Review My Site

[xnoddyx1]

still working on it http://xnoddyx.x10hosting.com/forums/almondhousing/

[adamparkzer]

still working on it http://xnoddyx.x10hosting.com/forums/almondhousing/

I think the biggest downfall for you website is its lack of distinct organization. It seems as if content is inconsistent and "all over the place."

Also, you may want to fix your graphics - they are of extremely high file size and take a long time to load on slower internet connections.

One final thing irrelevant to your website, you may want to use private polls in the future as it encourages more people to give their honest opinion.

[xnoddyx1]

I think the biggest downfall for you website is its lack of distinct organization. It seems as if content is inconsistent and "all over the place."

Also, you may want to fix your graphics - they are of extremely high file size and take a long time to load on slower internet connections.

One final thing irrelevant to your website, you may want to use private polls in the future as it encourages more people to give their honest opinion.

"It seems as if content is inconsistent and "all over the place."
wheres the inconsistent? and all over the place ie: ?

and if its a honest opinion then it shoudent mater if the pole is private or not
as in "open and honest"

and site loads in 2s on a 1MB bb when the x10 server isent under hevy load and the standerd bb here is 2-4MB

[sourfacedcyclop]

I would give the two content area's some left and right padding respectively, they are to close to the edge of the main bg area. I would ditch the buttons, they just don't look very good... Some places seem a bit to shadow heavy. I'm not a huge fan of the blue swirl things either...

[xnoddyx1]

"I would give the two content area's some left and right padding respectively, they are to close to the edge of the main bg area."
ok thankq i will do this in the morning
as for the buttons in what way dont thay look good?

"Some places seem a bit to shadow heavy."
the only places that has shadows it the is the header text and logo

no where els on the page/pages has shadow the text dont even have shadow heavy

"I'm not a huge fan of the blue swirl things either..."
lol thats ok lest your not a Tenant of Almond Housing Association then lol

[jtwhite]

I think the buttons are too bulky, if you're going to keep them this big, put some

<br />

between it and the above and below content.

[xnoddyx1]

ok i have updated sum of it you can have a look at the test page here
http://xnoddyx.x10hosting.com/ahw/ how do the buttons look now?

[freecrm]

OK - you want honest - honest here we come...

General Appearance is very amateurish for the following reasons:

Although you have the right width set, you also have a fixed height for instance in my browser, cuts off unexpectedly at the bottom. This problem permeates through the content, where you have used a scrolling text area - bad idea if someone wants to print it.

It does look cluttered and unorganised becasue you have too many image elements, broken up by white. Try to simplify it by joining some of the elements together or placing them differently.

The quality of images is badly aliased - probably becasue you're using paint or something. Get GIMP and get them anti-aliased.

Text, although suited to the target audience, is a little uninspired.

Inconsistency with fonts - some in Times, some in Arial - get a css tag for the body and you won't have to worry about this.

Buttons are dated and with poor quality (fuzzy) text. Plus, Search engines can't read text in images. Try learning css with li type menus - this will really slick it up a bit.

Check out something like (www.donbur.co.uk) you'll see the difference.

Pagecounters, although good for you, are not for browsers when the numbers are this small. Make your trackers invisible.

Your using lots of css links which suggests you've been doing a lot of copy/paste. Whilst this isn't a major problem, you probably don't fully understand what its all doing and may have some conflicts.

No descriptors or keywords in your html head.

Apart from that... not bad!

[xnoddyx1]

Although you have the right width set, you also have a fixed height for instance in my browser, cuts off unexpectedly at the bottom. This problem permeates through the content, where you have used a scrolling text area - bad idea if someone wants to print it.

cuts off unexpectedly at the bottom.
not in IE8,IE7,FF3.5.2,Safari win 4.0.3 scrolling works to bottem of all pages

It does look cluttered and unorganised becasue you have too many image elements, broken up by white. Try to simplify it by joining some of the elements together or placing them differently.

what image elements? the text images the icon images

The quality of images is badly aliased - probably becasue you're using paint or something. Get GIMP and get them anti-aliased.

all Text images are anti-aliased the icons are anti-aliased in Adobe Photoshop CS4 the only non anti-aliased is the text in the navbar buttons as the navbar dont have the anti-aliased mode for that

Inconsistency with fonts - some in Times, some in Arial - get a css tag for the body and you won't have to worry about this.

this isent Inconsistency with fonts this is how i put it

Buttons are dated and with poor quality (fuzzy) text. Plus, Search engines can't read text in images. Try learning css with li type menus - this will really slick it up a bit.

"Buttons are dated and with poor quality (fuzzy) text." i will lett the http://www.wysiwygwebbuilder.com/ team know this to fix it then

"Plus, Search engines can't read text in images. "
no thay cant thats why you have the alt tag <img src="sf.gif" alt="Source Forge http://sourceforge.net/projects/yabb/" this has allways workd for me with google as in image nav

Pagecounters, although good for you, are not for browsers when the numbers are this small. Make your trackers invisible.

this Website is a addon to the forum that has been runing so the low numbers are not a prob just now

Your using lots of css links which suggests you've been doing a lot of copy/paste. Whilst this isn't a major problem, you probably don't fully understand what its all doing and may have some conflicts.

not me but http://www.wysiwygwebbuilder.com/

No descriptors or keywords in your html head.

i havent yet put them in lol

Apart from that... not bad!

thankq for your honest feedback i am takeing note of it ;)

[freecrm]

Oooookkkk!

I was testing in IE6 to see if it was compliant that's all - you did ask!

As for the image elements - I refer to the textual ones and link ones and logo ones in the header area! The footer isn't too bad.

As for the anti-aliasing... I have CS3 and it seems to do a better job!! lol As a good example, if you look at the shadow around the logo top right, the blend between shadow and absolute #fff is not smooth - it's jagged! *Thinks* - aahhhhh - I know what you've done!! You've taken a stock image and used that terrible magic wand before deleting or filling with white!!!! Quick tip - don't! Just select using "select colour" and then delete - this will give a far cleaner edge.

You may well have put in text inconsistencies, but this is what makes it look amateurish. Times New Roman for instance is a default text and is what people use when they don't know how to change it!!! Seriously - make it more consistent!

Your comment about referring the problem with your buttons back to the CMS makers is a cop-out IMHO - make your own - they'll be unique and look far better. As for the "Alt" on images - they are not read as links.

Search engines favour <a href... links as menu items because they can spider through them to other pages. An "Alt" description is purely text that refers to a button. Well, lets put it this way, if someone searches in images for "Download", they might find your button... on page 428,456,877... When you say it has worked for you with Google before... how do you know? And just because they are part of some pro-looking bulletin board doesn't mean thats the right thing to do!

For instance, a good link would be <a href="http://www.yoursite.com">Home</a> - simple, yet effective. So how do you put in an image I hear you ask? Format the html, using the following structure..

<div class="menu">
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.yoursite.com">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.yoursite.com/forum.php">Forums</a></li>
</ul>
</div>

Then in the css, you can add an image to each link

.menu{
}
.menu ul {
list-style-type: none;
}
.menu ul li {
float:left;
position:relative;
}
.menu ul li a{
background:url(menuimage.gif) no-repeat;
}

Again, regarding css, you refer back to wysiwygbuilder - why? Take ownership if you asking for our opinion - otherwise, we may as well be judging a CMS system.

On a final note, there are some very experienced professional web-page designers here with years of knowledge. All I can say is... take heed and listen, even if you don't act on it - you might learn something.