REVIEW REQUEST: www.carraigmorhouse.net
Hello all,
This is my very first website! I was visiting Carraig-Mor House B&B this new year's eve and was asked whether I would design a new web site for the B&B since they were disappointed with their old one.
I was given free reign with the design - I had to come up with the content, logos and graphics myself. The only inspiration I took was that on their small (no, tiny) brochure was that down the side they had Carraig Mor House with a big "M" and half-circling that was the light green line that I used in the site.
It took me about a week to do. These are the major topics of feedback that i'd find helpful:
1. Does the main page attract you to staying at Carraig Mor House?
2. Download time - slow or fast?
3. Graphics - do they work?
4. Easy to navigate?
5. Overall feeling?
Arkle was a gift from God
c-double posted this at 02:14 — 7th March 2003.
They have: 20 posts
Joined: Feb 2003
The image map in the bottom frame was broken, but the top frame content seemed nice. Much better than their previous site.
jammin posted this at 03:17 — 7th March 2003.
They have: 222 posts
Joined: Sep 2002
nice site, other than the broken image at the bottom.
The Webmistress posted this at 08:17 — 7th March 2003.
She has: 5,586 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
For your first site well done
it certainly is better than the old one.
Get the image at the bottom and it'll be easier to review, however I wouldn't have used frames for this. They are a personal choice but IMO are more trouble than they are worth. For instance you have nothing in there now that the search engines can follow or index - take a look at your source code for the frameset, that's what they'll see - nothing, no text, no links - see what I mean?
Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....
DaveyBoy posted this at 10:29 — 7th March 2003.
They have: 453 posts
Joined: Feb 2003
One way round that is to add a lot of content and links into the tags.
The_Oracle posted this at 11:50 — 7th March 2003.
They have: 13 posts
Joined: Jul 2002
Fixed the broken link. Very sorry about that, replaced the footer frame with an older HTML page that was the problem.
The Webmistress - thanks for that feedback. I didn't realise that was what the downside of using frames was.
DaveyBoy - does the noframes tag come after the frameset tag? If so, do I just type some normal text into it with hyperlinks to all the different pages. As in:
"Your browser cannot display frames. A frame-capable browser would display the many benefits of staying at Carraig-Mor House including.... text .... etc"
I think the bottom image now completes the site! I tried to make the site compatible with IE and Netscape at resolutions 1074*768 and 800*600.
Any other comments?
Arkle was a gift from God
Megan posted this at 14:22 — 7th March 2003.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Watch your margins at higher resolutions. On some of the pages (home and Activities), the text is up against the left side of the window while the header and footer stay centered.
I like the way you've used that curve to set up the navigation, but it seems a little bottom heavy this way. What you could do is have the header stretch all the way across as well so they balance out. On the other hand, I do like the curved ends on the top header so maybe the bottom part should mimic that instead. I'm also seing little gaps between your images on the bottom at 1152 x 768. Try using table backgrounds instead of straight images.
Megan
Connect with us on Facebook!
taff posted this at 14:46 — 7th March 2003.
They have: 956 posts
Joined: Jun 2001
First off, congrats on the client! I'd love to do one of these little Irish B&Bs. Nice clean job - particularly for a first site.
The frames really spoil this for me. They give the site a dated look and feel.
Graphics: Your layout and navigation really should be done as gifs - it would dramatically decrease the file sizes and probably sharpen up the text. Oh - it's an imagemap? So we're talking about 17k x 6 just for the navigation? Ouch.
For some reason, the Euro code isn't working for me on the Accomodations page although it comes in fine on the Activities page (same code, I'm using IE6, go figure!)
.....
JeevesBond posted this at 21:39 — 7th March 2003.
He has: 3,956 posts
Joined: Jun 2002
OS: Win2k
Browser: Netscape 7
Res: 1280x1024
Excellent first site...Miles better than the old one!
I would like to reaffirm the points about the text going right up to the left of the window on higher resolutions - this needs sorting
Also I agree with Webmistress on the frames, they are a bad idea - I do like the way the menu works though, and would take a lot away from the design to change it, it's up to you (but frames are evil for a variety of different reasons).
Overall: Do some tweaking and you'll have a lovely site...Has the client seen it yet, are they happy?
a Padded Cell our articles site!
Busy posted this at 09:08 — 8th March 2003.
He has: 6,151 posts
Joined: May 2001
I like what you've done but agree you should try not to use frames (or image maps).
On a 800x600 screen (IE5) with google toolbar, the top image and bottom frame take up the whole screen nearly. on homepage top of bottom frame comes 1/4 way up the front door.
looking at your code it looks like you're undecided to what to code in (HTML or XHTML) as the head is HTML and bottom is XHTML.
Don't use CSS in HTML tag bits ie: width="100px" it's either width="100" or a style sheet (CSS)
DaveyBoy posted this at 09:13 — 8th March 2003.
They have: 453 posts
Joined: Feb 2003
What i meant was, really nobody has a browser without frame support anymore. So because the search engines wouldn't find any information to index and reference in the frameset code, you can just add some words and links etc. into the noframes tag...
relevant text to the site and a few links
That way, nobody will ever see the info on the page (unless its about the 0.1% of people who still have IE2 or whatever) but search engines still have something to find in the index file.
Give it a go
Want to join the discussion? Create an account or log in if you already have one. Joining is fast, free and painless! We’ll even whisk you back here when you’ve finished.