Checking forum etiquette
Discussion
Our company website was designed and created in Dreamweaver by myself in some spare time at home - I'm not a web developer or such by any stretch of the imagination.
Am I in breach of forum rules and etiquette to post the url of my company website to gain some feedback as to it's layout and general behaviour ?
Am I in breach of forum rules and etiquette to post the url of my company website to gain some feedback as to it's layout and general behaviour ?
Thanks Plotless.
www.nova-design.co.uk is the site - can I have some feedback from the PH collective please (good as well as bad).
As the person who has designed and implemented it, I think I am too close to it to take a subjective view as to it's failings - and hopefuilly good points ?!
Thanks in advance,
Simon
www.nova-design.co.uk is the site - can I have some feedback from the PH collective please (good as well as bad).
As the person who has designed and implemented it, I think I am too close to it to take a subjective view as to it's failings - and hopefuilly good points ?!
Thanks in advance,
Simon
A very very quick look.....
Home page looks like it is unfinished?
The "computer aided design and draughting" in red in the top line... should this be hyperlinked? With it being red, I expected it to link to somewhere.
None of the email addresses on the Contacts page are "clickable"
Will have a better look when I get the chance.
Meeja
Home page looks like it is unfinished?
The "computer aided design and draughting" in red in the top line... should this be hyperlinked? With it being red, I expected it to link to somewhere.
None of the email addresses on the Contacts page are "clickable"
Will have a better look when I get the chance.
Meeja
I'm not an expert but here goes:
- I don't like front pages, you should just be on the main page when you enter the URL.
- Don't like things that flash and blink at you. It kind of distracts you from reading the rest of the page.
- Doubling up of links (ie don't need a menu down the side and across the bottom)
- Menu down the left is always nice and easy to use although the buttons are a little hard to read. Perhaps making them a little bigger would help?
- Grey and red go well together, perhaps you don't need the yellow backgrounds though? Try a darker grey and replace the yellow with a very light grey or even white.
Hmmm, reading that back it all looks a bit negative! Hope it helps though
- I don't like front pages, you should just be on the main page when you enter the URL.
- Don't like things that flash and blink at you. It kind of distracts you from reading the rest of the page.
- Doubling up of links (ie don't need a menu down the side and across the bottom)
- Menu down the left is always nice and easy to use although the buttons are a little hard to read. Perhaps making them a little bigger would help?
- Grey and red go well together, perhaps you don't need the yellow backgrounds though? Try a darker grey and replace the yellow with a very light grey or even white.
Hmmm, reading that back it all looks a bit negative! Hope it helps though
Simon, why is the website
This website is optimised for IE5.5+ and is best viewed at 1024 * 768?
Good webdesign is W3C conform and works with any new html browser. After all, most CAD/CAM boffins I know, work with UNIX-workstations.
In the training area (/training/index.htm), the courses table looks a bit mixed up.
Why are there two navigation bars (left and bottom)?
This website is optimised for IE5.5+ and is best viewed at 1024 * 768?
Good webdesign is W3C conform and works with any new html browser. After all, most CAD/CAM boffins I know, work with UNIX-workstations.
In the training area (/training/index.htm), the courses table looks a bit mixed up.
Why are there two navigation bars (left and bottom)?
KITT said:
- Doubling up of links (ie don't need a menu down the side and across the bottom)
Sorry have to disagree with that comment.
If you use an image based link system such as down the left hand side, then it is good practice to put a text based link system in as well so that people with text only browsers or those who have images turned off can see what's going on.
Looking at the source code for the links down the left, it looks as though you intend the images to change as you mouse over or click the link - if this is the case, it doesn't work; the images don't change at all. (IE6, Opera 7.2) If the images are not supposed to change then you have a lot of extraneous code in there.
Also there does not appear to be a link back to the home page anywhere.
I also think there is too much blank space (I am viewing at 1280x960 - as a previous contributor pointed out, you should cater for all screen resolutions, not specify a 'Best viewed in...')
I sometimes get round this problem by designing sites to have a max width of 800. I know this excludes people using 640x480 but it gives you control over how the site looks on any monitor. An example of this is http://uk.yahoo.com
>> Edited by arcturus on Thursday 20th May 17:14
Also there does not appear to be a link back to the home page anywhere.
I also think there is too much blank space (I am viewing at 1280x960 - as a previous contributor pointed out, you should cater for all screen resolutions, not specify a 'Best viewed in...')
I sometimes get round this problem by designing sites to have a max width of 800. I know this excludes people using 640x480 but it gives you control over how the site looks on any monitor. An example of this is http://uk.yahoo.com
>> Edited by arcturus on Thursday 20th May 17:14
arcturus said:
- Doubling up of links (ie don't need a menu down the side and across the bottom)
Sorry have to disagree with that comment.
If you use an image based link system such as down the left hand side, then it is good practice to put a text based link system in as well so that people with text only browsers or those who have images turned off can see what's going on.
I disagree with your disagreement.
If you build a site using semantic HTML and css for images, including navigation, you can have text navigation that's readable in AnyBrowser(TM) but shows up all pretty in CSS browsers with images switched on.
So it may have been best practice in the past, but certainly isn't any more.
For the record it is probably a lot better than I could do. If we are comparing it to sites I have visited then I would have to say that things like the buttons do not have a very professional look to them. Talking of buttons, I don’t like flashing buttons but that is probably just me.
If we are into typos etc.
www.nova-design.co.uk/design.htm there needs to be a gap between “upto” and a comma after “interestingly.”
www.nova-design.co.uk/fea.htm “philosphy”
Sorry to nit pick, like I said, better than I could do.
Ivan
If we are into typos etc.
www.nova-design.co.uk/design.htm there needs to be a gap between “upto” and a comma after “interestingly.”
www.nova-design.co.uk/fea.htm “philosphy”
Sorry to nit pick, like I said, better than I could do.
Ivan
LexSport said:
arcturus said:
KITT said:
- Doubling up of links (ie don't need a menu down the side and across the bottom)
Sorry have to disagree with that comment.
If you use an image based link system such as down the left hand side, then it is good practice to put a text based link system in as well so that people with text only browsers or those who have images turned off can see what's going on.
I disagree with your disagreement.
I agree with your disagreement
but... LexSport said:
If you build a site using semantic HTML and css for images,.....
this site doesn't do this.
>> Edited by arcturus on Thursday 20th May 18:08
Thanks for all the feedback.
As I said originally, it is certainly a case of living too close to a project and getting biased on the result.
I think I need a good book on Dreamweaver together with a hands-on course. How did you all learn ?
I have seen Learndirect offering a course on Dreamweaver, has anyone got experience of their courses / results or any better sources.
Thanks again for the feedback (including the typos !)
If anyone has any further comments, please post on here.
Cheers,
Simon
As I said originally, it is certainly a case of living too close to a project and getting biased on the result.
I think I need a good book on Dreamweaver together with a hands-on course. How did you all learn ?
I have seen Learndirect offering a course on Dreamweaver, has anyone got experience of their courses / results or any better sources.
Thanks again for the feedback (including the typos !)
If anyone has any further comments, please post on here.
Cheers,
Simon
arcturus said:
If you use an image based link system such as down the left hand side, then it is good practice to put a text based link system in as well so that people with text only browsers or those who have images turned off can see what's going on.
Ah, but that's why when you use a picture as a link you should give it an alt="something" property thus if the picture won't load you'll still see what it does
130tdi said:
I think I need a good book on Dreamweaver together with a hands-on course. How did you all learn ?
I've never used Dreamweaver but have designed a few websites before all done with notepad including the company I work for (would post the link but affriad you'll all tear it to pieces!). I learnt html from looking at the source of other sites and "borrowing" ideas
Learning html is the easy bit, coming up with ideas to create a nice looking website it much harder! 
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