Review Request: Teen Hangout

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Sorry, I don't take the time to read those. I posted this at 2 AM at night, so I just wanted to post and get it over with. But I just posted 3 reviews, so I should be good.

Loading time is very slow on 56k, the page is over 110kb and takes over a minute to load. on opera it took 20 seconds before the top banner loaded, then another 30 before the content area. You have way to many nested tables, break them down into sections more and they will load as the page loads giving the apperance the page loads faster.
you need to set your background color to another color, white would be better. at 800x600 you have a blank section at the right ,you should try use the screen width more, do bigger screen sizes get a BIG blank section?
the navigation doesnt work properly in Opera6 the first part does but from "interact" to the "arrow" has no background color (blue) so is white text on white mostly.
what are the symbols top left under the logo? the alt tag doesnt work on v6 and above browsers (most), use the title="??" tag
how many polls do you have?
Teen sites are very popular so you need to make it easy for them, after a few times you'd probably figure the layout but for a first time visitor you have way to much going on. you need to tell us/them what your site is about, maybe explain why they need to sign up, what are the benifits (you have no faq), maybe even a sitemap.
not bad for 15 and I wish you luck with it, just have to make it a little easier to work.
Oh and you shouldn't offer the admin job to just anyone, let people help out freely and once they earn your trust ask them to join the team, there are bad apples everywhere, would hate you to get one and loose everything you have built up. there was a thread a while back about this, i'll try find it

Wow, there's a lto going on here! Expecially in that central area. I'm wondering if maybe something's getting screwed up in my browser - seems to be too much stuff overlapping each other. Whoah! Nope - looks the same in IE. That center graphic really is a mess. If that was removed or highly simplified the site would look much less busy.

What I would do is remove that altogether and move everything else up. It would be good if the forums topics and article listings were closer to the top of the page - that's more likely to get people involved right away.

A lot of your graphics could use some work actually - the page headers are difficult to read with those shadow effects running the letters together. That font would look much better without the shadow. I like the little icons on the front page but they could be improved. The logo should be a little larger as well. Oh, and another thing - icons under the logo are confusing. I have no idea what those are supposed to mean.

One thing I'm a little disappointed about here is the colour scheme. It looks nice and all but for a teen site you could get away with a lot more in terms of using interesting colour combinations.

Good news - your menu works in my browser (Opera 7 beta) which means that it should work in everything else too. Good job! on that one. (doesn't work in Opera 6 due to that browser's problems with the DOM. Don't worry about it - v.6 users should be upgrading to 7 soon if they haven't already).

Overall this really isn't bad but the little things could use more attention. Keep up the good work.

Quote: Originally posted by Precision
Sorry, I don't take the time to read those. I posted this at 2 AM at night, so I just wanted to post and get it over with. But I just posted 3 reviews, so I should be good.

Well, since it is (or was) Chirstmas I guess I could forgive you

Welcome to TWF.

I haven't much to say that's not already said.

One thing that caught my eye is that you've done a good job of escaping the usual php-nuke look, even tbough your site runs on it. Good work.

thanks for the comments so far guys, I appreciate it..
keep them coming!

Good for you for getting such a good-sized community together! Here's a few minor things I noticed:

There's a lack on consistency when it comes to font size/style/color on the main page. Also, everything has that 'not quite polished' look. For example, the verticle bars between the main links at the top of the page - they're way above the baseline for the menu itself. Text going beyond the graphic, eg: Top Members.

Email Address _____________ Go. How about 'Subscribe'?

I'm at the top of the page and I see a graphic to take me to the top. Scroll down to the bottom and there's no control to take me back up. I'd remove the graphic.

Click 'Join' and a new page comes up, yet the navigation (left side) indicates that I haven't got there yet.

Update Points - is that a PacMan graphic?

'Top Members' in what way?

'Whose the best QB right now?' seens out of place. The rest of the page is quite general in comparison.

"Humanity's Stupidity", "Sniper on the Loose", "Trent Lott-Racist or Dumbass?", "is Trent Lott racist supporting segregation or just not thiking before speaking? If you ask me he is not racist, he is just a dumbass... you must think before speaking..." This is the content you've selected for teens? I'm not a parent, but given what I've seen so far I wouldn't consider this a good portal site for teens. But, I'm sure it's a great get-together site for you, your friends, etc.

Peter

Thanks for your long response, I will take all your points into consideration.

Also, teen-hangout is looking for some admins that have scripting experience, perferablly in PHP. I'm a newbie scripter and with another well experienced admin to help me with some of the things I'm planning with the site, the site could provide more features to it's members...
If anyone is interested, email me at [email protected]

Thanks!

Nice site. However there is a strip of grey down the right side. Something to do with screen size and resolution. I would get that fixed so the site auto adjusts to each screen size.

The site is a little messy in general. Try and align more things a little better. I would try and make table spaces a little bigger so the text does not go right to the very edge. Makes things a little neater and easier on the eye.

Last of all the text seem a little inconsistant. Make sure you use the same text for all headers as you do for the normal stuff.

good luck!

Andrew

I tried uploading a 64kb picture in your funny section, and I was told my pic is too large. Stop being stingy with the diskspace. I am using MSIE 6, with 1024 x 768, and your site only takes up 66% of the width area. Please extend it. I think you should replace the newsletter area, with the hot or not. I would want the hot or not to be the first thing people see. I have a problem with your windows like drop down menus. I have an old mouse and have trouble trying to use those tiny drop downs with tiny text. Your text is too small all over. I guess teens have better eyes. I think you are off to a good start.

kl

I get:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: themefooter() in D:\websites\Teen Hangout\footer.php on line 34

When I try to post

it took about 8 seconds to load(cable modem),i don't mind waiting not so sure bout others,i'm a newbie so i can't get tech,the site remind me of student.com,i do like your site............Good Luck:cool:

the forums are great, and a nice professinal site.. good work.. and good luck..

*bump*

sadly i think teens would love this website, you offer AIM junk and they love their aim messenger! i got some weird popup at first, lose that. i tried reading it and i feel i lost 10 IQ points after one thread. your top img must be flash as it wont load for me. needs more content the "funny" pictures took forever to load

get some aliasing on the grapical headers... its all jaggedy round the letters which makes your page look a bit amateurish.

"you offer AIM junk and they love their aim messenger"
I offer them "AIM junk" because they love their aim messenger...
Your IQ dropped points after reading forum posts? There are some interesting debates in there if you check it out...
If you have 56k and take forever to download one picture I can't help you.

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Your right I should get those graphics ant-aliased thanks

Good idea for a site, but I consider a new layout.