Web critique

I think your meant to critique a couple of other sites first before asking for one (see the first post on the critique section)

Since I'm here, A link would help

If its the link in your signature then it needs a lot of work, in Net 6 that is the longest vertical scroll I have ever seen or had to use, man thats massive, the "get 15 cash" animated picture sits over the mid section and seems to repeat every 10 inches (sideways) or so, the navaigation works in Net 6 but the links go behind the "get 15 dollars" flash image

in Net4.7 you have no navagation at all, and no scroll bar which is good, but cant go anywhere so thats bad.

in IE, I get a small sideways scroll (on 800x600) and all seems to display as intended,

all 3 browsers were very very slow in loading.

you have two flash movies, one is 120kb, the other is 49.3kb then the graphics, the code ... no wonder it took so long to load.

I hope this is the right site, if not, please forgive me

>>would like some pointers as to how I can make the site more user friendly<<

For starters, you might consider making the site work in v4 browsers. It doesn't work correctly in either NS4.6 or IE4.0 on a Mac. You seem to be targeting students, and NS still has a very strong base with many educational institutions, I believe.

The site took a long time to load on a dialup. At one point the status bar said something about 209K and another 120K, which is probably your Flash files. For what? Some moving text? Cut the glitz and get straight to the point.

Ditch the "need a website?" link. It's not uncommon for the company that designs a site to have a small "fine print" link at the bottom of the page, but for them to give themselves a prominent link in *your* navigation menu is just plain tacky, IMO.

Quote: Originally posted by Busy
I think your meant to critique a couple of other sites first before asking for one (see the first post on the critique section)

Yes, we would like it if you could do that It's just a request really - not a strict demand or anything like that.

Quote: For starters, you might consider making the site work in v4 browsers. It doesn't work correctly in either NS4.6 or IE4.0 on a Mac. You seem to be targeting students, and NS still has a very strong base with many educational institutions, I believe.

Yes, at my school I think they even take IE off the desktop and set NS as the default browser. They're probably still running v. 4 too! I haven't been in a lab in awhile but I know that they like to promote NS.

Anyway, as for this site... I shall take a look while I'm here...

Hmmm... interesting. In mozilla 0.9.4 I don't see any scrolling at all!

Now, I'm browsing your menus and I'm just getting confused here. Some of them have pop-ups, and then there are sub-pop ups but I have no way of knowing if there's going to be a sub pop-up or not. I see that some of the options are .com links - going to other sites ??? I'm just confused now.... so I pick a random credit card link in there and it sends me to another site in a new window?

I think you really need to do a better job of clarifying what this site is about and what you're doing. Put some text to that effect on the front page. Also lose the pop-up menus and link to separate pages instead. Those really confused me. That way you'll be able to make it clear that you're sending people elsewhere to get what they need.
You'll also have to clarify who this is for. I see a list of banks here none of which I've ever heard of before. If it's specific to a certain country or region you should indicate that up front. Also, the "Klein Financial Group" makes me think that you are some sort of real financial institution who should have your own content, which you don't seem to have. I would make it more clear that this is a resource site only.

Now, about the design. Lose the animation on the top right. With too animations on the page it's just too complicated and annoying. I also think that while the various page elements are nice by themselves (logo, navbar, film strip type thing, student photo with animation) they don't work very well together. The navbar and the student photo match, and the logo part works well with the film strip thing, but all 4 things aren't working well together. You need to rethink that.

And after all that I forgot to welcome you to our forums, so Welcome! I hope you'll stop by our introductions forum and let us know more about yourself.

Everybody who has replied so far, thank you very much for your input. It is greatly appreciated. I apologize for "skipping" a couple of steps in this forum, and I will gladly return the favor and critique or commend other sites as needed. So here is my question. I know I have to change the content, but how do I make it possible the for page to be browser compatible across the board? I was shocked that the page did not work well in what seemed a numerous array of different browsers.

Sorry Megan and danphikle, I guess I worded the request thingy wrong *thinks I'll stick to making coffees :D*

Quote: I know I have to change the content, but how do I make it possible the for page to be browser compatible across the board?

I think what your going for is flash and fancy, where as clean and simple can do the job just as well if not better.

A few things to keep in mind, the site is to display, show, teach etc the contents, unless its a graphics site then you wow them with the fancy images etc.

Even thou its your site, your companys, familys or whoevers site, your making it for others - not for you.

people hate animated gifs, or any animated thing really as they have been abused to death, flash is following this trend very fast, because over half of everyone that uses it makes it flash. (I wish there was an option to turn flash off like javascript etc, deleting the player just gives annoying errors)

- just because you can doesnt mean you should ...

If this was my site, which its not (amd i'm just the tea boy remember ) i would go for the simple is clean look as a lot of people see banks and credit etc as confusing, time consuming, dangerous ... and the simple approach could be reasuring for your vistors.

another important thing you should add is a about you page or section as they/we have to feel we trust you enough to give you the business.

I guess I am just rambling now lol

If you want it to work across the board and be user friendly to all, then keep it simple and clean looking. Get rid of anything flashy or complicated looking and that will instantly help on both counts! The only other thing I'd add is some colour as it looks a wee bit dreary and banks/financial institutions tend to have that stigma any way.

Hi there... I'm new here as well, so I'm doing my part and critiquing your site using ie6/win2k.

I'm not so impressed with the logo, but if it's what you've always used, I suppose you must stay with it?

The site fits in 800x600 but doesn't stretch to fit other resolutions... if that's ok with you then it's ok with me - but you might want to at least add a border to the right side to make the end of the page more apparent.
The dhtml rollovers are... eh...
The rollover links pop open in new windows even when they are still inside your site... very uh, unexpected.
That big flash registration button links to a page with none of your design elements, but I assume this will be fixed.

Overall it's ok ... but I have no idea what the site's purpose is. Banking I assume?