What do you want in a critique?

My answer:

If I were to post a site for critique (and I will be, soon!), I would want more emphasis on design and usability than coding (unless it obviously doesn't work for people - no need to take up other peoples' time by expecting them to open my site in different browsers etc. I should be doing that on my own.)

So I'd say 80% design, 20% coding. What do you think?

For a visitor, the code used to generate the 'effect' is of very little significance, so I would tend to agree that the 'design' is more important than the 'code'. When I look at a Ferrari, I don't say "I think they used a perfect hammer to build that car":)

Code is important in the following respects:

As you say, if it isn't IE/NN compatible then please don't ask for a critique. Do your work completely, then ask for a free critique.

If the code includes all sorts of WYSIWYG bloat then a fair comment would be ... improve your use of the editor (or get a better one).

If the code looks extremely complex, then a comment to the effect that it may be very difficult to maintain the page/site is in order.

One thing I would like all ctitiquers to include is some detail of their own configuration, i.e. browser and version, PC, connection type, etc.

One personal please. There's not much point in saying 'the design is cr*p' without saying why that opinion is given; or saying there are 'millions of sites just like that' without giving a couple of example URLs.

And one last personal PLEASE. If you post a site that uses Flash please say so, because I don't have Flash installed and I don't want Flash installed, and I wish people would come up with working code that detected the presence/absence of flash BEFORE trying to load an swf file for several minutes.

I think it should be 50% - 50% on both.

If you just want the design to be critiqued, go to the Graphics and Design forum and post there..

But on the other hand, if you just want html, go to the HTML CSS Forum.

Both of these have there seperate forums, both of these combined make a site, so we need to critique both equally.

You cant have a site without a design, and yet you cant have a site without html. So my point is, critique both equally if possible.

I also think it's all about the user experience. We can give feedback that is relevant to the user experience, knowing what there is "behind the scenes", i.e. coding.

I think that both "graphics" and coding influence the user's experience - it al comes down to good navigation, a smooth look that doesn't distract you, good content with good structure etc.

Some of those things just don't fall into simply categories of design vs. coding IMO. I think that the overall impression of the site, based on all the above elements is what counts.

Also, I think that different reviewers can give different reviews depeneding on their professional orientation. If there's more coding critique in other forums, maybe it's because the members there are programmers/code oriented.

I feel that the critique should be based on what the person wants critiqued. If you want the design critiqued, say so. If you want the coding critiqued, say so.

It seems to me that the only people who care about how the coding looks are webmasters. A regular visitor sometimes doesn't know that a "code" exists at all. As long as the site is performing it's functions correctly - then the code is working and is fine in my opinion.

I don't think we should say what kind of critique a site should be given. Critique how the person wants it done - and if they don't specify, then critique what you want.

Brooke

I want a ham sandwich, for starters. Seriously, though, I believe thst a web site is a combination of graphics and actually programming skill. Being able to present those graphics in a visually stimulating manor is most important, and I would look for someone to critique on how the entire page flows together. After all, even with the greatests graphics ever, a page is only as good as the code that supports it.

I think that the usability and overall visual appeal is what I would like critiqued. However if a code-dog were to look at the code and tell me that my 124 lines of code could be reduced to 15 that would be cool also.

The biggest thing is, if you take the time to look at the site, take the time to make some input, even if it's only to say "Great site"