Review my Template Please!

Doh! I think Today must be forget your URL day! Ahhhh it's Monday give me a break hehehehe
http://www.noggy.net/testsite/

(Waiting for flood control zzzz....)

~Vy~

I've recently discovered the technique of mocking up your design in photoshop before creating the HTML page - it really helps a lot.

The blue text on a navy background is really, really hard to read. That should probably be changed to red or something. The black and dark blue backgrounds are kind of weird too because you can barely tell what's black and what's blue.

The icons on the menu don't look so great. They look like they've been resized too much.

Overall, I don't know if this design will work for you, considering the purpose of your site. I would go with something more portal-ish. A white background would definitely make people feel more comfortable. The 'non-java' menu shouldn't be in its own column. That takes up too much space on the screen.

1) The overall site is pretty dark, and doesn't fit the mission of the site. Use some white or something!

2) There is no reason to be using a Java menu. A similar menu could be created using dHTML, and would look much better. Also- the mouseover color for the menu is really hard to read. Finally- the menu part of the site takes up over 50% of the space.

3) The Noggy.net graphic is really blurry and doesn't look good with the other colors. Make it lighter in color to start.

4) For the "Need an E-mail Account" part, don't point them to Hotmail, use Everyone.net or BigMailBox.

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I like it. I don't like how I can see all the different tables though. It kinda confuses me. I love the logo, and the colors. The only thing I can suggest is get rid of some of the table boxes.

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~Parker Trasborg~
Formerly- ParkerT and sixflags111

Thanks PArker!
Well People I did what you said and brightened tha page up. I hope you like the colour scheme I used I killed the dark blue and brightened the whole thing up. I remade the logo with a totally new one and figured out how to do the dropdowns thanks to Vincent and Suzanne.

I kept the black bacground for the reason I mentioned earlier and fixed the left menu so that it wasn't taking up 50% of the page.

Now tell me am I getting there?

~Vy~

I like the background texture.

It needs padding in the introduction cell to push the text away from the edges. I don't find it all that hard to read, but a light grey is better than white on black, white tends to bleed which makes it fuzzy (perceptively, anyway) and that's what people complain about. If you aren't going to have a lot of reading, it's no big deal, of course.

I find this sort of table format a little bewildering, I don't know where to look for the information, really. I find on this particular one I look for the text and read that and ignore the navigation, so you might want to reverse the sides and include links in your text.

Split off the bottom stuff from the main table, stack another table under the main one, I mean -- give it some space from the adverts and other visual distractions.

The logo seems poor. I kinda liked the other one, but it wasn't really clear either. They seem fuzzy, like they've been laundered too many times. With the black and the layout, I would stack a table on top without borders and have the image surrounded by black, not a texture, or by the background texture sitting on top of the table, or something like that.

hth,

Suzanne

P.S. I know it says Senior Member beside my name, but I have only been a member here for a short while! So I return your slap with a poke to the eye... >>poke<<

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Zero Cattle
Suzanne
Tables DeMystified

I like the dark feel you gave the site. It does make it alot different from other sites. However, I think you should maybe intergrate some yellow within your site. It will really brighten it up. And if you use that menu, the yellow would go good with it. I am a blue guy myself so i like all the different shades of blue ya got....Have ya tried any other menus for your site? I dont know, the menu you have now doesnt really go with the site i dont think. ....I think the logo looks pretty good. It serves its purpose and goes with the site. You may want to think about changing the background color of that logo though so it blends in with the background color of the site. I dont know just a suggestion. Might as well try it and see how it turns out.....Um about the text on the right, i think that should be in the center and the middle part shoud be on the right. I think it would make it look better and really clean it up so it doesnt look so crowded. Overall its looking good so far though. Play with some of the things i said and see what ya think. See ya

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Adam
[email protected]

I like the new logo with the sparkles. It looks neat - I haven't seen that effect before. Very eye catching. I do think, though, that it should be integrated with the rest of the site better. Use more red. Something needs to go on the right side of it too - it's weird how it just ends like that.

I would move the column with the non-Java menu to the left or right. It's creating a vertical line down the middle of the page and I don't think that's a good effect.

I really don't like those little icons in the Java menu - plain bullets would look a lot better. Acutally, I would take out the non-Java menu column and put them in a row either above or below where it is now. That would make a lot more room for content.

In the java navigation, the blue hover text is hard to read. I really don't like this navigation look either. It just doesn't go.

I think your logo is really cool and that it should be incorporated more into the rest of your site. Like the background should spread into the background of the page itself. Sort of fade into it. I don't know...it's just great so use it more!

I feel like overall there is just too much going on. Too many different table sections and it just gets confusing. If you have going to use a java navigation and want to be sure everyone can navigate, I would just use simple html text links at the bottom of the page.

Brooke

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the design looks great to me, however, after reading a little i'm still not for sure what the site is about.

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maybe a short one line simple descriptive title would help dense folks like myself.

don't u just love that flood control.

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Hi Vy,

The color selection looks okay to me but I would suggest that you move the middle menu maybe to the right would be a nice arrangement.

Center your text contents to the middle column if you want to use a three column layout and try luminous green for your text color should brighten the page.

On the left menu creating bright navy blue 3d button links would be something special for a special site like yours instead of the java menu which in my opinion poorly done.

Your logo is very colorful and it blends well with your site but a 3d effect would look really classy and professionally done.

Hope this helps,

NSS

Ohhh ace people!!
Thanks for the good advise I have printed all of them out and will be spending this weekend trying to imrove on the points you mentioned. Hopefully I will have everything done by monday and will be back in touch to see if it is any better!

Thanks People!

~Vy~

Hi Vy,

I agree with the 2nd & 3rd column swapping. Eyeballs tend to focus in the middle of a page when it first loads, even if reading is left to right. Also, the text will help "anchor" the page. Don't know about luminous green text; would throw in too many colors and make it rainbowish (then again, maybe that's the look you want)
Re the java applet: I don't think it's poorly done -- it just doesn't fit with the rest. If you can, go with the 3D buttons NSS recommended (yellow border?)
Glad you worked out the selects.

Vinny

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GrassBlade: cut&paste javascript

Hey, Vy, I mean that the graphic itself isn't crisp looking. It looks like it has been over manipulated or something. Perhaps it is the wavyness of the outline?

This is what I see, by the way...

The yellow outline is the area (around the g in this case) that I mean specifically looks fuzzy or not clean.

If that is the effect you were going for, my more heartfelt apologies!

Suzanne

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Zero Cattle
Suzanne
Tables DeMystified

Thanks for all your great response! I printed out everyones comments and sat through the weekend fixing things. I moved the text to the middle and also blended the banner in with the background. I redid the icons for the menu so it did not look too inapropriate but still have some left to do with the other icons.

I did what you said Suzanne and used a light grey text and it looks great. I coudn't figure out how to do cellpadding on just one cell though as it changed all the cells and made it look naff. I can't see what you mean about the logo looking blurry. What monitor are you using?

I also seperated the table and made it into 2 as suggested. I have also put in small arrows to make it more obvoius where to look. I hope that works. I tried putting a black border around the banner but it looked weird so I took it off again. Tell me if it has improved please and thanks again for all your input.

OBTW: I changed the page icons on the menu to bullets but it didn't come out right so I am still working on that. The cheesey icons under the webmaster section will be changed too.

Thanks again and see if it looks better please!

~Vy~

You can probably put cellpadding in one cell using CSS. Put the content in <DIV> tags with STYLE="padding: 5px;", I think that would be the best method.

I like the blue folder icons better, but something still needs to be done with the ones towards the bottom of the menu (members and about me in particular)

Get rid of the space below the banner, that would help, and get rid of the .net text - that doesn't really fit. .net should either not be there at all or be part of the graphic. Would it be too much to extend that graphic all the way across the table?

Hi Vy,

Love it (the column swapping & blue folders tie everything in nicely)! Only concern I have (and it's a purely subjective thingy) is that the two banners (lower left) -- Vy & Cybercult -- are so close together, they almost blend into each other.

Vinny

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GrassBlade: cut&paste javascript

Suzanne,

Your attention to detail impresses me. You are right the font does look a bit blurred. The bad curve on the font letter is probably the font as it seems to be reoccuring on all the letters. The blurriness could be because I used a glow filter on the letters and because it was flattened to a gif it created a blurred look. The glow was used to emphasise the letters so that they did not look to dark or blended too much into the background.

Megan- I will definatley be changing the icons on the about me and the members as it does indeed look pants.

Vincent- thanks I will change the two buttons to one single button that takes you to a seperate page.

Does anyone else have any opinions on the changes?

Thanks

~Vy~

[This message has been edited by vy22 (edited 28 March 2000).]

Vy -- it's really not my place nor my skill to make artistic suggestions, but I'm not going to let that stop me! What about restraining the glow (making the feather/soft edge fewer pixels) or using a duplicate slightly expanded? It would be a similar effect, but maybe a little crisper? I agree with you that something needs to set it off from the background. I am surprised you made this a gif, actually. With the complexity of the colouring, I thought it would be a jpeg. Of course, please ignore this if it is an unwanted suggestion.

As an aside, my attention to detail (and occasional lack of attention to detail) is also what gets me into trouble. *grin* And troubleshooting...

Cheers,

Suzanne

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Zero Cattle
Suzanne
Tables DeMystified

hi vy,
i think the others are right, perhaps it would be better when you would use an one colored background.
perhaps you should use verdana or arial as font. the actual font looks too bold. is it comic?

greetings, fabian.

I think your template is really cool. Esp the Java navigation area. The colors are well chosen. Now all you need to do is work on the quality of the content.

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Internet Business Consultant with Perception Websites
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