jfeveland49
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I have started a site but am having a few small problems The mail system does not work but that is for another post. Please give me your opinion thanks: http://www.jeveland.x10.mx
Would like some help
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I find the background image (paper.gif) a bit distracting. As an older fogey with less than great eyesight, I appreciate the larger font size (though I think the line height is a bit too big for the font -- I'd take it down to 140-150% -- and users on small-screen devices might find 28px just a bit too big), but what the font size giveth, the background image taketh away.
There are some problems with the HTML in general, which affect the site's accessibility. Specifically, you are using paragraphs for your navigation. That's not nearly as bad as it could be, but the fact remains that your navigator is a list of links, so it should be rendered in HTML as a list (using the UL and LI tags), like so:
(Note that I've moved the end quotation mark in the mailto: link; that's what was keeping it from working.) That will render the links as a bullet list, which you don't want. You can use list-style-type: none; to override that, then play with the margin, padding, text-align and text-indent to make it look pretty much the same as it does now.
I would use either a bold font or a different colour (or both) to differentiate the navigation from the body text, though. Although it's easy to find the navigation when you want it, the eye tends to see it as part of the body text when you're reading the main content. That means that there's a bit of a glitch in reading when you get to the end of one line and want to begin on another -- the eye goes all the way to the left of the screen, then has to correct and pick up the beginning of the next line. Some readers find that a lot more difficult than others, and you probably want to make your site as easy to read as possible. Speaking of which...
The overall tone of your writing is informal, and that's a good thing, but you have avoided contractions. Don't do that. In informal writing, when you use the long version of something that would normally be contracted in speech (like "do not" instead of "don't") you are implying emphasis. It's a lot like using all upper-case letters or bold text. When you don't mean to put emphasis on the phrase, it can take the reader a few moments to sort of run an internal "search and replace" on the phrase they've just read in order to give it the intended meaning. Again, some people are better at that than others, and you want to make the site as accessible as possible to the greatest number of readers. Oh, and look at your punctuation -- you could stand to have a few more commas.
One last thing: when you mention one part of your site in another (like when you mention the "Thoughts" section on the main page), you really ought to have a direct link. Never make the reader think about how to use the site or search for things you could just as easily have pointed to. It's okay if your content makes them think, but the user interface never should.
Graphically, the style is a bit on the bland side. That's something I expect will change over time; honest, modest simplicity is a lot harder to achieve than flash and sizzle. Experiment a bit with the typography. Consider using the contrast between serif and sans-serif fonts to set your headings apart from the body text. When you've gotten something that looks good and can be easily navigated and understood without lines and blocks of colour, you're typography will be right. Then you can move on to things like backgrounds and ruling (and can be a lot more subtle about it).
There are some problems with the HTML in general, which affect the site's accessibility. Specifically, you are using paragraphs for your navigation. That's not nearly as bad as it could be, but the fact remains that your navigator is a list of links, so it should be rendered in HTML as a list (using the UL and LI tags), like so:
HTML:
<div class="left">
<h2>Sections</h2>
<ul id="nav_list" class="navigator">
<li><a href="index.html">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="evan.html">Evangelism</a></li>
<li><a href="life.html">Lifestyle</a></li>
<li><a href="thoughts.html">Thoughts</a></li>
<li><a href="me.html">About Me</a></li>
<li><a href="links.html">Links</a></li>
<li><a href="mailto:xxxxxx@xxxxxx.x10.mx">Mail Me</a></li>
</ul>
</div>(Note that I've moved the end quotation mark in the mailto: link; that's what was keeping it from working.) That will render the links as a bullet list, which you don't want. You can use list-style-type: none; to override that, then play with the margin, padding, text-align and text-indent to make it look pretty much the same as it does now.
I would use either a bold font or a different colour (or both) to differentiate the navigation from the body text, though. Although it's easy to find the navigation when you want it, the eye tends to see it as part of the body text when you're reading the main content. That means that there's a bit of a glitch in reading when you get to the end of one line and want to begin on another -- the eye goes all the way to the left of the screen, then has to correct and pick up the beginning of the next line. Some readers find that a lot more difficult than others, and you probably want to make your site as easy to read as possible. Speaking of which...
The overall tone of your writing is informal, and that's a good thing, but you have avoided contractions. Don't do that. In informal writing, when you use the long version of something that would normally be contracted in speech (like "do not" instead of "don't") you are implying emphasis. It's a lot like using all upper-case letters or bold text. When you don't mean to put emphasis on the phrase, it can take the reader a few moments to sort of run an internal "search and replace" on the phrase they've just read in order to give it the intended meaning. Again, some people are better at that than others, and you want to make the site as accessible as possible to the greatest number of readers. Oh, and look at your punctuation -- you could stand to have a few more commas.
One last thing: when you mention one part of your site in another (like when you mention the "Thoughts" section on the main page), you really ought to have a direct link. Never make the reader think about how to use the site or search for things you could just as easily have pointed to. It's okay if your content makes them think, but the user interface never should.
Graphically, the style is a bit on the bland side. That's something I expect will change over time; honest, modest simplicity is a lot harder to achieve than flash and sizzle. Experiment a bit with the typography. Consider using the contrast between serif and sans-serif fonts to set your headings apart from the body text. When you've gotten something that looks good and can be easily navigated and understood without lines and blocks of colour, you're typography will be right. Then you can move on to things like backgrounds and ruling (and can be a lot more subtle about it).
jfeveland49
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I agree that the background was a bit much for what I wanted, not sure the replacement is much better, but it makes reading easy. The link code did not work out very well it kept puting the links in the message part. I finaly went another way and I did some of the font changes. I have been working on it all day not finished yet (probably never 
). Is time now for more evaluation. Thanks for the help. http://www.jeveland.x10.mx jfeveland49
). Is time now for more evaluation. Thanks for the help. http://www.jeveland.x10.mx jfeveland49