Two test sites to look at!

Viewed with IE5 at odd screen sizes up to 1024px.

.. um .. first one: I thought it was time to clean my glasses - nope the images were meant to look like that;) Mike - it's awful hard to read. At small sizes, I think verdana shows better than tahoma.

.. um .. second one: this was much easier to look at, but I think that the font that appears as Times (to me) spoils the look - and I wouldn't mind if it were bigger. The menu explanation would be an easier read if it were in two columns.

Are you putting some kind of subliminal message in your posts, Andy? I coughed for about five minutes after reading that--for no reason. Vooodooo...

Anyways... got'cha. However, I digress. I don't quite agree with the two column thing. I tried it out, and it looks utterly ridiculous.

Also, I do believe the font was to be Tahoma, I don't know. I guess I'll have to go back and be sure to put 's in all of the .inc files. Looks like Tahoma to me.

Yep.

The font is tahoma ... I find (without my glasses on) that verdana is easier to read at small sizes, 'cos it's not quite so blocky.

1st site: the page is "Untitled" , is that your logo ? or just some free-hand artistic design ? It's not bad, just seems like you played around with something and added a few effects. The table, maybe you could try a border around it ? just to see what it looks like..I think it might look good. Um, and the text is a bit small...

2nd site: I like the splash page on this one. The image is nice (clean, clear and refreshing) . I dont believe you need to present stats on your site as you're more interested in attracting clients then traffic . When I enter, there is alot of white space, an extraordinary amount. What you do have there seems very compressed into that little area, you could space it out a bit and increase the font size by one please!

Good start though.

You are a fan of small fonts aren't you? Personally, trying to read any of this gives me a big headache.

On the first example the menu doesn't really stand out - people might miss it down there and get confused. Remember that a lot of client types aren't exactly the most web savvy people out there.

Err, actually.. that counter thing was just a little stint with MySQL.

That'll be removed.

Also, the first design is now cut. Nobody seemed to especially like that one, and since reformatting it into PHP [which I have found is a -lot- faster,] would take forever, I'll just scrap it.

Urgh. I suppose I could do more with the font. Also, I was thinking about enlarging the table... buuuutttt.. that would mean that I'd only be able to widen it by width [because it almost scrolls at my resolution.] Needless to say, that'd cause an awful amount of image distortion, which I'd rather not have.

Spacing it out is another possiblity, however to do I'd either have to do the aformentioned thing, or I'd have to add a bunch of white into that image that you see. Needless to say, that'd look ridiculous, some of the text falling over a large image, and then the large majority not.

Small Fonts are the best! I can condence around 30% more information into something!

Anyways, thanks. Now... focus on the second one.

[Oh, and the Ultitled thing was part of a different set of sites, I didn't like the sites, so I just erased all of the HTML contained within the tags and went nuts.]

I don't really like either, but since you're gonna focus on the second one, that'll be the one I'll critique...

1) The splash page is ok. I don't like the logo though. It needs to blend in more with the background. It also takes a while to load.

2) The font size is way too small. It will be impossible to read on both MACs and anyone using a resolution higher then 800x600. I can hardly read it right now with 800x600.

3) You need a logo on the main and sub-pages. I really like the logo you came up with that you used for a background image, and I think you should include that as a graphic on all the pages.

4) Too much text! Too much small text! You're a web designer that doesn't use any graphics on his main page! I would think that at least 50% of the design would be put into graphics, especially the navigation menu.

I don't like it much...

Jusin, you'd have to be blind not to be able to read that text. I surf at -way- higher than 800x600, and I see it perfectly fine.

Ohh.. so as a web designer, we're not allowed to include content? Hmm.

Logo? Why for? The only 'logo' I see fitting is the one that forms the backbone of the page.

I also don't see the reasoning for the splash page needing to blend in with the background... that wasn't the intended look. It was meant to be static from the background--since white didn't really give me a good background to work with [as apposed to a background image.]

And unlike every other mold-compling designer, I like minimalism, it provides a crisper look, and in 90% of the cases, I'd rather have a minimalistic design than a huge graphic monstrosity. However, this is -not- the case with pop-up windows, because you can control exactly how big it is, and therefore can make a lot more graphical effects.

[Edited by Mike Fisher on 08-29-2000 at 06:02 PM]