Review - Site Navigation/Color Scheme

Alright, this isn't in the list of things you wanted feedback on, but I just have to say that I'm really confused about the purpose of this site. The title, "Myrtle Beach Designs" gave me the impression that this was a design business. However, the content is that of a personal site. That should really be more clear.

Now, about the things you did ask about, it looks pretty good. I like the colour scheme - it's pleasing and relaxing without being dull. The navigation could use some improvement. I like the mouseovers but the original state is pretty dull looking. I think that might work better as a vertical list rather than a horizontal one. The spacing looks funny (check and make sure that the space between listings is the same - the space around "music" looks bigger than the space around other words). Load time seems fine - hard to tell on a T1.

I will also say that I really like the way you've layed out the pages here. Good consistent use of fonts and headers etc. You might want to make some alterations for smaller screen resolutions. I get a horizontal scrollbar at 800x600 and there isn't a whole lot of actual content showing there. I notice that your big graphic is 800 pixels wide - that should really be about 760 to leave room for scrollbars and such.

load time on 56k wasn't to bad
that was the good news, bad news is the layout has some compatibility problems.
In NS4.7 the news feed actually works, but isn't in english, is symbols etc, the actual layout falls apart in this and mozilla leaving gaps between cells etc, but mozilla and opera6 doesn't display the news ticker thingy.
IE5 does display the ticker news thing but it's not scrolling like in NS4.7
The mouseovers are very slow to load (wouldn't of known they were there if wasn't mentioned) except for Opera6, Opera6 displays them instantly.
Your DOC tag is XHTML trans but your using HTML in some sections, others using both. Your code wont validate so I wont try, but looks like the reason the page is falling apart is lack of cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" and border="0" tags in your tables and having td content on seperate lines, should be content on the same line or at least start content ... few lines ... end content to keep them tight (DW fault)
Also your date/time is wrong, Javascript is the only thing youcan use to get the correct time/date as it has to come from the viewers pc, other wise your just displaying your servers date/time, which to me is a day off

your site is best viewed in Opera6 for layout and speed, but content is best viewed in IE5

Thanks for the through analysis of my site. I have a question concerning the comment:
'looks like the reason the page is falling apart is lack of cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" and border="0" tags in your tables.'

I always thought cellpadding, cellspacing and border attributes were all optional and not required to be defined to 0 if their not being used. Is it best practice to set the cellpadding, cellspacing and border attributes to 0?

Thanks Again.

Well, the load time was quick... because it didn't load.

I got a 502 Error...

Error 502
Remote server down or not responding

Hello.
Like Megan mentioned abouve, i also think the name of your site is misleading, i asumed it was webdesign too. Then when i read the about page. i see it is for design, very confusing in that case, why not have the newsfeeds and all that stuff on another website??
However i do like the look of the site, but maybe a splash more colour might help too. apart from that, busy has covered everything.
But the major thing is the stuff there that doesnt belong on a website design site.
good luck with the site.

Quote: Originally posted by sknyppy
I always thought cellpadding, cellspacing and border attributes were all optional and not required to be defined to 0 if their not being used. Is it best practice to set the cellpadding, cellspacing and border attributes to 0?

Browsers have different defaults, some are zero, some are one or two, safest way is to set everything to zero, even set your background colour if you use white as some browsers use grey as default.
Tables were/are made for data, weren't made for layouts etc but have been converted or used for them, keep everything tight (defaults to 0, content on same td /td line etc) and the table should hold together for a layout set up. Even having a link on seperate lines:
link name
can misalign your tables (it adds a vertical line bottom right of the image/link)

I think both the color scheme and the layout is quite suitable for your website. The design is clean and simple, plus very fast loading. However, the fact that it loads fast means that your banner image is not of very high quality. I can see vague squares and other things that made your image look rather "unclean".

Also, this is probably just me, but, the scrolling news line seems quite annoying.

Anyways good luck with your site

Derek

The page loaded very quickly for a 56k. I thought the design was very suitable for your content.

I like the color and the layout is nice. I suggest you change the font for the weather it's hard to read.

I was looking forward to seeing a portfolio... but I got pool? Yeha name is missleading, but u do have everything on this site from games to pool to a picture of your dog. Navigation was a little poor but I like your colors and simplicity. It loaded up great for me, no prob there.

well, apart from the site content being confusing. i suggest losing the news ticker, and in your links you link to astalavista.com and people who know what that site is know that its claims to be a "security" site are a little off.