a totally different site to tear apart

On a 1280x1024 19" display, it looks excellent. I assume you've employed tables set to percentage widths. My only complaint is that on the Projects page, the small high rez text runs all the way across a pretty wide screen. That makes reading like watching a tennis match, and it is difficult not to lose your place when you start reading a new line of text. I don't know if it can be done, but this is the type of situation where I'd like to set the width to a percentage with a "not to exceed x pixels" provision, so it can grow, but not too much.

What I normally do is set the text table sections to a max width of 600 to 650 pixels.

You still have a prominent E-Groups logo in your top banners, but refer to yahoo groups (who absorbed egroups a year ago) in other places. Is this intentional, transitory, or in need of an immediate fix? I also run a Yahoo group and just got around to changing my references when I rewrote my site last month.

Thanks so much Todd!
The text looks fine on my screen, but I have a very tiny screen...lol. It's good to hear someone who can display higher resolution let me know how it really looks.
I'll get started on fixing that text right away.

The logo was something I actually made right before we found out the group was going to be bought out by the dreaded Yahoo. (they've been talking about doing this site for awhile) I have an alternative logo that looks the same except it has the Yahoo name instead of eGroups. I'm going to let the group members decide which one they want. (We still refer to ourselves as the eGroup).

Thanks again!
This is a site I'm making for everyone in the group (as well as visitors) so I want it to look right.

btw: You're sites are pretty cool too!

Karen

Ok, I think I fixed the problem with the text.
I have everything in tables with % widths (good eye Todd).
I just put the text in a 600 pixel wide table. I hope that fixes the problem.

Everyone at the group is still voting on which name to go with (eGroups or Yahoo) hopefully they will decide on one by next week... I'm ready to finish this one up so I can start working on another site.

Thanks again!
Karen

You mean there's someone out there with a Mac older than my 7500, which I got in the fall of 1995? (Well, it *has* been through a couple of processor upgrades.)

Sniff! That just warms the cockles of my heart.

Anyway, I'm presuming you haven't looked at your site in Netscape, because it's pretty whacked. NS4.x doesn't display layers properly.

It looks okay in IE, but everything is huge to me at 800x600 on a 17". You also have vertical scroll, when it would be easy to fit everything into one screen.

For a site about "colored pencils" I thought the opening page lacked color. Your logo is a dark brown over grey and the link icons are black.

Overall, it looks pretty good, though.

Thanks so much Gizmoid!
I looked at it in Netscape 4.75, IE 5.0, Opera 5.0, Lynx, and (for a lark) WebTV.

I do need to get some of the older versions of Netscape and IE to check my sites out on. I'm just running out of hard drive space... lol.

Is there a way to make the older browsers view layers correctly, or do I have to abandon them altogether?
Booo hooo... I liked those layers.
(This is why I don't use style sheets... IE and Netscape NEVER display them the same way)

Yikes! A scroll bar... that wasn't supposed to happen.
Aaaaargggg! Maybe I'll know better next time before I volunteer to do a site for someone....
No I wont.

Ok, I'll try to figure out why it doesn't all fit onto one neat screen.

Thanks again.
As you can see, I need the help.

The text looks much better at 600 pixels wide on my hi-rez screen. I'm running ie5, so I haven't noticed any of the other problems mentioned above. Does your host provide you statistics on browser tags of your visitors. NS4.x and below account for about 4% of the visitors to my sites. AOL (yuck) and IE5.x account for 85% (split almost evenly). I wouldn't bend myself too far to satisfy such a small percentage who can and should upgrade.

Karen, I like the basic layout & yes it all works for me in IE5 but I too found it a bit lacking in colour. Also I just found the text a bit too big & in your face!! I would perhaps have looked at using an artier sort of font as they are grpahics? On the subsequent pages where you have the text (eg. Gallery 1) the text looks blocky when you have it that large & bold. Perhaps a graphic text to match the front page would look nicer. I liked the chimps

wow

I waited just about a minute or so just to see a few options to enter the page. My server might be slow and I may be half way around the world (Japan) but I count just as much as the graphic designers with bandwidth aplenty don't I? Well, I think I do.

Reduce the load time on that front page. It had a few links and that's it right. What value did those big graphic links add that smaller opimized graphics wouldn't have?

I did like the "look" of the front page but I didn't like the wait.

For what it's worth I enjoyed the art and the concept.

Andrew

Thanks so much for the advice everyone!

I really liked the idea of using layers, but I think I need to practice with them some more before I use them in a website.

I have gone back to my reliable tables to lay out the intro page.
It's not fancy, but it works well for me.

The group has also voted to use the Yahoo name, so the logos have all been changed to reflect that.

We are also putting a lot more artwork in the show than I originally thought, so I've added two more galleries.
I don't believe there are too many links yet (I hope).

I've also replaced the too large text for the headers on each page with the pretty link graphics I used for the home page.
It does look much better (and since I'm using the same graphic, it should load in an instant)

Other than that everything is the same.

I'd love to know if the site looks better now.

I'd also like to know if the text around the pictures on the home page is readable or not. I'm torn between leaving it and taking it out.

OK... if anyone finds any problems or suggestions for improvement, I still have a week left to get this site done.

Thanks again.
Karen

I much prefer the look now, just a couple of small points.

You haven't got a proper alt tag on the main picture, just a space so on mouse over you get a small box appear which needs filling or removing.

The text is readable on the main page, but as with all your text graphics where they are jpeg's the text gets blurred, it is much better to save graphical text as a gif image to stop this where ever possible.

Good job

Thanks so much Webmistress!

I realize I need to go through and fix some of the alts (and keywords).
For me that takes the longest time, and I usually save it for last.

I was worried about the look of the text on the home page.
It's incorporated into one picture with the artwork, so I saved the picture as a jpg instead of a gif.
I thought it would be better to have the text slightly off than loose the colors in the artwork.

I'm still not sure if the text will stay or go.

Thanks again. This forum is so helpful.

PS: I have one problem I'm going to have to solve with this site...
Most of the people at the group want some form of tracker(counter) for the site.

I'm on a free server and don't have CGI capability.
(If it doesn't end in .html forget it)
Is there anything out there that I can put on the site that will track stats for free without putting some hideous counter or ad on the page?

I pay for extreme tracking on my pages, but I'm not going to pay to track the group's site.

I do need something that will allow any of the members to check the stats whenever they want.

I appreciate any advice!

Nice, very nice! Has a great look in every resolution I test from 800 wide to 1280 wide. Good choice to be consistent with Yahoo name (regardless of our mutual opinion of the takeover). Home page is very pretty. Let us know when the art content fills in, We'd like to see it.

Since the site is so centered on your Yahoo Group, you might consider adding "join our group" to the primary navigation on each page, rather than only put it on the links page. Speaking of the links page, you use a very similar style to mine of having a small graphic shot on the left and an abstract on the right. I find this much more interesting for the audience than a boring laundry list of text hyperlinks. You may want to add a note to this page encouraging people to email you more colored pencil links they may have found to be included.

Hit counters are not considered very cool, but I understand the group would want one. If you do a search for hit counters, I'm pretty sure you'll find plenty that will do the job. My advice would be to make it very small, possibly low contrast, on the right margin, a couple lines below the rest of the page's bottom border.

I do this on all the pages of my getcleaned.com site, but in the case it's the last rev date of the page instead of a hit counter. It's info I want, but I don't want it obvious that it hasn't been updated in a long time. No one but me even notices that it's there.

You seem to have had the same positive experience designing with forum help that I did. My site evolved quite a distance during the discourse and I ended up with a much improved result, by judiciously incorporating many of the suggestions I received. Great job.

Thanks so much Todd!
I would have responded sooner, but I've spent the last 4 days having all the artists confirm the information on their individual pages.
The show will definately be ready to go "live" on July 1st.

I have been looking around for site trackers, but I completely hate every one I've tried out on my test page.
I think I'll keep looking around for an free invisible tracker that way I can have the stats sent to the groups email address, so only the people interested in the numbers have to look at them.
Well... the search continues.

I've also convinced the group's moderator to write a short "About our group" page covering the group's history, goals, etc. I think I'll put the "Join our group" link there instead of on the links page. I'll be filling the page up with a couple webrings and my Color Pencil banner exchange, so there will be enough on that page.

I know that that will add another link to the home page and I've been trying to find a good way to add another link without making the page look crowded, or making the links look too small.
(I always have to change something just when I get it right)

The only other thing that I know needs to be done is the meta keywords, but I've been putting that off, because I don't want the site to actually be listed in the search engines yet.

Well... I'm off to finish the site (and try to find a July lesson for my Challenge site... yikes)

Thanks again.
This forum is the best!
Karen

PS: I'll put the art in the galleries so you can have a sneak peak, but the only artist page I can link in right now will be my own.

Regarding site trackers: did you ask your hosting company if they provide any site stats? If they do then it is usually accessed through the web and not a button you place in your page. Just a thought.

Regarding adding an extra link to your page: just make those links a little smaller. I wouldn't worry about them being too small.

That's all. I keep checking back and it's getting better every time!

Brooke
:snow:

I spell colour with a 'u' because I'm Canadian (and proud of it too!)

I'm picky about small things so don't let this bother you. Okay here goes:

I notice there is a scroll bar - and it only moves down 1 or 2 pixels. could you possible change your design so you can remove the scroll bar, as it entices me to scroll down, but there is nothing there.

Your site navigation is flawless, in my opinion.. good job on that.

What would be nice, though, is if you fit the pictures closer together in the galleries, and link them into a larger picture.

Keep up the good work.

Thank you so much m0dulus!

I am still trying to figure out why there is a scroll bar on the first page. (I have a very tiny monitor and EVERY site has scroll bars for me)
There is no reason for this site to do that, so I must have an extra break in the code somwhere. I just have to track it down.

The Pictures will eventually link to larger versions (the individual pages will have contact info for that artist on them) I'm just waiting for confirmation from a couple artists on thier info.

Thanks again for all the great suggestions.
I'm trying to create sites for professional artists, so they HAVE to look good and work flawlessly.

btw: All the European artists I work with (and most of the Canadian ones) use u in color also.
I actually take the ed of the end of "colored" on my sites and spell it Color Pencils. (always have to be different)

Karen

Colour is the correct spelling, no doubt about it!

Just one thing that I have been noticing. The dog picture that has the white background - send that picture to back - it just doesn't look right with it having a white background.

Good job!

Brooke
:snow:

Thank you so much everyone for all the extremely helpful critiques!!!

I finally have the show finished and posted.
(the final version is at:
http://gallery.passion4art.com/members/yahoogroup/newestindex.html
if you're interested)

There are still many mistakes.
I know I haven't gotten rid of that darn scroll bar and I ran out of time to redo the front graphic, so the white background dog is still on the top.
I also didn't get the gallery pictures moved closer together.
I hope it doesn't look too bad on a larger monitor.
I decided to go with a free tracker from extreme tracking.
It has a graphic, but it doesn't flash at least.

Thank you again for all the advice.
I hope to have a little more time in creating the next site, so I can get EVERYTHING right.

Enjoy
Karen

The only thing about using the free tracker is that everyone gets to see your stats if they click on the logo!