REVIEW REQUEST:WebmasterEdge.com Facelift

A couple things:

* The size of the font in the logo is too small and easy to miss. Make it stand out and noticeable, but don't make the logo too big.

* I know tabs are overused, but I think they'd look better than those buttons.

* You basically use green as your color which is fine, but you may want to consider a different, more contrasting color to spruce things up.

* How will you be financing your site? If with advertising, where will it go?

I think I perfer the orginal layout, even thou it is very busy (no relation ) maybe just take a lil bit off the top banner and/or add the green background under the right side section.
I think you have to much content for the new proposed layout.

I have to agree that I much prefer the original version. I actually find this one more ametuerish looking. Sorry!

I am too sleepy to give ya a good review right now and am also temporarily on my ancient computer which makes everything look like poo. I will check ya tomorrow when I get my other puter up and running again. One thing I noticed while trying to close the page was, this page kept popping up. I had to close it about 3 times before it would go away and stay gone.
You must do something about that annoyance.

http://www.w3exit.com/exit.php?account=webedge&tid=1031992577&ref=http://www.webmasteredge.com/proof/index.cfm

Interesting thoughts!

I must admit I quite liked the Flash rollover effect on the buttons and I would like to keep that. Now I look again the logo is a bit small....

It might help if I explain the facelift...Simply down to the fact that I now need a side nav bar. I would prefer it on the left but the right would do. How about using the gradient and light green bground on the left only?

Webmistress - Amatuerish??? Moi????

Sorry maybe that was a little harsh but I don't think it looks as good as your other version.

Oh thats alright! I think I'm starting to agree with you

I know you like the flash buttons but for me personally it is those that take the edge off your professional look.

Yeh I think you may be right...I'm toying with a drop down menu I created in Fireworks so I'll post it in the next few days to see how it looks...

I agree with Busy...I like the old layout better as well. I also think you could take some of the black background off the top and use the green background for your navigation section, whether it be on the left or the right. I also think that they black lettering on the flash buttons makes them hard to read. maybe use white instead, black with a whitish glow around the text. The idea of drop menus sounds good. I'd like to see check it out again when you get that posted.

Great looking "jewel buttons!" I have to say that you must include the look of the buttons in the rest of the design. Don't be afraid, go all out. Those buttons are very impressive, and glass, beveled look of them needs to be more extensive on the website.

I have to say that you should, as a recommendation, lighten up the text within the jewel buttons; perhaps make the text white, or with a light dropshadow.

Anyway, great work! I will be looking forward to it when it is complete!
Robby

I do like the buttons, those look great but the rest of the design I'm not too keen on. For some reason I don't associate webmaster sites with gradient effects like you're using here. I don't kno why, but for some reason I'm thinking something with clean lines and bolder colours would be more appropriate.

I agree with KnightRobby - go with those jewel buttons but start from scratch on everything else, and try to incorporate more of that looking ot the rest of the design. Not necessarily that same effect but colours and design elements that work with them.

If you look at the Apple website, they've used a similar style navbar very effectively. The rest of the design is very lightweight looking with simple shades of grey on a white bakcground. You could take some inspiration from that.

Okay, here's proof No. 2.

I'm gonna have a look at the mac site and see if I can rip it off!!! Just kidding...

I like the jewel buttons but I'm not sure about basing an entire nav system on Flash...I've always advocated against sites that employ just Flah to view a site simply down to morals!

Have a play with it tonight.....

You could just do regular graphic rollovers, that would probably be a better solution. I really think that those buttons a better idea than the ultra-boring text nav you have on this sample. If you're going to use plain text for navigation at least do something interesting width the CSS. I usually find that bolding nav text is a good way to make it stand out and prevent it from being confused with regular (non-nav) text.

Oh, and I don't like that right side gradient thing at all. I think that area would be better just plain light grey, and then you could put some link buttons there or quick links to highlighted sites, or new additions or something like that.

*and the crowd screams, "We want jewel buttons! We want jewel buttons! Go for it!"* Some encouragement for you

Right!

Here's Proof No. 3.

The jewelled buttons are back by popular demand and I've lightemned the side areas.

Please, please, please can I use it on the rest of the site now!!!!!!

I'v never been good at the design element you know, ColdFusion coding - no probs, design talent of a stick though

Not too far to go now, just make those two side areas a different colour (light grey would be good) just to visually differentiate them with the content area.

I'm also not too keen on how the buttons look against that medium -green background but I"m not sure what would look better there. Try moving them down to the top of the white area. The green bar would look too empty without the buttons on it, so something has to be done. Take the banner ad and put it on top of the medium green bar so it sort of cuts into it.

Hows it look now?

I thought maybe for that green area a search field similar to the original site and just use a bit of css to alter the background color of the form field so it blended in...??

K,

Moved the banner down a wee bit...

Now added the search box...

I think its looking rather good! Just my personal opinion though!!

Proof URL just in case you missed it!

Comments on browser resolutions? I've tested it down to 800 x 600 in about 6 steps from 1280 x 960 but any others would be welcome...

Plus are browsers such as NutScrape coping with the unexpected demand??

Shows up fine in Opera 6 and IE 6 but I need to test in others....

Thank for the help BTW Megan

At first I didnt like the grey, but longer I look at it the more I dont mind it, plus with text and links over it will look different

In IE5 the text is big, as if the style sheets arent fully there (has color but is default font and size, maybe even bigger) and the center nav button are 4 on one line with one under it.

In NS7 and mozilla1 the font is small, guessing about 11px ? with nav buttons 3 on top with two under (aligned center in both).

In opera6 (as opera6) there is a slight gap between the banner and green stripe with the search box and button at the very top (css isnt working in search box), where as the other browsers have the banner slighty overlapping the green banner (i though this was how it was meant to be) and the search option in the middle of the green stripe, default size font in opera as well

best viewed in NS7 or Mozilla , this is all on 800x600 btw

looking good

[edit]just peeked at your source code, you have a floating style line {font stufff ...} with no tag or class element infront of it, above the bosy one. NS etc are seeing your body tag, but IE and opera are treating tables as seperate, so add td to the body tag "body,td {stuff}" for the style sheets to work through out.[/edit]

CSS and all seems to working fine for me on IE6. As busy said the grey boxes might look better once they have something in them (to hide the grey ) however I'm not sure about the blue for the links, I'd have gone for a green. The buttons at 800*600 fall onto two lines which I don't like and what do you have appearing if no flash is present or visitors don't want to download flash 6? Lastly the banner sites onto the light green at the top and to me it looks like it should just sit in the dark green section only.

Jumping in late here so forgive me if I'm a little redundant..

quick edit before hitting submit. Julia pretty much nailed it all right above me

In a nutshell:

- I dislike the nav (Flash, wraps at 800x600, "Apple-ish")

- You need a link colour scheme. I'd suggest that browns/tans might work well in conjunction with the greens.

- I'm tempted to think that your pale green might make a better background colour than the gray but hard to say without seeing it in action.

I definitely agree about the link colours but otherwise I think it looks really good. A great improvement from the first one you posted. I tend to agree with the others that maybe the grey wasn't such a great choice, although I'm wondering if light green would be too overwhelming (I mean, if those sides were green the page might just look a little too green, if you know what I mean).

Ok, I'll just try to answer these in turn!

Quote: In IE5 the text is big, as if the style sheets arent fully there (has color but is default font and size, maybe even bigger) and the center nav button are 4 on one line with one under it.

I've decresed the font size to 11px but you can still alter it with the old View>Text Size option in IE if its too small. The nav bar is now in a fixed size table so it shouldn't stack...

Quote: In opera6 (as opera6) there is a slight gap between the banner and green stripe with the search box and button at the very top (css isnt working in search box), where as the other browsers have the banner slighty overlapping the green banner (i though this was how it was meant to be) and the search option in the middle of the green stripe, default size font in opera as well

Opera doesn't like CSS does it I think I can lose the gaps, the banner was sposed to be there but I moved it cause it just didn't look right and if any css experts want to get the search field working, be my guest!

Quote: just peeked at your source code, you have a floating style line {font stufff ...}

..Not any more

Quote: what do you have appearing if no flash is present or visitors don't want to download flash 6?

Not sure how to tackle this one. I'm gonna hunt down a wee bit of JavaScript I once saw that redirects on non-flash browsers and see if i can adapt it to load up a graphical nav instead of the Flash but if anyone wants a try...feel free...

Quote: I'd suggest that browns/tans might work well in conjunction with the greens.

Ive now posted two versions of the proof. The first is with the grey backgrounds which I think might need to be lighter and the second is with the green background, both with three variations of colour on the links...

Phew.......

Bring it on.......

I definitely like the grey better - as I suspected before the green sides are making the whole thing a little too green. I don't like any of those link schemes - how about a medium shade of green to match the rest of the design? Keep the underline on and/or bold them to make sure they stand out enough.

I'm assuming that you're planning on fixing the placement of the navbar so that "feedback" doesn't appear on a second line.

Quote: Originally posted by Megan
I definitely like the grey better - as I suspected before the green sides are making the whole thing a little too green. I don't like any of those link schemes - how about a medium shade of green to match the rest of the design? Keep the underline on and/or bold them to make sure they stand out enough.

I'm assuming that you're planning on fixing the placement of the navbar so that "feedback" doesn't appear on a second line.

Right, Just added a d/green variation on the links...

The nav bar shouldn't be stacking at all, I've just been testing in about 6 different resolutions down to 800 x 600 and it wasn't. Are you sure you're not looking at a cached image??

I like the green but feel that it might look better if there wasn't a dark green gap between the light green with the search box and main section??

I definitely like the green links better, although I think that it might be a good idea to leave the underline normally just in case people confuse them with regular text.

The navbar stacking issue seems to be an Opera thing. (wait... same thing is happening in mozilla as well and I'm running at 1152 x 768)

I perfer the green sides with white links or light grey
The flash nav buttons are now 4 on one line, 1 on another, aligned left. (800x600)
The thing I dont like about those buttons is they are rounded and the layout (except the logo) is squared.

is the search box meant to be at the top? your source code shows valign="top", also you have rowspan 3 when you only have two cells.

that popup onexit is a pain in the butt

In between each flash button you have & nbsp; & nbsp; (spaces added for it to show here)to create the extra space but I think this is causing the buttons to drop the last one onto a new line in some browesers/resolutions. Just have a normal space between each one and it should stay in line. One other thing I have just noticed is that you haven't got the middle section set to the top so all it's contents will sit in the middle and the buttons will jump around from page to page.

That pop up on exit is bloody annoying!!!

I'd have to say that I'm in the "green camp" with.. white links I suppose. I'd suggest trying the dark green or a combo with browns for the body link colour.

Has anyone mentioned how annoying that pop-up is?

Right I've decided.

The green sides with white links set in Bold.

The Flash buttons are going the journey because I've gone right off them, difficult to update, impossible to add a drop down menu too (for me anyway) which I may do at a lter stage and I never truly had my heart in them

I've come up with a graphical nav thats squared off (Busy you had a good point there )

The pop up exit is binned too. I used it when I thought the site wasn't really sending that many visitors...completely apart from the fact I'm gonna get lynched if I dont lose it.

Here's the final (hopefully) proof

One note...Thankyou very much to evryone that has contributed to this thread so far...you have the patience of saints to deal with my inane attempts to be a designer!!

ummm...

new buttons to pick on

They are a tad fuzzy. And what the heck is that on the left end? Whatever it is, "Opportunities" overlaps it.

Yeh, it did look a little grainy...How bout the one I just added?

You seem to be set on buttons, how about using text? you can use CSS or tables to set background color, use a:hover for effect, easy to change, update ... and you can still use the description (title="...") in your links.

just an idea

The 'Home' button looks really dated with that big bevel on it and the others look fuzzy and you need some contrast for the :: thingy on the left hand side of them. I'd clean those ones up a bit and make sure the button is wide enough for all the text to fit in.

Those new buttons seem to be alright as far as design goes but they're way too dark/low contrast and the text is too small. Try making them a bit bigger and improving the sharpness of the text. Another problem is that the "opportunities" text is smooshed right up against the edges of its button - when you're using buttons for navigation you have to make sure that all of the text fits comfortably inside the graphic. I agree with Julia about the new home button - don't even think about that one.

We'll get there in the end!

How bout the this style of buttons?

Heres the proof

Nope can't see that working with all the ones you'd need there, too big and somehow doesn't fit with the rest of the site. Check your spelling on the button

Ok, this is really starting to frustrate me.

The first person to come up with a simple navbar that utilizes rollover images and created in fireworks 4 so that I can/edit the buttons gets a permenant button on my front page in the partner bar...

Note to mods: If you think this post would now be better moved to the Barter forum, feel free! I'm just getting frustrated at my inability to design a simple flippin button!

Why do you have to have buttons? Why not as Busy said, have text utilising CSS to do something funky with them??

Yes I have considered that. Maybe just have a row of cells with l/green as the base colour and d/green as the mouse over. When you say "funky text" do you mean play the latest Britnet toon at the same time as the mousOver or something else?

Just try to do something interesting with the CSS so it doesn't look too text-ish. I find that setting the links in bold usually helps to make them look more interesting, and lighter text on a dark background is also a good idea. I recently found a script that changes the background colour of a table cell on mouseover, so that's something you could think about as well.

Where did you find the script may I ask?

No matter, I found it...

Gonna have a play with the effect now...

I don't remember - I think it was dynamicdrive.com

Right, How about now?

Plain and simple - I like it.

But it's lacking something... how do you say, "the (webmaster)edge"?

A certain Je Ne Sais Quois as they say in Guatemala!!

I though that but I can't put my mouse on it....

how about make the gap between the buttons a lil smaller (try get "about us" on one line) and use a black background in another table so you get the black lines around the buttons - to flow with the search box etc.

Yeah that's what I was gonna suggest Busy, make the cells thinner and put the black line round them like on the search box.

Ok done that....How about now?

Yeah, that looks better

Yep, much better.

So is that it now??? Can we end this damn thread so I can get on with the rest of the site??

Just kidding...Thanks to everyone who contributed....

Well actually, looking at it again I don't know if that is quite right......................

Kidding!!

Steady or I may have to kill you!

That looks good. Simple yet effective. I could make some more suggestions but I won't bother since it sounds like you've had enough already! I know how that feels, believe me!

Another one who gives empty alt tags. VERY VERY annoying

Erm, its a proof. The final site will have alt tags.

Quote: Originally posted by flipper
Erm, its a proof. The final site will have alt tags.

K

Just curious, but when you use a screen reader, what result do you get if there are no alt tags? I'm interested because I would like to make sure that the re-design is as compatible as possible...

i think has great potential, but just needs a little livening up perhaps a splash of color or animation?looking good though.