
Some of the titles in green (news, Clickable Canada, Winter Games) are too bright for me.
I was looking for the home page icon after I moved to the rest of the site, I found it after few seconds at the bottom.
I have a site that sales events tickets, if you want we can give your visitors a discount coupon for purchesing tickets to the winter games in Turin or other events in Canada.

I like how the frequent members write you an essay and the others seriously give to cents. So here is another essay for you.

Just a technical note before I start on the design...
Flash nav will not be indexed my google or any other major search. Just a fact, do with it what you want.

In order form top to bottom starting on the main page.
- Seems to be a lot of empty space in your header. I can see how your going for the CSS blog look. I personally do not like that look.
- Logo is fine but I didn’t notice the text to the right
- Menu plays the same animation or every section, all that changes is the text. Says template to me.
- Mountain tops look like a great way to start the body but not if your going to put something above them.
- I mistook the "Whats New" for a menu. Shame on me or shame on you?
- Just because CSS has a ":hover" doesn't mean you always need to use it.
- That girl is waiting for something... I like how it directs your attention back up though!!
- I wish I could pull high quality pics like that out of my.... You get the idea
- There is no real flow to the site. Seems too busy, nothing specific cought my eye in the body.
- Tiled background is good

Over all, its a real cutting edge site with lots of current tech but your missing the mark for a functional site. That stuff needs to enhance the content. Not replace it.

Being a Canadian myself. I quickly came to home when I went to your site. I think its great! The only thing I found was, maybe get a larger nav font, and try to use HTML text instead of images just for search engine reasons

The colors are fantastic and shows alot of time spent creating the flash buttons. Its very original and you took the time to focus on every aspect.

And as a final note, when you read peoples reviews, make sure you visit their site. It will show you if they in fact practice what their preaching. I seen some with Halloween themes still and tacky artwork, or just used a template from front page.

I like the lay out and its verry easy to navigate,
gives you the feeling of being cold ...like canada
Nice job