REVIEW REQUEST: Modemsite.com

Howdy (as we say in Alabama) Modemsite!

I dont know a thing about asp but, the design, colors and layout really need a face lift and some organization.... bigtime. If you were to turn those table borders off this page would look like everything was just tossed on there. Well, it looks like that even with the table borders on.

You have a great deal of information on this site and it could be better organized. There is really no clear navigation to the site. I assume that that top part is the main navigation because it appears on almost every page but it is really confusing.

Get creative and write up a paragraph or three that tells about the site...what it's purpose is and what the visitor will gain by being there. An introduction. Give them a brief rundown of what they will find there.

You need a logo and a background color besides the gray. You use "Modemsite.com-Page 1" in the navigation". This should be "Home". And your text nav links at the bottom of the page should, IMO, be the same as what you have at the top....but, what you should probably do is combine what you have at the top and the bottom to make one set of navigation. If that makes sense.

The clipart graphics that you have are way out of date. I would use less images and get newer, better quality ones.

On the site index page.... An unordered list would look better there instead of those front page graphics.

I know I am rambling but this is a rambling site. You should really sit down and rethink your navigation, organize your content and decide on a logical layout for this site before you do anything.

It is seems to be a very informative site and with a little thought I think would be very useful.

Here is a link to a site that has some visiuals on how to organize your site. http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/sites/site_design.html

And you can find some excellent articles and advise here on everything that has to do with web design, layout, navigation, etc.
http://www.wpdfd.com/index.htm

Oh, and welcome to the forum.

I think Disaster-Master said it all lol

Welcome to TWF

I clicked into the website and clicked right out of it. It is just way to busy for me. Didn't even want to take the time to try and figure the maze out. This is just my opinion but hope it helps.
dave
http://www.azconsignment.com

I agree with DM it's just far to hectic looking and out dated. You definitely need a logo, colour scheme and organisation.

I think dm pretty much said it all here. The thing is I have been to this site quite a bit in the past. I have a lousy LT Win Modem!!!

It is a v.useful site, so it is in everyones interest that it gets a face lift....

good luck!

Thanks to all for the comments.
My biggest problem in dressing up the site is my poor graphics/layout skillset. (That's not my only problem, either. ) I need help! (Maybe someone to do a logo / layout-theme in return for credits/links on the site? I'm now at about 2 million pageviews/month.)

I've been thinking about an improved look for over a year and am still just thinking! (Thinking that I shouldn't do it - myself.)

Aloha!
'v.Richard'

to make it look good doesnt mean using million dollar graphic programs, the latest trends, fancy flash navigation or anything like it, The thing you have to sometimes remember is simple is clean, clean is nice, nice is easy, easy makes people happy (easy as in navigation etc)

people have different ways they make sites, some do it straight off the bat, some make it in a graphics program and cut it up, others draw it on paper first, others cut bits from here and there and are probably many more ways, find a way and try it, i suggest paper, scribble a few ideas down on a layout, then recreate this by way of html, use plain colors for table cells to be replaced later by grahics later then when hapy with the layout have a go at making a few images, lines, icons (ding bats fonts are good for this).
a site like google.com, very popular site its very plain, sites like (cant think of any really busy ones) may be popular but people cant find anything, msn.com is on the verge of to busy

I think it's just a question of structure - your front page's organization is a little "eccentric" - a common approach is a sort of three column set-up like you see in msn.com or, say, ptd.net (just happened to be lookin' at them) - of course if you can pull it off, something different is nice - remember this can be a tough audience and I'm sure most of us would like to have your traffic so you must be doin' somethin' right

I agree that this site needs a complete overhaul. My first impression was that this is pretty ugly (sorry )

The first thing you need is a good colour scheme and a logo. Then you can go with a basic 2- or 3- column tabled layout with simple styling. No muss, no fuss.

If you are seriously looking for someone to do this for you, ask in the Jobs & Barter forum or take a look at some of the portfolio sites in peoples's sigs around here. I hope you can work something out...

Thanks again to all & esp. Megan for the Jobs/Barter forum suggestion.

Re- complete overhaul.

Depending upon what is meant by complete overhaul, I'm not sure I agree.
I can see changing the style/fonts, color, and a new design for the top of the page with logo; and maybe even a multi-column layout for the front and main section pages, BUT, I don't think it would be a good idea for all the pages:
I've asked my visitors via surveys what's important to them about the site (and other studies produce similar results):
1. Content
2. Ease of navigation through site
3. Speed of page loads
4. The 'look'

When you use tables that take 100% of the page width, browsers will not be able to display any part of the table until it receives all of it. IOW, speed of page loads will be compromised to get 'the look'. (Now that I use broadband, it's not really noticeable, but when I was on dial-up it was painfully obvious. There are a number of sites with attractive looks that ought to check how long it takes to render a page on a dial-up connection!)

One of the reasons sites do a multi-column page layout is to fit advertising in. It has become clear to me that advertising is not going to support my site anymore - I'm moving to premium/ad-free content and subscriptions.

This thread and your comments are helping me to define where I want to go with the look - a new logo & masthead being #1, and cleaning up the look of the home & main-section pages; but the meat of the site - the hundreds of content pages are going to stay table/column-free and content-rich.

I think this issue of tables compromising download speeds really depends on how you use them. If you're going to put your entire page layout in one big table then yes, that will cause some problems with download speeds. However, if you break things up into smaller chunks - say, with three or so separate tables making up the layout then it shouldn't be a huge problem. I've had a lot of success with this method. It is very possible to create an attractive design that does load quickly. Obviously the amount of content, the coding, the number and size of graphics etc. etc. also have a big impact.

Hmmm... when viewing source it seems to me that you are using a lot of tables for your layout here... and that's not exactly the cleanest code I've ever seen

When I said complete overhaul I didn't mean that you should change the content or anything like that - I was speaking purely in terms of visuals.

I grabbed a couple of your pages and looked at them in Dreamweaver and you are probably using more tables now than necessary. I don't think that overhauling the layout, colors, navigation, and graphic content will decrease the load speed. I think that a more organized, consistant layout would do nothing but increase it.

You definatley have your work cut out for you. It's a pretty big site. Good luck and if you need help just yell.

Tables - the top of each page (basically the same on all pages) is a mess of tables. And I know I want to change it.

What I was referring to with tables: FrontPage2k (which I'm using) allows you to have page borders; a long time ago, I put the bottom of each page on the site using this feature (bottom border). What FP did was make the entire page a table, and the bottom border a sub-table. This stupid design meant that the entire page had to be downloaded before anything would display. (I tried removing the tables, but FP put them back; now, I still use FP to author pages, but I've gotten rid of just about every 'FP feature'...)

Overall visual look - I agree 100% I need to do something with the homepage and the main section pages (this one is really bad: modemsite.com/56k/news.asp !) I can see columns there. But, what about a page like
modemsite.com/56k/wave.asp

What would a column layout do for this kind of page? What would I put in the columns? Would it add to the user experience? Remember, most visitors are coming not to judge how the page looks, but to find information about a problem they're having....

I don't use FP so can't help you there. I am a DW junkie.

As for a simple page like the "Wave Device for Voice Modem"
you wouldn't need collums and a bunch of tables. You would basically have your title/logo at the top, navigation at the top or left side, the page content in the main area and maybe a second set of navigation, legal stuff and contact at the bottom. Look at this simple, rough, example of an easy to work with layout. Table borders are on so that you can see what I did. And for the "Wave Device for Voice Modem" page all you would have to do is remove table 4 if you have top navigation. And if you have left side navigation then the content for the wave device page would fit nicely into table the main section.

You could do something similar to this and just modify the content part while leaving the header and footer part the same on each page. that would give you a consistent look to all of your pages. You don't have to have the exact same tables on each page. They would be modified as needed to fit in the content. But I would say to have title and navigation exactly the same on every page.

Yea, yea, I know I am rambling again.

Hope that answered your question.

The problem with that page is that the text stretches to fill the entire width of the screen, which makes it harder to read at higher resolutions. Another good thing about tabled layout is that they give you some control over the length of text lines.

While I'm at it - I highly recomend that you ditch Front Page. It is notorious for writing bad, bloated code with lots of extra stuff that may or may not work in non-MS browsers. If you hand-code, or at least know how to, you can get a lot more control over your layout first of all, and you will be able to do the same thing with a much smaller amount of code which will certainly increase your download speeds.

ahhhhhhh! way too many links first up! you need to think about a navigation bar, a new color scheme, getting rid of the background highlighting on the links...basically a complete redesign.

I have put something together for you that you might find useful.

I can't find your email to send you the link, but if you would like to email me at [email protected] and I will send you the link and information.

I think you might like it, but if not, you don't have to use it.

Have fun
Karen

Here's what I'm working on for the re-design:

modemsite.com/56k/_wavework.asp

( rework of modemsite.com/56k/wave.asp )

Would appreciate any comments.

heaps better
is the "site index" sould be rename to site map. and make it (the banner) a little wider so the forum link fits on the same line.
Also you should get rid of the mouseover background thing, (background color on hover) looks real cheesy,

the links, home and troubleshooting is kinda dark on that dark grey, maybe change your font colors. also keep your link words the same, you have troubleshoot and troubleshooting, could confuse people

It needs to be simple, intuitive, and uncluttered. Too much text makes it less likely that a visitor will find the text that's most important to them.

Your new site is MUCH better. Simple is good. Nice banner on top too.

Yes, I think that will be more better. Like busy said though, make the top part a tad wider so that the forum link goes on the same line. Maybe you could do link color change on mouseover.

Thanks for the encouraging words.

I've been busy on other things, and I know about the 2 line awkard deal and the wording - just haven't figured out exactly what words I want to use, and how many I "need". I appreciate the suggestion on Site Map, too.
Most of all, I've got to thank Karen Cardinal who did most of the work on this layout & logo.

As to the hover background color change - I'd like to know why the apparent concensus of designers here is against doing that. I know, personally, I would MUCH rather have it that way on ANY site I visit. The more a clickable link changes in appearance, the better for me. (Heck - I'm "Color impaired" - I can't tell you with great accuracy what any particular color might be.) And, it sure seems to me that the "average" casual user and new users would prefer things that way. Are designers saying 'don't do it' because they don't like what it 'does' to the look, or because usability/surveys indicate the population dislikes the hover background change? My audience wants usability the look isn't that important.

As for widening the banner at the top - again, I'm not sure but let's say I want to have 2 lines of links there, so there's 4 & 4 ? I'm not sure what the minimum width of the sample page is before scroll bars appears & I'd like to be able to display in 640x480 without a horiz. scroll bar....

Thanks again & Aloha from the Big Island!
Richard

I think we're coming along nicely.

This is my first experience at a collaborative design and layout. Usually I'm just handed the pictures and text and told "put something together for this".

I've been enjoying this new experience.

Just lucky you talked me out of all those tables I had.

I hope to have the re-design up by the end of the week.

In the meantime, anyone have any comments on this:

If you do a search at yahoo.com for "Modem Drivers", my site (modemsite.com) currently comes up #8.
Click on it, and instead of getting the page Yahoo 'took' you to, you get a 'custom' page -
Try it:
http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=modem+drivers
then click on my listing, and tell me what you think of this (if appropriate).

Thanks much!
Richard

That is neat but I am not sure I understand how you did that. Does that mean that if say someone searches for just "modems" and they click on your site that you will have the sentence, "I see you've entered the site by searching for: modems"?

Since I converted my site to all .ASP pages (IIS server) for other reasons, I've been thinking about doing something like this - it's pretty easy with ASP.

The page Yahoo (and Google) goes to - index.asp (although they may still link to the old .htm page which gets caught & re-directed), is modified so that before the script:

gets the HTTP_REFERRER variable;
checks to see if it contains the word "driver" as well as either "google" or "yahoo", and if it does, it re-directs to the _wels1.asp page with a querystring containing the query that was in the HTTP_REFERRER;

The _wels1.asp page finds the search query in the original referrer and pulls the search term part of it to display it in the "I see you searched for " part of the page.

So, the way I wrote this, you'll go to this page only if you came from Google or Yahoo (that could be changed), and only if your search query contains the letters 'driver'. You could search for other combo's and get the same page, but if the search doesn't have 'driver' in it, you don't get re-directed.....

Aloha!
Richard
(PS - I may not be very talented when it comes to doing layout/logo, etc. but I know how to program! See the bottom of my 'real' Home Page - I sell 2 scripts, and have a free how-to one to track server outages. 808hi.com )