REVIEW REQUEST: Hampton Homes

Nice first page - although it wont do well in the SEs with no text on there - but I get a small horizontal scrollbar at 800*600.

Once into the site I think the text should be verdana to keep it clean looking. I personally don't like stretch 100% sites so I would keep the main content centered within a fixed width table.

See, now there's a perfect example of why it was a good idea for me to get more eyes on my site even thought it's so close to being "done". You just brought up things I was unaware of. Thanks.

I've seen the home page in 800x600 in IE 5.5 and IE 6 and I never got a horizontal scroll bar. What browser are you using and how much "extra width" are you getting?

And also dealing with width, I limited the width of the home page and I planned on doing the same to the rest of the site I guess I forgot to do that. Thanks for catching that.

I chose serif fonts thinking it was more "classy" but if everybody likes san-serif like Verdana then I'll suggest that change to my client (and he won't care anyway).

BTW, look at "about us" in any higher resolution and you'll see the bottom table row peel off the bottom. It works right in some IE but not others. tr=100% works in all IE but not NS and it is not valid anyway. Any suggestions for maintaining my letterbox look?

Try Georgia or Garamond for a serif font. Anything is better than TNR!

Overall this looks quite good - I think you've been really successful in achieving an appropriate look and feel for this site.

On the front page, try setting those links out differently - either horizontally or vertically with a left alignment. I definitely agree about making the site fixed with - it's stretching too much and there isn't enough content to fill up the space.

I'm finding some of the text to be a little bit too tiny - particularly captions on images, and there's one link that opens a PDF where the "adobe actobat" text is too small to make out.

Other than that a good job

Hey! Nice to finally see this in a finished state.. or close to it - you are aware you've got some "fake latin" here and there, right?

I like the "simple" design - clean is good!

On the font, I'm typically an Arial man myself but as Megan says, "anything is better than TNR". To me TNR looks like you forgot to determine a font.

My first run through was in an 800x600 window and the site is sized pretty nicely at that resolution but yes - at higher resolutions it sprawls too much.

You should consider a link colour scheme - probably the marroon/green combo of the logo. Again the default blue screams "unfinished" to me.

What else...

Your popups could use a close option other than the window's "x" - this could just be me but I looked for that first, then tried clicking the picture *then* finally went all the way up to the status bar. Gosh, I'm lazy!

Plans: Since there are so many of them, perhaps give the user an option to cycle through them - a next/previous sort of thing. I also agree that the Acrobat logo is too small. I only noticed it after I saw the link to download the reader.

Text Nav: You should have a small secondary text nav at your page bottoms so the user doesn't have to jump back up to the top to move forward.

In all, great work!

Hello, lovely design, really like it, just one point, spell check your text. eg:valueable should be:valuable
good luck with site.

Am I missing something on the first page? all I see is the top and bottom borders with the links at the right?

Some of the pages are a little long in 800x600, maybe another set of links at the bottom or a 'top' link down there.

Some of the pictures are dark, try lighten them a little (irfanview does a good job of this), like the gazebo and playground

nice job

Lots of good suggestions. I'll look into all potential problems and pass along most suggestions to the client. Thanks all. And let me know of any other things you find.

Also...

Quote: Originally posted by Busy
Am I missing something on the first page? all I see is the top and bottom borders with the links at the right?

Busy, the home page should have a large image of a home in the white section, with the company logo on the right side. It is embedded via css rather than simple "background=" because I wanted to make sure it did not repeat as a pattern. Anyway, if you still don't see it, may it be a browser issue? What are you using. Should I not use this code:

Hey Mike

I realize this site is under construction (with a few interior fixtures still to be finished off ) and that you're no doubt working with copy provided by the client, but I thought I'd give you a heads up on a few more typos that may be, as spor noted, valuable.

on hampton_place.php

Architecturally designed elevations

Wood floor in entire foyer

Pre-wire - Shouldn't these be Pre-wired

Overhead lights in secondary bedrooms

Under Kitchen Features: Premium no-wax vinyl flooring

High-efficiency gas furnace

Poured concrete patio 10 x 14 - Needs the space after "10" and a one instead of an el

Fiberglass roof shingles with 20-year manufacturer’s warranty

Full gutters & downspouts

one-year builders warranty - Might wanna stick an apostrophe in there.

Two- to ten-year warranty on mechanical

Pre-construction meeting with purchaser

Quote: [i]Originally posted by mmi
Full gutters & downspouts

Should downspout be drainpipe or is that an american term?

Ooo. Thanks. I did a text-recognition scan on some of their portfolios and pasted it in. I didn't see those errors. Sloppy me. I wish I had seen those boo boos before I asked the client to look it over for approval.

I'm printing this thread out as a to-do list. Lots of stuff to fix but good thing is that they all look quick and easy. Thanks again.

Quote: Originally posted by spor
Should downspout be drainpipe or is that an American term?

No and yes

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=23548&dict=CALD

Mike: This kind of understandable problem can be avoided by contracting with a reliable and affordable coyediting service. Just another suggestion.
:coolblock

Quote: Originally posted by mmi
Mike: This kind of understandable problem can be avoided by contracting with a reliable and affordable coyediting service. Just another suggestion.
:coolblock

Ya might want to look into one yourself

Where's the (as yet unseen by mme) error? Are you arguing that the second sentence isn't a sentence? I have a registered forumming license granting mme that privilege.

fifeclub it could be my browser (mozilla 1.4) I updated it a week or so ago and been having some problems with it messing my puter up after a while.
I had another look and it wasn't there but this time on return to the index page (from another) it showed up (very nice pic) so it could be my browser and connection speed (dial up)
If no one else mentions it don't worry about it

None of the source validates.

In my humble opinion if the source code I write fails to meet at least minimum approved standards, the page is not finished. Site owners have a legal right to expect professional Webmasters to meet at least minimum HTML approved standards.

:eek: To my knowledge, nearly all of the code validates except for two things. One is the stat tracker script that shows up on every page and the other is a Yahoo Map link on one page. Neither of these are codes that I can alter nor do they affect the actual page display at all. (There are a handful of little things I have to fix here and there like adding alt="" to a few images.)

Otherwise, I respect everybody's opinion here at Webmaster Forums, but I'd be careful before claiming that site owners have a legal right to expect that the code on their site is 100% w3c valid. I agree that they should expect a well created site that functions competantly, and that we should strive for strict validation, but I'd hate to confuse Webmaster-Forums visitors to say that it is actually a legal right. Theorhetically, if I charged only $10 for this entire website and the only problem is that visitors don't see alt tags on some images, that site owner should be jumping for joy that they got the deal of the century.

Peace.

Fifeclub, I'm not here to offend or argue. I'm sorry if I offended you.

I'll let the validation speak for itself. http://htmlhelp.com/cgi-bin/validate.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hampton-homes.net%2F&warnings=yes&spider=yes

Not one of the 20 pages validated without errors or warnings when validated to the HTML 4.01 transitional mode, as called for in the DTD of each page validated.

As a paralegal, I stand by my statement about the legal expectations of a site owner. If you purchased advertising space in a magazine or other publication, wouldn't you expect the copy to be correct? I would. If the publisher refused a refund I think I would have grounds for a lawsuit, if I decided to file one.

Since the source code has a direct and controlling effect on how a site is rendered by the users browser of choice, I think validation to a minimum standard is very important. That's my personal opinion.

Since HTML 4.01 transitionl is achievable, I stand by my statement. I think every site owner has a legal right to expect nothing less, unless prior arrangements were agreed to.

I'm not offended, I realize that we're just having a discussion. Talk is good.

I never used that service before but it appears that those are warnings, not actual errors. http://htmlhelp.com/cgi-bin/validate.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hampton-homes.net You had the optional "show warnings" check marked.

However warnings are still something I should look into. They never came up when I validated the same page at w3c (just the stat tracker) http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=www.hampton-homes.net . I'm sure I do have additonal errors on other pages but as I understand, you're supposed to have a trailing slash after "single" tags like and , which is what kept coming up on your original query. Now I'm definitely not an expert, nor even a professional so I'd love to get other opinions on this from others. Is my code actually xhtml? If so then I will update my doc type to reflect the correct style.

P.S. Moderator, if you feel that it would be best to break off the second half of this thread and move it to a more appropriate forum then that's okay with me.

Hey

Since those forward slashes preceded by a space are part of the W3C's XHTML standard, I don't see a problem with the warnings being generated.

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#guidelines

I'm wondering if doing something with the DOCTYPE could avoid them, but I looked around and didn't find anything.

I don't see how a lawsuit over validation could be successful unless it were an explicit part of a contract. In your work as a paralegal, Pop, have you ever heard of anyone bringing such an action?

On the copy in advertising, many publishers/printers include a notice disclaiming any responsibility for errors in the text.

I am not a practicing paralegal. However, I do have proof of certification. No, I've never heard of anyone suing a Webmaster for writing bad source code, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened or could happen. I'm beginning to wish I had not made mention of it.

My primary objective is to somehow get Webmasters to write better code. Why validate? http://valet.htmlhelp.com/page/why.html

Quote: Originally posted by mmi
Hey
On the copy in advertising, many publishers/printers include a notice disclaiming any responsibility for errors in the text.

Ummm, I wonder why. Could it be there to possibly avoid a lawsuit? Maybe Webmasters should consider using something like that too.

I agree code should be well-written and validate as much as is reasonable. I expect the membership in this forum would go along with that.

I'd argue that checking cross-browser and cross-platform displays for problems that do not involve non-standard code is even more important.

I'm only an amateur coder, but I'd say the code for this site is well-written.

I think the disclaimers I mentioned are included to avoid any misunderstandings and hard feelings with clients. In mmy experience, when significant errors are made, a complete or partial refund is still commonplace if reported within a week or so. I suppose the avoidance of financial liability is part of the consideration.

I'd LOVE to see web designers held responsible for textual errors. Even the site owners themselves don't seem to care though.

I think the site looks very clean and crisp. I can't really complain as far as the design goes.

Usability looks good. I seemed to be able to find everything pretty easily.

My only suggestion, as mentioned above, is that its not optimized for search engines. My suggestion, since I'm sure you want to keep the cleanliness of the homepage, is to add some more copy to other pages, or add some type of other content page. As of right now, you aren;t really helping yourself get ranked. since you use plain text links on your pages, they should all crawl well, but I would add some more SEO text to your about page. However, if you do that, keep in mind, your about page will probably be the one that gets indexed, not your homepage.

Overall....great job!