Website Review Request

[se4b4ss]

Hello everybody! (first post)

Can you guys take a look at my site and let me know what you think? I am interesting in hearing about the layout, feel, user experience, and please feel free to make suggestions. Don't worry, you won't hurt my feelings.

Link

Thanks in advance,
Steve

[bcarl314]

Nice layout, easy to use and intuitive.

Code: Very nice, although you should really use a doctype.

[Ember~Daze]

I'm not quite... "qualified" to review your code, but I have been a graphic artist for quite some time so I'll tell you what I think of your layout, etc.

The top banner is sharp. It has a nice "flow". Or, I guess, nothing seems out of place in other words. The colors are great! I noticed at the bottom you have a orange horizontal line running across the page and I think incorporating the orange in other areas, such as the top, would have a nice effect. I'm taking a guess that you used about ... 3 different seperate images to make the banner's background. Then again, maybe you completely produced it all from ground up. If so, very impressive. None the less, on the banner.

The layout is simple, and easy to follow. Some may say to simple, but for the sites purpose it suits it just fine.

I can't think of too many things to improve upon "visually" except for the orange bar, and possibly making the horizontal navigation under the banner have rollover changes, such as the text color changing. This may provide some more dynamic to the site and help users out in knowing that the bar is the nav. I realize that it is part of your banner as a whole (I do believe) so maybe what you could do is chop the small slice off under the banner and then go from there.

Well, I probably didn't help, but this is my first 'review' of anyone's site. By the way, good job.

*waits for the coding critics to come in*

[se4b4ss]

Nice layout, easy to use and intuitive.

TY

Code: Very nice, although you should really use a doctype.

I've read a little about doctypes, but have yet to understand what they do and how to pick one. Can you explain or provide a decent link?

Thanks,
Steve

[se4b4ss]

this is my first 'review' of anyone's site

Thank you for taking the time to review mine. I appreciate it.

The banner was made for me by a gentleman on another forum. I cut away some parts and made the nav portion myself. The orange is a reminent of his original design. My point? I am no graphics artist and have no sense of color or design at all, so I could use some advice on how to incorporate the orange into the top banner.

Thanks again for your time,
Steve

[Ember~Daze]

Originally posted by se4b4ss
Thank you for taking the time to review mine. I appreciate it.

It's a pleasure.

Anyways, some suggestions on incorporating the color orange? Well, Possibly adding the same size of line on the bottom onto the top underneath the navigation. One could go as far as to change the bold text in the banner to an orange gradient or turn the silhouette of Texas to something likewise. Hmmm... would you mind if I gave you an example just editing on top of your image? If you do, that's fine - I was just curious - it would be no personal stab.

[se4b4ss]

Hmmm... would you mind if I gave you an example just editing on top of your image?

Not at all, as long as you don't mind if I use your ideas.

Thanks,
Steve

[Ember~Daze]

Originally posted by se4b4ss
Not at all, as long as you don't mind if I use your ideas.

I have no problems with that if you decide to do so...

Here's a quick lil' orange"ed" out version of your banner. It's rough but depicts some ideas.

(The quality is a tad bit on the jpeg artifact side, but only because the image had to be reduced to a max. size to be able to be posted)

[oracleguy]

Originally posted by se4b4ss
I've read a little about doctypes, but have yet to understand what they do and how to pick one. Can you explain or provide a decent link?

http://www.codingforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18346

[se4b4ss]

ok, i put in a doctype, made the orange stripe across the top, and created an advertising section. let me know what you think of these changes.

(in a test directory)
link 2

thanks,
steve

[mindlessLemming]

Although I don't mind the look of the site, the image maps for menus on both top and bottom is a little bit of an issue.
It is my understanding (and I'll quickly be corrected if I'm wrong) that the purpose of having a second set of navigational links at the bottom of the page was so that there is a plain text alternative for those who for some reason or another cannot use/understand/see you primary nav.
While I'm on the topic of your navigation, the use of image maps absolutely boggles me. They are totally unnecessary in this design, as a styled (CSS) <ul> with <a> links could look exactly the same, while using real text for the menu. That way you could also assign :hover variations to give your user a more immediete indication that their mouse is over a menu item.
If you have any Q's about doing this, I'm willing to help .

Andrew

[ronaldb66]

Text links

Although the layout is fine, the graphics are pretty and the majority of the coding is done quite well, I have to second mindlessLemming on the image maps.
the header graphic takes quite some time to download, and in the mean time nothing is showing, in the header at least.

I'd suggest using CSS styled text links instead of images per mindlessLemming's suggestion and implement the three blue gradient bars as background images for an appropriate container element (the footer as well!). That way, only one tiny image repeated in the x direction could be used, which would reduce download times considerably. Also, specifiying a background color for those bars would ensure the the text in them is immediately visible while the images are downloading.

Furthermore, the body text could do with a little adornment, perhaps styling the headings; while you're at it, actually use headings, for example <h2> instead of:

<p><strong>Our goals:</strong></p>

Talking about this section, such a list can far better be implemented using ul and li elements instead of pre-ing the whole section.

A great tutorial on lists is Listutorial, where you can find info on basic lists, styling lists, horizontal lists and lists as navigation bars and menus.

[se4b4ss]

first off, thank you guys for the great suggestions. i appreciate your time.

before i go asking for help, i'm going to spend some time on the tutorial (thanks ronald) and see if i can do this myself. i'll post some results before the end of the day.

thanks again,
steve

[se4b4ss]

ok, got somewhere but am mildly stumped on a few problems...

link 3

1) how do i vertically center the text on my nav bar?

2) in mozilla there is a white bar between my banner pic and the bottom banner nav bar. how do i close that gap?


btw, i am starting to realize that i will need to reduce the size of the banner or move to a hosting company.

thanks again,
steve

[Paul Jr]

1. Try giving the <a> styles a line-height or 28px (that's the height of the <ul>).
2. Try removing the "padding-top: 15px;" from your <a> styles.