Website essentially done! "Tech Titans"

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Well, I am essentially done the website for "Tech Titans"! Let me know what you think please:

http://www.techtitans.ca/

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I like the overall design, although something about the wide white outline around the content just doesn't seem right. Also, I don't quite understand why on the contact page you have your email address listed, but you also have a contact form. Just use the form and don't publicly display it so you don't get spam. Wink

Kurtis

totalnewbie's picture

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I really like it! It's easy on the eyes, clean, very easy to navigate!

The only thing I see to fix are the square corners at the bottom of your page... If you make those little images for the corners into .gif's, then they don't have to be square.. Or you can just match it to the background color. Also, maybe you want to have your Copyright statement part of the centre panel, instead of the background color.

Other than that, I think it's great!

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totalnewbie wrote: I really like it! It's easy on the eyes, clean, very easy to navigate!

The only thing I see to fix are the square corners at the bottom of your page... If you make those little images for the corners into .gif's, then they don't have to be square.. Or you can just match it to the background color. Also, maybe you want to have your Copyright statement part of the centre panel, instead of the background color.

Other than that, I think it's great!

What do you mean the square corners...?

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Great, professional design here, but I think going with another red box rather than a green would blend better with your color scheme. Your pages are nicely organized and navigate seemlessly. The graphics are outstanding and load time is quick. The only other recommendation I can make is that you don't directly print your e-mail address on a page as it may attract spammers. But overall, this is one's a winner. Good luck to you!

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I somewhat agree with the removing of the green. It kind of doesn't fit in with that front page.

I originally tried an orange and it looked good, but text was not readable as white. In black, it was perfect... but then the other two in black aren't good.. and it and looks bad to have one one color and two another color...

Any suggestions, apart from going to a red? I haven't tried it but I don't want to have two red and one blue down there. Maybe as there is a purplish in the picture above I could add more blue... a blue on each outside then a red in the middle?

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Also, keep in mind that people who will be using my services are likely to have very limited computer knowledge. On the following page:
http://www.techtitans.ca/services.php
What do you think of the non-underlined links "More info"? I believe it was my aunt who was looking at it, and wasn't aware to actually click it. I have not heard/noticed it with anyone else I showed it to though...

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That's a really nice design! Great job.

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I like the idea of these kinds of services. I'd rather pay someone $50 bucks rather than run the anti-scumware myself.

But the first question that pops into my mind is "How do they do this, online, or do they come to my house?"

Your website might answer this question, but my 90-second visit to your site left my question unanswered. At this point, I'd usually just move on.

richplay's picture

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Hello.

My first point relates to the overall organisation of space, which I think that you could of done a little bit better. I believe that you could easily fill up the white space to the right in the content area, either by placing additional box below the blue one, and by some text links to deeper page content (like highlights) to the far right.

Second point has to do with footer menu (which is extremely useful), and it seams that you don't use it.

Third point has to do with the boxes touching each other, I believe that by adding additional 10 px difference between them, the overall look and feel would be much better.

Good luck.

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richplay wrote: Second point has to do with footer menu (which is extremely useful), and it seams that you don't use it.

Will add this in Smiling

richplay wrote: Third point has to do with the boxes touching each other, I believe that by adding additional 10 px difference between them, the overall look and feel would be much better.

What web browser/operating system are you using. They are not touching for me and off the top of my head i believe there is a 15px margin between the boxes...

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Busy's picture

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You might want to use a off white or grey for your bottom text, the backgrounds take a bit to load on dialup and I was left wondering the site was a work in progress, until I typed this and went back. But now it's loaded (I think) it looks out of place, there are 3 boxs (green, blue and red), with the red being under the other two and a big blank area beside the bottom one. They need to fit together at 800x600 and blend some how on all screen sizes.

On the services page, the copyright is in the dark grey which is in the white (overlaps the white), the subject headings look like links while the actual links looks like text. We know links and text can be anything but your targetting people who don't know about computers and even i am finding I am having to hunt around for whats what.
I think the contact pages best shows how confusing your links are, the top links (images) are white with yellow on mouseover, the page links are red with blue on mouseover (hover) yet the main "contact us" heading is red but isn't a link and the sub headings are blue which aren't links and I can't find where the yellow ties in.

While I like black, white and grey, having grey as the base gives it that default look (my pc is set to grey as default), maybe try swap the grey and white around.

Ok the copyrigt bit cuts into every page in firefox.

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Busy wrote: You might want to use a off white or grey for your bottom text, the backgrounds take a bit to load on dialup and I was left wondering the site was a work in progress, until I typed this and went back. But now it's loaded (I think) it looks out of place, there are 3 boxs (green, blue and red), with the red being under the other two and a big blank area beside the bottom one. They need to fit together at 800x600 and blend some how on all screen sizes.

Can you take a screenshot? I do not experience this problem at all... although I am running a considerably bigger resolution, it is a fixed page width...

Busy wrote: On the services page, the copyright is in the dark grey which is in the white (overlaps the white), the subject headings look like links while the actual links looks like text. We know links and text can be anything but your targetting people who don't know about computers and even i am finding I am having to hunt around for whats what.

I will try the "more info" links underlined and see how that looks. I will also make the subject headings links as well, just so they CAN be clicked Smiling

Busy wrote: I think the contact pages best shows how confusing your links are, the top links (images) are white with yellow on mouseover, the page links are red with blue on mouseover (hover) yet the main "contact us" heading is red but isn't a link and the sub headings are blue which aren't links and I can't find where the yellow ties in.

I can agree with this. I will play around with the colors of links a bit more and see what I can do.

Busy wrote: Ok the copyrigt bit cuts into every page in firefox.

I had some display problems with firefox (maybe also related to some of your other points?) I decided to leave it like that, for now at least. Because of my targetted audience, I don't think my customers would be using anything besides Internet Explorer.

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KandieMan101 wrote: Can you take a screenshot? I do not experience this problem at all... although I am running a considerably bigger resolution, it is a fixed page width...

can be found here
If by any chance it wont let you see it, copy the link location to the browser and then enter, as my .htaccess file blocks image links from outside the site.

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Busy wrote: can be found here
If by any chance it wont let you see it, copy the link location to the browser and then enter, as my .htaccess file blocks image links from outside the site.

Ya -- it was a problem I experienced when testing with firefox.

For now, I am just going to leave it. As I said, I would be very surprised if my customers used anything besides Internet Explorer

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wow. love the colour scene. not much to improve realy, mybe make a mouse over button (goes darker) on your menu, but otherwise fantastic !!

demonhale's picture

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Ok it looks quite professional, but you can take note of the comments above and that can improve your site big time...
One additional thing, in IE the image on the middle has a mouseover event enabled for print and save images... You can disable or lock this with a simple meta tag addition...

richplay's picture

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I am using WinXP and Firefox.

Megan's picture

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This looks really good, Kandie. You've done a good job with the overal design and espeically the business aspects. I like the little tips section you have in there - a good way to give something extra to your clients and show them what you know.

The logo is very good. I like the little knight in the shield thing. I do think there eshould be a little less space between the words there. "Tech" and "titans" should be a little closer together which would give it more unity.

The middle section could use a little bit of work, I think. THe picture of the guy with the computer is very dark - I feel like it should be brighter. I also really don't like the brushed metal background on the right side. "We can help" should be moved up so it follows from the question, and the effects are a little bit over the top on there. The colour shcould be chosen from the existing scheme (red/blue/white) rather than bringing in another colour.

The bottom section is good. I'm not sure about the green. It really stands out and pulls the eye to that section of the screen. If you're going to do this, use it on the special promotion rather than the services overview. That would draw people to the right place.

In the About Us section - I would do this a little differently. Emphasize your skills and expertise rather than the boring stuff about how and why the business was founded. Concentrate on what you can do for the customer and what sets you apart from the comeptitor. The second section is good. I would also consider writing this in the first person - it's a lot more friendly and personal that way. In the third person it sounds rather remote and distant. Speaking of yoursef as "I" or "we" if you must would make you seem more like a real person rather than some unaccessable computer geek Wink

I like the icons on the services page. That's a nice touch, except for the last one which is a completely different style and looks out of place. This is the problem with icons - in order to work they have to be all the same style. I also feel that the icons and the headers should also be linked to the "more info" pages.

Good luck with the business!

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Megan wrote: The logo is very good. I like the little knight in the shield thing. I do think there eshould be a little less space between the words there. "Tech" and "titans" should be a little closer together which would give it more unity.

I thought about this but didn't consider it much. I use "Tech Titans", not "TechTitans"... so isn't it appropriate to have the space?

Megan wrote: The middle section could use a little bit of work, I think. THe picture of the guy with the computer is very dark - I feel like it should be brighter. I also really don't like the brushed metal background on the right side. "We can help" should be moved up so it follows from the question, and the effects are a little bit over the top on there. The colour shcould be chosen from the existing scheme (red/blue/white) rather than bringing in another colour.

I probably will end changing the purplish color.. because it is the ONLY time it is used. I will see about making the photo a bit brighter as well.

Megan wrote: The bottom section is good. I'm not sure about the green. It really stands out and pulls the eye to that section of the screen. If you're going to do this, use it on the special promotion rather than the services overview. That would draw people to the right place.

Okay -- I will either make it a 2nd blue or red, or I will make the promotion one green... thanks

Megan wrote: I like the icons on the services page. That's a nice touch, except for the last one which is a completely different style and looks out of place. This is the problem with icons - in order to work they have to be all the same style. I also feel that the icons and the headers should also be linked to the "more info" pages.

I am in the process of getting a different icon, but unfortunately I am not exactly sure what I am looking for!
Links -- Yes, I am going to make this change...

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KandieMan101 wrote: I thought about this but didn't consider it much. I use "Tech Titans", not "TechTitans"... so isn't it appropriate to have the space?

A little space is fine but not as much as you have. This is a logo, after all so unity is most important. It just looks too separated right now.

Like this:

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Ig uess you're right. As the letters are almost "touching", I can decrease the spacing between "tech" and "titans".

Thanks.. I agree completely with you now Smiling

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Very nice website it's clean and i like the way you organize it Wink

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okay so I redid the front page:
http://www.techtitans.ca/

Decreased space between "tech" and "titans"

changed "we can help" and laptop color

added phone contact and e-mail in the image for quick viewing

changed the color of the 3 boxes.

What do you think? I think the laptop/we can help is more visible not sure if I like it though. I don't like how I have done the bottom boxes Sad any help?

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totalnewbie's picture

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I like it!! I noticed the little square corners are gone, also!
It was these images that seemed to be a slightly different color than the background:
http://www.techtitans.ca/graphics/wcorner_botleft.gif
But, It's all better now!

As far as the boxes, maybe try to make them rounder so they fit in with the shape of the white panel more?

timjpriebe's picture

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Looks good, except for the messed up boxes in Firefox and other non-IE browsers. I would personally strongly recommend that you fix those if at all possible. One of the latest stats I saw said that around 85% of the web-surfing population uses IE, and it's been dropping by 1% or so every month. It would be a pity to immediately make a bad impression on 15% + of your possible customers.

Just some random info, but I've been suggesting Firefox to all my new clients for the past year or so. Just a month or two ago, I finally got a client who was already using it. If my website had not loaded properly on her browser, it would have made a bad impression. And we're now working on a decent sized website for her for a nationally known religious publication.

So you never know. I think it's worth the effort to fix it.

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timjpriebe wrote: Looks good, except for the messed up boxes in Firefox and other non-IE browsers. I would personally strongly recommend that you fix those if at all possible. One of the latest stats I saw said that around 85% of the web-surfing population uses IE, and it's been dropping by 1% or so every month. It would be a pity to immediately make a bad impression on 15% + of your possible customers.

Just some random info, but I've been suggesting Firefox to all my new clients for the past year or so. Just a month or two ago, I finally got a client who was already using it. If my website had not loaded properly on her browser, it would have made a bad impression. And we're now working on a decent sized website for her for a nationally known religious publication.

So you never know. I think it's worth the effort to fix it.

Unfortunately I had bad luck fixing it in firefox. With the CSS... to make it work in firefox was causing it to not work in IE. Do you, or anyone else care to have a go at it for me?

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Okay so I made some updates

text, colors, layout, etc.. etc.. Smiling

Let me know -- feel free to add more suggestions or reminders if I didn't make the changes you mentioned Smiling

http://www.techtitans.ca/

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Busy's picture

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make the text in the coloured boxs grey or something so they can be read as the page loads, as that main pic is 95kb the backgrounds (which should only be strips) are another 25kb each and load last.

Links are still confusing, services page for example, now you have the blue headings as links which is good, with red on hover but there is a red contact us link with blue on hover (and underlined). the contact us looks like a link, the 'more' links don't. maybe change the blues of the headings and more links around.
Contact us page uses blue headings which aren't links, you need to keep your links the same through out the site.

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Updated again...

changed "more info" links. I think now all 2nd-level headings are blue, all links should be red

richplay's picture

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But still no changes in Firefox regarding space & boxes issue.

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Right... still no change for FF. I am not sure how to easily make the fix...

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hi.

i use mozila and it looks awful.the tables doesn;t fit well.
try to see with firefox to see if you can see it well

then your page is not validated
see this link please

http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A//www.techtitans.ca/

You should place a DOCTYPE declaration as the very first thing in your HTML document. For example, for a typical XHTML 1.0 document:

Title

It will be bettere for SEO

With other words you have to put some keywords and a description.

The designe i like it.

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