The design is very usable, but not really particularly interesting. I love grey as much as the next person, but one of the great things about it is that it's so versatile. Grey literally goes with anything, spice up the layout with a flash of color. Something bright, but not blinding.
The logo doesn't pop out enough. The greys used are too close, so there's no contrast to grab the eye. i didn't even notice it until five minutes after i clicked the link. Add a little color here, too, or somehow make it more catchy.
The front page has a lot of information on it, i dunno about have FOUR collumns of info. It seemed really over-packed to me, even cluttered, and i'm on 1024x768. I can't imagine it on 800x600, let alone 640x480. Merge it into ohne collumn, or if you feel it's too long pop some of the info into a seperate page. All the other pages are fine in this respect.
You have a list of links just under your advertisement that connect to pages with the same exact thing that you have just a few inches awayon your nav bar. Seems rather redundant to me. Also, You have a link to the wallpaper page under the heading of "movie wallpaper" and then you have it under downloads. Why twice? Since you obviously won't have anything else to put under the movie wallpaper heading, get rid of that, and just leave the link under downloads.
It seems odd to me that the forums appear without the side bars and all that stuff. I realize that it'd probably be very difficult to get it to have forums like that into your design, but it would be nice.
Thats all i have to say, there's really not that much that's icky about it just add some color to spruce it up, esp the logo, get rid of the redundant links, and clean up the front page.
You do have too much of gray (or is it grey) thing going there. Gray is a great offset color. I would agree with Fringey that you should add some color. Maybe use color in your headings area like New Movies. I think also that you should make your headings gifs to give them a nice clean look. People would expect something a lot more exciting from a movie site. Right now, the most exciting thing on your site is Shock the Monkey (that monkey must die).
Mark Irving I have a mind like a steel trap; it is rusty and illegal in 47 states
The Webmistress posted this at 08:23 — 1st August 2001.
I too agree that the grey is too bland but it does give you a very good base on which to add colour & the logo, although very well done, doesn't stick out at all & it could look quite easily.
Very nice site other than that
Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....
I agree with everything that's been said too far. YOu should definitely consider putting your text on a white background, because it makes things a lot easier to read. White on dark is fine for small amounts of text, but for long articles it's a lot easier for the reader if it's the othe way around.
More colour is definitely needed, and I also think that you've got way too many navigation options - it just confuses things. I would emphasize the menu bar across the top somehow - maybe with graphics, since that's where the real content is. This bar should also be repeated at the bottom of the page. I would also get rid of some of the extra stuff on the left bar - there's a lot on there that is't directly related to your content (contest, interviews - who knows who Lynn Guthrie is anyway? - wallpapers is on there twice under Movie Wallpapers as well as Downloads, webmasters etc. etc. ) Take out anything that isn't really necessary and then list the others together.
I would also take a look at your site logs and see if people are using the list of writiers a lot. If it's not a popular feature I would move it to a separate page (this isn't showing up in NS 6.1 BTW - I'm getting a box but there's nothing in it - it was fine when I checked in mozilla 0.92 last night). Also, don't change the cursor from the default for the menu - it's annoying, and a lot of people may get confused when the cursor doesn't change to a hand when it finds a link.
Type-o on "Americass Sweethearts" on the left sidebar.
I would also seriously reconsider the decision to get rid of the archive - there's really no other way to people to just browse listings if they don't have a particular movie in mind. As I said in your last review, I think a site like this would be a lot more helpful to people if they could search or browse the archives with more specific options like genre, date of release, stuff like that. You should also provide more information with your lists of reviews - ie. when I click on New Movies at the top I should see not only the name of the movie, but also your star rating, who reviewed it, and year of release.
Oh, one more thing - I'm seeing blue links on grey here in some places - too hard to read.
Okay, here's where personal preference comes into play. I like the grey. I would not change the color scheme at all.
There are only 2 things I would do to the site:
1. Put the writers in the left nav and widen the two middle columns so you have a total of 3 columns.
2. Make the logo more noticeable. The logo is great and matches the design of your site very well, so well in fact that it doesn't stand out enough. I would make it as large as possible (loos like it can wider without too much trouble) and maybe add a colored drop shadow effect or something to make it a bit more noticeable.
If you are going to add movie clips or soundtracks or other items under downloads, then leave the wallpaper there. it would be appropriate in two categories.
I think overall it's a great looking site and the navigation is simple and easy to use.
Deborah
I like the colors also but it still needs a bit more color here and there. Can you add some color to the logo to make it say, "Hello, Here I am!" Logo is good but a tiny bit dull.
I think that the rollover on the navigation are cool. Good job!
The only other thing that caught my attention was when you scroll down the page there is tons of space on either side of the main body. Why don't you stick that poll on one side and the latest ten reviews on the other side and bring everything else up?
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Fringey posted this at 01:23 — 1st August 2001.
They have: 68 posts
Joined: Apr 2001
The design is very usable, but not really particularly interesting. I love grey as much as the next person, but one of the great things about it is that it's so versatile. Grey literally goes with anything, spice up the layout with a flash of color. Something bright, but not blinding.
The logo doesn't pop out enough. The greys used are too close, so there's no contrast to grab the eye. i didn't even notice it until five minutes after i clicked the link. Add a little color here, too, or somehow make it more catchy.
The front page has a lot of information on it, i dunno about have FOUR collumns of info. It seemed really over-packed to me, even cluttered, and i'm on 1024x768. I can't imagine it on 800x600, let alone 640x480. Merge it into ohne collumn, or if you feel it's too long pop some of the info into a seperate page. All the other pages are fine in this respect.
You have a list of links just under your advertisement that connect to pages with the same exact thing that you have just a few inches awayon your nav bar. Seems rather redundant to me. Also, You have a link to the wallpaper page under the heading of "movie wallpaper" and then you have it under downloads. Why twice? Since you obviously won't have anything else to put under the movie wallpaper heading, get rid of that, and just leave the link under downloads.
It seems odd to me that the forums appear without the side bars and all that stuff. I realize that it'd probably be very difficult to get it to have forums like that into your design, but it would be nice.
Thats all i have to say, there's really not that much that's icky about it just add some color to spruce it up, esp the logo, get rid of the redundant links, and clean up the front page.
mairving posted this at 03:04 — 1st August 2001.
They have: 2,256 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
You do have too much of gray (or is it grey) thing going there. Gray is a great offset color. I would agree with Fringey that you should add some color. Maybe use color in your headings area like New Movies. I think also that you should make your headings gifs to give them a nice clean look. People would expect something a lot more exciting from a movie site. Right now, the most exciting thing on your site is Shock the Monkey (that monkey must die).
Mark Irving
I have a mind like a steel trap; it is rusty and illegal in 47 states
The Webmistress posted this at 08:23 — 1st August 2001.
She has: 5,586 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
I too agree that the grey is too bland but it does give you a very good base on which to add colour & the logo, although very well done, doesn't stick out at all & it could look quite easily.
Very nice site other than that
Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....
Megan posted this at 13:20 — 1st August 2001.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
I agree with everything that's been said too far. YOu should definitely consider putting your text on a white background, because it makes things a lot easier to read. White on dark is fine for small amounts of text, but for long articles it's a lot easier for the reader if it's the othe way around.
More colour is definitely needed, and I also think that you've got way too many navigation options - it just confuses things. I would emphasize the menu bar across the top somehow - maybe with graphics, since that's where the real content is. This bar should also be repeated at the bottom of the page. I would also get rid of some of the extra stuff on the left bar - there's a lot on there that is't directly related to your content (contest, interviews - who knows who Lynn Guthrie is anyway? - wallpapers is on there twice under Movie Wallpapers as well as Downloads, webmasters etc. etc. ) Take out anything that isn't really necessary and then list the others together.
I would also take a look at your site logs and see if people are using the list of writiers a lot. If it's not a popular feature I would move it to a separate page (this isn't showing up in NS 6.1 BTW - I'm getting a box but there's nothing in it - it was fine when I checked in mozilla 0.92 last night). Also, don't change the cursor from the default for the menu - it's annoying, and a lot of people may get confused when the cursor doesn't change to a hand when it finds a link.
Type-o on "Americass Sweethearts" on the left sidebar.
I would also seriously reconsider the decision to get rid of the archive - there's really no other way to people to just browse listings if they don't have a particular movie in mind. As I said in your last review, I think a site like this would be a lot more helpful to people if they could search or browse the archives with more specific options like genre, date of release, stuff like that. You should also provide more information with your lists of reviews - ie. when I click on New Movies at the top I should see not only the name of the movie, but also your star rating, who reviewed it, and year of release.
Oh, one more thing - I'm seeing blue links on grey here in some places - too hard to read.
Megan
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dmwhipp posted this at 17:13 — 4th August 2001.
They have: 80 posts
Joined: May 2001
ISDN connection
13" monitor 800x600
IE 5.0
Okay, here's where personal preference comes into play. I like the grey. I would not change the color scheme at all.
There are only 2 things I would do to the site:
1. Put the writers in the left nav and widen the two middle columns so you have a total of 3 columns.
2. Make the logo more noticeable. The logo is great and matches the design of your site very well, so well in fact that it doesn't stand out enough. I would make it as large as possible (loos like it can wider without too much trouble) and maybe add a colored drop shadow effect or something to make it a bit more noticeable.
If you are going to add movie clips or soundtracks or other items under downloads, then leave the wallpaper there. it would be appropriate in two categories.
I think overall it's a great looking site and the navigation is simple and easy to use.
Deborah
Deborah Whipp
http://www.acleverpenny.com
disaster-master posted this at 11:56 — 5th August 2001.
She has: 2,154 posts
Joined: May 2001
I like the colors also but it still needs a bit more color here and there. Can you add some color to the logo to make it say, "Hello, Here I am!" Logo is good but a tiny bit dull.
I think that the rollover on the navigation are cool. Good job!
The only other thing that caught my attention was when you scroll down the page there is tons of space on either side of the main body. Why don't you stick that poll on one side and the latest ten reviews on the other side and bring everything else up?
Other than that it is good. Clean design!
disastermaster
benmcm posted this at 02:42 — 8th August 2001.
They have: 11 posts
Joined: Aug 2001
Looks good!
Ben
FREE - "1001 Webmaster Resources"
http://webresources.hostingbee.com
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