www.STEVOLAND.com

Narrative of my experiences on your site:

Splash page: I'm confused. There's these two grey boxes with jaggy edges at the top and then something that looks like it could be a logo. I don't know what to do. I have to read. So, do I click on that URL at the top to get in? Guess so.

A little window pops up with a cheesy looking animation. I'm not sure what to do. Am I just supposed to watch this? What's going on? I'll just move my mouse around a bit and see what happens. Oh! These seem to be links.

Customize Settings???? Settings for what? I click on it and yet another window pops up. Cool little app there - I like the custom toolbars. Neat-o.

I'm finding now that things are moving as I move my mouse in the window. Oh! there are more icons now.... "my computer"... what's that all about? Steev-o TV. Coolio.... ack! get the porn out of there!! I don't want to see it!! GO away!!!! I happen to be in a computer lab at school where I could get expelled for looking at porn.

I seem to have passed all your icon thingies and am now walking through empty space. Do I have to turn around? What happens if I keep going forward? Do I keep walking through emptiness? Am I trapped? There should be a way to go back to the beginning.

Alright - summary. You need to things a little more clear. It is a cool experience to just play with the site and see what happens but sometimes people might not realize what's happening. I also think that you should work on giving your graphics a more consistent look. Some of are like photographs and others like overpixelated icons and then you've got that sleek vector style background - pick one style and do everything the same.

that was a fantastic tale of intrigue, discovery, fear + confusion.

that's pretty much what i wanted the site to acheive. in essence it's a dull personal homepage. there's little content at the moment + i'm no designer. but i wanted to create something different, something that would confuse + amuse. something people would remember + maybe pop back to once in a while.

i've constructed it so i can update it easily, another rizla (cigarette paper (those gray boxes)) will appear on the splash page, another object on the landscape. and so it will evolve.

on a technical level. you're right about the interface. it does need a little subtle instruction + the user should be stopped from walking too far. as for the pixelated graphics, that's because i'm scaling them to the size of the window (try resizing your browser, everything expands). the aliasing is unavoidable + aesthetically, i quite like that dirty look.

thank you very much megan, for taking the time to look at my little website + writing such a wonderful critique. you're a * (star!). i hope you'll pop back from time to time.

all the best,

STEVO

ps. sorry about the porn. it was a temporary .gif i forgot about!

pps. how else would my life connect/affect a canadian one? it's what the internet's all about. and it makes me smile

Actually, mixing the photo style images with the over-expanded icons with the flash background is kind of a neat idea. I would just take that and go with it - exaggerate things. Maybe make one of those photo images bigger or something.

Hmmmm.

Maybe I'm too conservative, but...

I don't really appreciate that use of language. Not so much the words as the tone (i.e. well, from your FAQ: listen right. this aint a proper website so it doesn't have to ****ing act like one. there is a minimum spec. read it and **** off.) You sound like a nice guy overall (hope that's not an insult )), so why talk like that?

Far too many pop-ups for my taste. New windows keep popping up and the old ones stay as well.

On the splash page, there's a place to add an email to your email list but I don't see any submit button.

Overall impression: Well, it's not your run of the mill homepage, I'll give you that. Depends what you want to do with it really. If it's just something you want your pals to visit than it's perfectly fine. If you want others to visit and maybe even come back - I think you need to make it more friendly.

Best of luck whichever way you go!

It's confusing to me. I don't know what to do once I get there. Anohter thing there is too much blank space the the left of the lego guys with the boxes next to them.