VegasFreebie.com

Hi mikuaraman!

It looks like you have an interesting idea here. I like the fact that you're dividing the links into locations and catagories! Makes things much easier to find.

I feel that you really need to rethink your design though.
The bright yellow really hurts my eyes and the green text doesn't look very good on it. I think your buttons are supposed to be gambling chips(?) but they don't really come across right to me. Maybe you could see if you can find a gif or clear picture of a chip that you could use instead.
Even though you have your main content on a white background, the green cards (page background) around it are distracting and don't look good to me.

What you might want to do is think about the colors that people associate with Vegas. Keep your design limited to about 3 colors and play with your template design. I'd also advise to avoid pictures in your backgrounds. Just use solid colors and simple borders to keep your content seperated and looking neat.

You've got a good idea... you just need to work on making a clean design to show it off.
Best of luck with it!

The colour scheme needs to be more proffesional or else the viewers will be put off and just think that's it's just some worthless site. Take a look at some of the big companies. They would never use those kind of colours. The front page though is a classic example of a good front page - it describes it short and simply and the links through to the content are easy to find.

Thanks for the comments. I was going for some nice bright fun colors but I guess I overdid it. I'm working on some more pleasing colors now.

Miku Araman
http://www.vegasfreebie.com/ - Free things to do in Las Vegas

Roger that. Blue is a nice medium between proffessional and fun, I think

I have completely redesigned the site with new colors. Hopefully the new colors are a bit more pleasing. I'd love to hear any more suggestions anybody has.

Thanks,

Miku Araman
http://www.vegasfreebie.com/

The color scheme somehow does not fit the subject for me. Other then that - good idea for a site !

Very good now.
a) Looks for proffesional
b.) Colour scheme suits
c.) Like the night picture of Vegas!

Ohhhhh my... much nicer! Great job!
The only thing I'm not sure about is the yellow background. For some reason it really isn't appealing to me. Have you thought about a slightly off-white background? That way it's not overpowering (like white would be) but still nuetral.
I have to say though, this design is much more professional. Keep up the good work!

I like that kind of creamy yellow. It is a nice "cheesy" colour and isn't bring and doesn't hurt your eyes

interesting! i'd like more some lighter colors but it's ok
sincerely,
valentin

* colour scheme:nothing specially
* common design principles (alignment, white space, visual organization etc.)not good
* common design mistakes:don't know
* usability:good
* appropriateness:don't know
* browser compatibility:good
* resolution:on 800x600 it don't loks very well
* function of widgets/dhtml/forms, et cetera:don;t know
* image compression:good
* information architecture:?
* consistency:not good
* coding/validation:good
* use of technologies:good
the google search form could be placed elsewhere..

I agree with you, Miku. That list was really just a bunch of suggestions for what to cover in a review, in case people have problems figuring out what to talk about.

Thanks, BTW, for doing such nice reviews yourself! We appreciate it

Your site looks not too bad. I like the colour scheme and especially the backgrounds you've used in the top ands side areas. What you do need to do here is anti-alias your text. If you're not sure how to do that let us know (and which graphics program you're using), and we can help you with that. Also do something about the bottom of that side photo. Make it fade out instead of ending abruptly. Or make the lights continue further down to the bottom (fake it.)

It looks like you've got some really good content here. I really like the personalized descriptions of the events and attractions. Much more helpful than some formal text pulled from their website or something. The personal tips are an excellent addition as well.

I would find a way to feature your listings more prominently from the font page. You could put on a "featured listing" or something each month. You could also split up the categories into separate pages and list them each on the navbar. That way people can see right away what there is to see on your site. I didn't understand right away that "location" was a listing of the events by location. I thought it was just the location of the attractions (which makes the "map" listing confusing). This is all explained on the front page but who reads that stuff anyway?

Overall a good start.

Thanks Megan, great suggestions. I'll be tweaking thinks on my site for the next little while (or more likely forever!).

I do like the idea of putting listings more prominently onto the first page. One thing I don't like about my current design is the fact that it takes at least two links to get to any real content.

I tried anti-aliazing at one point and didn't like the result, I'll try messing with that a little more. Great idea about fading the picture.

Thanks again,

Miku Araman
Free things to do in Las Vegas

Hmmm. OK. But I kinda meant aswell

I noticed some of the earlier comments on colors. I am very new at web design and do not have any art background. I found it very helpful to visit several on-line sites that have color wheels / color picking tools (all of them are free to use). Once I started playing around with these tools, my color schemes improved about 100%. ( I am not sure if it's kosher to post the links here, but just run a Google search for color picker, color wheel, etc. and you'll find all kins of helpful tools).

As far as a critique, I am not quite so sure on the colors (again, I am no expert on this so I can't tell you why).

I think the left menu would look better if you set the image as a background and used CSS to create the hover/rollover effect for the menu.

The site was easy to navigate, though, and does provide useful content.