We do ask that you review some of the other sites posted here before requested one for your own site. can you help us out by doing this please, it will also help you get ideas, etc. I'll come back when I have a bit more time to look at the site for you.
Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....
Okay, umm... you need to do some work on this. I would suggest that you just start looking around at other sites. you'll probably notice that most high quality sites these days are much different from yours. You'll notice that tabled layouts are often used to create sections for logo, content, and navigation. Coloured table background are often used to create visual interest and separate sections of the page. Patterned backgrounds are very rarely used. Graphics and colours are used smoothly and consistently throughout the design. A strong sense of style is created with shapes, colours, and other design elements.
The first thing I think you need to do is work on your graphic skills. Look around for tutorials or, even better, a good book on your graphics program of choice (let us know if you need some help chosing one). Notice how a lot of your graphics have jaggedy edges? Some of them look fuzzy or stretched out and they all have very different styles.
You'll also want to think about something that's referred to as "the fold" - this is the space that's visible in the browser window at the top of the page. It is what the user sees when the page first loads. What you want to do is try to get all your important information in this space - your logo, at least part of your navigation and content. The user should know what your page is about and what you have to offer by looking at the space above the fold.
It is a good idea to keep your pages relatively short so people don't have to scroll too much to see what's there. Think about making the user's experience as smooth and easy as possible. Take your entrance page for example - what's the point? Why should users have to click through an extra page to get to the content?
That's all I'm going to say about this. I'm sure the others will have a lot more to add.
hey evmori - yer site crashed mmy N6 browser - since I was in Troop 18, Quonset Point , I gave it another chance and it froze mmy Windowz - dunno if others experience this, but there may be a compatibility problem on the front page
seems like you have plenty of content - you might try presenting the links off New Page 1 in a way that places more emphasis on organizing the content - there's definitely "structure" in yer 4×5 table, but perhaps too much of a random pattern
I always enjoyed knots, so I checked that out - the text on knots.htm is a little hard to read - maybe make the background image more opaque? - I'd write out "figure eight" - maybe it's cuz I grew up on Narragansett Bay, but I always's called it a "fisherman'sbend" - ya might want to include a blurb for each knot describing its utility - e.g., bowlines won't slip or get stuck, a figure eight knot won't jam as easily, etc - finally, the animations run a little fast, imo - something more like this is easier to follow
mmi,
Yours is the 1st browser I know that the site crashed.
As far as the knots go, I got them from another site & haven't had the chance to edit them. Thanks for the suggestions.
megan,
Actually, I not shooting for a "state of the art" site. I just want to be able to present the info I have in a organized manner. I'll work on the graphics. Thanks for the feedback.
Yep, locked up my IE 5.5 browser big time. Had to close the window and it closed all the windows. It is also very slow loading. As Megan mentioned it is 'old style' as in about 4-5 yrs ago, design. It's really not very appealing. You don't need to shoot for state of the art, just good functional design. My preference is to go subtle instead of beating people over the head. By being subtle, I would first get rid of the background and maybe go to one in boy scout colors with an image or two to emphasize what the site is about. Other things to rethink would be to have some kind of consistent navigation as in a menu on every page of your site. This menu should be visible when someone first views your site. Then I would definitely get rid of the javascript scrollers. They are annoying and they hide the path to the link so that one can't tell if they actually clicked on a link. As a matter of fact, the browser locked up when I was trying to click on a link.
We certainly don't mean to trash a site that you have spent a lot of time on but you should at least follow some of the suggestions here to improve things.
Mark Irving I have a mind like a steel trap; it is rusty and illegal in 47 states
I loaded it in Opera6 as mention of locking up IE and NS worried me (have other windows open cant close yet)
the page loadd and all I saw was the link and flagged background, looking at the source code a bit was missing, and whats the dynamicanimation ? by the look of your code some animated text?
(only looked to see why it could be locking up browsers)
get rid of that redirect page, you dont need it.
don't use staus bar messaging, aprt from being very annoying is very hard to read, in opera you can still see the links but other browsers you may not and people like to see where they are going.
would this be a private site, i mean for scouts only? if its intended for anyone and everyone maybe an about page, or better yet first paragraph, first thing you see is the icon/logo but not sure where to look to see what "MLUMC" stands for, I could guess but would be wrong.
you need a theme, how about a split theme, from yesteryear to today, using black and white and color images, clubs badge as muted background, links top or side with whats new etc in the middle. you have a lot of info on there but for someone not in the scouts is very confusing, like, whats the differnce between , scout and eagle?
the links with the highlighted background should go, and it hides the status link.
great cause, good effort, just some fine tuning
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The Webmistress posted this at 16:04 — 27th March 2002.
She has: 5,586 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
We do ask that you review some of the other sites posted here before requested one for your own site. can you help us out by doing this please, it will also help you get ideas, etc. I'll come back when I have a bit more time to look at the site for you.
Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....
Megan posted this at 16:12 — 27th March 2002.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Okay, umm... you need to do some work on this. I would suggest that you just start looking around at other sites. you'll probably notice that most high quality sites these days are much different from yours. You'll notice that tabled layouts are often used to create sections for logo, content, and navigation. Coloured table background are often used to create visual interest and separate sections of the page. Patterned backgrounds are very rarely used. Graphics and colours are used smoothly and consistently throughout the design. A strong sense of style is created with shapes, colours, and other design elements.
The first thing I think you need to do is work on your graphic skills. Look around for tutorials or, even better, a good book on your graphics program of choice (let us know if you need some help chosing one). Notice how a lot of your graphics have jaggedy edges? Some of them look fuzzy or stretched out and they all have very different styles.
You'll also want to think about something that's referred to as "the fold" - this is the space that's visible in the browser window at the top of the page. It is what the user sees when the page first loads. What you want to do is try to get all your important information in this space - your logo, at least part of your navigation and content. The user should know what your page is about and what you have to offer by looking at the space above the fold.
It is a good idea to keep your pages relatively short so people don't have to scroll too much to see what's there. Think about making the user's experience as smooth and easy as possible. Take your entrance page for example - what's the point? Why should users have to click through an extra page to get to the content?
That's all I'm going to say about this. I'm sure the others will have a lot more to add.
Megan
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mmi posted this at 16:23 — 27th March 2002.
They have: 457 posts
Joined: Jan 2001
hey evmori - yer site crashed mmy N6 browser
- since I was in Troop 18, Quonset Point 
, I gave it another chance and it froze mmy Windowz 
- dunno if others experience this, but there may be a compatibility problem on the front page
seems like you have plenty of content - you might try presenting the links off New Page 1 in a way that places more emphasis on organizing the content - there's definitely "structure" in yer 4×5 table, but perhaps too much of a random pattern
I always enjoyed knots, so I checked that out - the text on knots.htm is a little hard to read - maybe make the background image more opaque? - I'd write out "figure eight" - maybe it's cuz I grew up on Narragansett Bay, but I always's called it a "fisherman's bend" - ya might want to include a blurb for each knot describing its utility - e.g., bowlines won't slip or get stuck, a figure eight knot won't jam as easily, etc - finally, the animations run a little fast, imo - something more like this is easier to follow
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evmori posted this at 19:24 — 27th March 2002.
They have: 2 posts
Joined: Mar 2002
mmi,
Yours is the 1st browser I know that the site crashed.
As far as the knots go, I got them from another site & haven't had the chance to edit them. Thanks for the suggestions.
megan,
Actually, I not shooting for a "state of the art" site. I just want to be able to present the info I have in a organized manner. I'll work on the graphics. Thanks for the feedback.
mairving posted this at 02:33 — 28th March 2002.
They have: 2,256 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
Yep, locked up my IE 5.5 browser big time. Had to close the window and it closed all the windows. It is also very slow loading. As Megan mentioned it is 'old style' as in about 4-5 yrs ago, design. It's really not very appealing. You don't need to shoot for state of the art, just good functional design. My preference is to go subtle instead of beating people over the head. By being subtle, I would first get rid of the background and maybe go to one in boy scout colors with an image or two to emphasize what the site is about. Other things to rethink would be to have some kind of consistent navigation as in a menu on every page of your site. This menu should be visible when someone first views your site. Then I would definitely get rid of the javascript scrollers. They are annoying and they hide the path to the link so that one can't tell if they actually clicked on a link. As a matter of fact, the browser locked up when I was trying to click on a link.
We certainly don't mean to trash a site that you have spent a lot of time on but you should at least follow some of the suggestions here to improve things.
Mark Irving
I have a mind like a steel trap; it is rusty and illegal in 47 states
Busy posted this at 06:20 — 28th March 2002.
He has: 6,151 posts
Joined: May 2001
I loaded it in Opera6 as mention of locking up IE and NS worried me (have other windows open cant close yet)
the page loadd and all I saw was the link and flagged background, looking at the source code a bit was missing, and whats the dynamicanimation ? by the look of your code some animated text?
(only looked to see why it could be locking up browsers)
get rid of that redirect page, you dont need it.
don't use staus bar messaging, aprt from being very annoying is very hard to read, in opera you can still see the links but other browsers you may not and people like to see where they are going.
would this be a private site, i mean for scouts only? if its intended for anyone and everyone maybe an about page, or better yet first paragraph, first thing you see is the icon/logo but not sure where to look to see what "MLUMC" stands for, I could guess but would be wrong.
you need a theme, how about a split theme, from yesteryear to today, using black and white and color images, clubs badge as muted background, links top or side with whats new etc in the middle. you have a lot of info on there but for someone not in the scouts is very confusing, like, whats the differnce between , scout and eagle?
the links with the highlighted background should go, and it hides the status link.
great cause, good effort, just some fine tuning
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