I was wanting to get some feedback for my new website that I just designed. Please go over and check it out and let me know what you think. I have a web poll and contact form so people can submit what they think. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for the site also. http://www.jamesbbarnett.com Thanks, James
Technical: It opens a new page if you click somewhere in the Menu. I'm pretty sure thats not the way it should be. Give the contents frame a name, and refer to that frame for the menu-links. Same for the bottom.. Menu dissapears aswell. Design: TBH there is none. Overal this looks more like the first site from a 12yr old. Use more color, make sure it works properly on a technical level. And try to make it that your text isn't just "thrown" in there.. Also if something is not finished yet, then simple don't put it on the site (articles). "Coming soon" isn't any good to anybody. Don't mean to bash you, you obviously did a good effort.. but it will take some more! Sorry. Good luck! L PS: Welcome to the forums!
It needs to look a little more professional, it looks too much like a novice user built it. I know you put effort into it, but a little more and it can look quite good. Some more colour I think, perhaps make the general background lighter, change the font and give the text some cellpadding. Finally, sort out the links at the bottom of the page, some are underlined and some aint!
Gothic?? I can agree with dark, but it doesn't look gothic at all to me, its all smooth lines and curves. Dark is good, I can see it fine, but if Im viewing a website at 2am I dont want my monitor being one great big white light because some Mac OS obsessed person has decided making everything bright white is good, its not, it sucks. White on black is the way it should be
Thanks Spec of dust, I appreciate that you didn't try to bash me in the face with a rock . I just was asking for comments or helpful suggestions, not that it looks like a 12yr old designed it . What fonts/colors do you guys suggest? BTW I started learning html/css about 3 months ago. Thanks JB
I'm sorry if its not what you wanted to hear. Just giving you my opinion. But maybe I should give you constructive critisism based on the fact that you've only been at it for three months. To start off, I'm glad you have chosen the black/white instead of "Flashy Green", "Bright Red". Even though its not professionaly looking, at least its not annoying/irritating. Second, You are getting your content across to the reader in a decent way. Everything is position in a logical way. Just about any reader will find what they are looking for on your website in a heartbeat! Even though it could look nicer and read better. Thirdly, I'm happy that I couldn't find any animated gifs! That shouldn't be taken for granted. I'm sure with some effort you can make it look alot better! Its a promosing start, but you still have a loOoOong way to go! Keep on tuning on your website! Again: Good luck! L
I think it's good, I think more websites should be White text one black background, as maddox said, staring at a white background is like staring at a lightbulb. I agree with the others, the font could be better. A sans-serif font, and maybe a bit bigger would be easier to read, I find serif fonts are always a bit of a strain on the eyes. Also the links down the side open in new windows, is that intentional? The layout is very good, and very easy no navigate.
Welcome to Bit, SmOkEd, I'm afraid you posted in the wrong forum for constructive criticism, this is the noisy puppies area. Moving to Development, where mindless bashing ("change the font it's poopy poo") and sarcasm ("And midi. Every site needs music") is frowned on.
The only things I don't like are the buttons, they look off-centre and they smack of "I've just read a how-to make-shiny-buttons tutorial".. also they're on one page but not on any of the others? I think the rollovers at the bottom are way more effective. Look at hardocp.com - I'd try a side menu like that and continue the theme from the top banner you've got, as it's cool Opening in new windows is annoying, and you don't have any titles on the bits of text so I have to read them to find out what each bit is about - you cant skim-read over it. Other than that it's pretty good. So basically just sort the buttons out
I want to thank everyone for the replies and suggestions, sometimes it is hard to take criticizm. I found several of the ideas very helpful and I spent part of the day deciding how I wanted to go about the change. I have now updated the website with new colors, fonts, and adjustments. I will be adding some more content the beginning of the week. Let me know if you have any other suggestions or comments. Thank You Bit-Tech community JB
Hi James welcome aboard.. the site looks okay to me though not sure if it's due to firefox that your texts are rather too big... you need to work on the header it's too simple...
Dude, just changing the font has made it so much easier to read, and look much more professional Making the links open in the same window also makes a big difference to the professionality (did I just invent that word?). Good job on it so far, it really has made a big difference. Check that validator information, although the errors it's displaying dont affect the the site in the latest IE or FF it may affect older/future browsers, and it's always good practise to make websites w3 compliant. A lot of the errors are the fact the that the break tag <br> should be self closing <br /> same with image tag, <img src = "somepic.jpg" /> and any other tag that doesn't have a closing tag. (I see you've already done this with the <link /> tag, it's the same principle) <style> tags should only go in the <head> of the document. And it seems you've closed one more <div> tag than you've opened. A good little program I use is 'HTML Validator' theres a free lite version, get it from: http://www.htmlvalidator.com It gives better descriptions of the errors than the w3 site. I'm not sure If this is different or new, but I really like the matching black-red gradient on the title and dividers. Good job on it, fix those standards errors and your set Matt
I'm really seeing some positive change in your website! Very good work. I really like the brownish color, the consistant use of the color is very good (poll, ads, seperator, topimage). Font is alot nicer to read aswell. I must say these simple changes, have made a huge difference! Personally I still don't agree with the black blank space at the bottom and the leftover grey on the left. Also the links at the bottom still look a little weird, since some are underlined and some are not. I must say you have done a huge improvement! I'm very pleased to see this. Knowing that you've just started with this and only know some HTML/CSS, I would say this is a very nice looking website. Good job! If you keep add it, I'm sure someday you will make some fantastic looking websites. PS: One thing I really like, is that the black is now like a border around your website. And the top image is partially black, so it looks like its a part of the "border". I hope you understand what I mean. It really gives it a slick and profesionnal look! L
burn those buttons. Id take a look at a good CSS menu layout. Using lists and CSS can give you some nice effects without using images
Everyone thanks for suggestions.... Shuriken, you were right, I had forgot all about making sure the <br> tags were closed. I went back through and ran all my pages through dreamweavers validator. It is saying everything is clean now. I have not decided yet how far back on browser support that I want to go since people should be starting to come up to date with browsers since there is a wide range available. That is also some of my issue with trying to get the cross browser support. The issue Lovah is running into with the gap at the bottom has to do with Firefox and if I change it to work with firefox then it effects IE. Trying to find a work around, but so far no luck. As far as the links at the bottom the only time they become underlined is when you click them and use them, but if you are using firefox it may also be an issue. 731|\|37 I may look into the CSS menus, but I am thinking about replacing the buttons with flash since I am getting ready to start learning flash. Not sure yet.
I dont think you want flash for navigation unless it's not a frequently traveled site... it's hella annoying to have flash buttons...
Lookin good, but heres some constructive criticsim, Try to make it just a tad more professional looking. You know kind of looks a little choppy. Not trying to burst your bubble, But it would look 10x better that way. But still looking good.
