Pros/Cons

http://www.mrbobdouglas.com

Opinons? Changes? How easy is it to navigate even though I do not have the Developer and Live Help link located on the left of the Home Page?

Pros
Clean design
Nice use of blues and greys
Integration of flash into html good choice rather than being all flash
Consistent navigation (apart from the bit that you mentioned), which is definitely helpful with 3 possible ways to orientate.

Cons
Do you really need 3 ways for people to navigate with? It isn't instantly obvious that the clock is a navigation tool either. When you mouseover the flash clock it makes a nice looking arrow movement, but have you thought about making some indicative change with the text as well? The same goes for the side and bottom buttons, think about your site being real and people pushing buttons on a machine. Its kind of conforting to see some sort of response when juse mouse-overing or clicking.
The white text on the blue is a bit harder to read than that of the grey-white contrast. This is the most important text on your site and I'm struggling to read it oh and specify that you mean $7.95 as I don't know, which currency you are referring to in the international world of web hosting (I had to search round to find out).
The biggest con is the fact that I can't click on the top left flash image to click back to the home page. I know you've got many other ways to get back to the home page, but consistency with other websites makes me want a button there so I know where I am.
Finally, I checked to see if you had any type of gzip compression and you don't. This is a shame because you could really speed up your site. As long as you stop it compressing your flash files, then it will work great. See www.gidnetwork.com/tools/gzip-test.php for a bit more information. There's a page in the forums too about the bits you can put in your .htaccess if you don't want to convert your html pages to php.

I know this looks as if I'm being harsh with you, but you want real criticism to get it right, right? I really like your site, but with a couple of quick touch ups it will be great.

Rob

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lol, a 72% compression using gzip on my homepage. DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMNNNN. Thanks for that one. Not familiar with php at all(guess I could get used to this hehe).

Thanks for the feedback. I wish I could have had more Cons tho. Let me reflect with a couple of arguments you said.

"Do you really need 3 ways for people to navigate with? It isn't instantly obvious that the clock is a navigation tool either."
- Prolly not, but I do think it looks nice to have them. Dont you? Do you think it would look better to just have the left and bottom nav? Plus, all of my pages that do not have alot of text on them will look so small with such a big navigation area on the left. I like it, which is why it is still their. But if you really think it looks too much, I will ask around and find out more opinions on it.

"When you mouseover the flash clock it makes a nice looking arrow movement, but have you thought about making some indicative change with the text as well?"
- Hmm, I thought the arrow was nice. But I guess I could add a little bit more to the mouseover effect, any suggestions off hand?

"The same goes for the side and bottom buttons, think about your site being real and people pushing buttons on a machine. Its kind of conforting to see some sort of response when juse mouse-overing or clicking."
- I agree that it looks better, however, the site is large enough as is, gotta remember some people still have dial up

"The white text on the blue is a bit harder to read than that of the grey-white contrast. This is the most important text on your site and I'm struggling to read it"
- It looks fine to me, what is your resolution? Mine is set to the standard 800x600. I jsut asked a friend on 1208 by something else, he said he could read it fine. Does anyone else have a problem with it? White on light blue isn't that great of a color choice, but I think it is easy to read, if you think there is a better color to use that would still look good, lemme know.

"oh and specify that you mean $7.95 as I don't know, which currency you are referring to in the international world of web hosting (I had to search round to find out)."
- Good point

"The biggest con is the fact that I can't click on the top left flash image to click back to the home page. I know you've got many other ways to get back to the home page, but consistency with other websites makes me want a button there so I know where I am."
- I agree with you again. It seems like it was ****ed up last time I made it a link. I will just have to edit the .swf I think for it to work.

"I checked to see if you had any type of gzip compression and you don't."
- I WILL NOW!!! That thing rox! Especially since my page uses so many pictures!

"I know this looks as if I'm being harsh with you, but you want real criticism to get it right, right? I really like your site, but with a couple of quick touch ups it will be great."
- I asked for what I got. If you see anymore problems please! tell me. To me, the only suggestion I was planning on changing was the link to the homepage from the logo in the top left. But now I have more things to change.

Thank you so much. I will go change all that stuff right now.

Whoa, all done. Thanks for the advice.let me know if you see anything else. http://www.mrbobdouglas.com

You forgot to change it to the $ :')
I'm actually not at my usual computer at the moment and this one is currently set to 1024 x 768 32million colours. Some interesting pages about text contrast http://www.wowwebdesigns.com/power_g...d_of_contrast/ and this site: http://www.webstyleguide.com/ looks fantastic. I haven't read through most of it, but most of the points are valid if you are willing to take the time to read it. However, if you want to go to the bit I'm banging on about, check out http://www.webstyleguide.com/type/graphics.html

Oh and I had a boring thought for you, but its something your going to have to consider. Lots and lots of web browsers and webmasters hate flash for various reasons. The new Mozilla Firebird doesn't automatically install it and has a nice extension that allows people to start a flash file whenever they want. What does this mean for you? Well, it means your site is going to look really shabby and I would consider creating some alternative pages in html only for those who are picky and ARE your customers. You just need a viewable link somewhere to get to it and it should make them happy rather than making a doorway page with a choice.

Another thing is that you've wasted the opportunity to use the buttons on the left as a completely clickable button. You may not agree, but the bigger the button, the easier it is to click.

As for the flash mouseover, it just needs to be something that makes you believe its a link like the text enhancing or growing etc etc. as the current arrows are almost to slow and invisible although they do look good if you navigate slowly.

Rob

Oh my! I went to the site and got this:


... I don't think so!

Nevermind me, I am boring like that... but I am wondering how you plan to tackle getting your website noticed by the Search Engines that can potentially bring you the traffic that you deserve for all your fine work.

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J de Silva
Learning Journal | GIDForums™ | GIDNetwork™ | GIDWebhosts™ | GIDSearch™

Ok, how about this.

I just make a script that displays a flash movie if they have flash, and a picture if they do not.

JDS, the reason you got to that page is because my index.php page checks if you have flash or not. If you do not have flash, it will re-direct you to another page.

I am wondering if I should just make a seperate html only site. I thought about doing this awhile ago, but since I keep making change to my site, its stupid to do it at the moment.

What is your opinion on this?

The main reason why I do not use the flash that changes to a pic is because I want the picture to have hotspot properties, and I cannot figure out how to do it with javascript.

Ill go make the $ sign change. Thanks

JdS- What browser were you on, and does it have flash installed?

If I were you, my priorities would be completely different. I would try to please the search engine bots first... without traffic, it's kinda pointless to have a funky site that nobody will find.


MSIE 6 and no Flash.... I should know, I removed it

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J de Silva
Learning Journal | GIDForums™ | GIDNetwork™ | GIDWebhosts™ | GIDSearch™

Its a cool site but the flash clock is just too distracting, maybe its because i am easily ammused but i just didnt even look at any content, just the clock