My Site's new design

[~pcwiz]

Hi,

 

My website (http://######.com) has recently been redesigned. Design by skyhighmac. I want feedback on the design of the site.

 

Thanks

[skyhighmac]

Comments please.

[~pcwiz]

One person voted 1 and the other voted 2

[inimicus]

It strikes me as very plain. Almost '98 era plain, not minimalist plain. There isn't much bringing together all the parts of the site, like everything was placed on the page... not designed into the page.

 

There doesn't seem to be a strong color scheme in use. There are seven different colors not contributing to any consistent feel. This adds to the feeling that the page is a mish-mash of items strewn together.

 

I'm not too keen on the logo or navigation buttons. Here, theme colors could easily be brought into the page for use in copy and other page elements. Currently, the black/white and shades of gray in the graphics make the page feel dull. For example, bringing the green from the title fonts into the images will help create a sense of cohesion and add livliness to the design. The graphics could be a bit smoother and balanced.

 

The black background can certainly be done away with. While I agree it _can_ be easier on the eyes, this design proves that it also can cause more eye strain. There's a reason why multi-million-dollar corporations' websites don't use black (or dark) backgrounds -- they simply don't work.

 

Limit your width to 750px. Sometimes you can get away with 850px. Keep in mind a lot of people aren't running as high of a resolution as you are. Plus, a narrower width makes more text easier to read.

 

While not by much, I preferred the old design to this one.

 

Goodluck.

[skyhighmac]

For the width, 1024 is the new standard, unless you aren't familiar with web standards. Other comments?

[inimicus]

I am running 1024x768 and have a horizontal scroll.

 

While the new standard may be 1024, it's often a best-practice to design to just-past standards to ensure 100% compatibility. Plus, there isn't such a large amount of content on PCWiz Computer to warrant a 1024 width. At current, it only makes reading the content more strenuous. Reducing the width would read a lot better -- the eye wouldn't have to travel from end to end in a single line.

 

The PCWiz forum is in PHP and looks swell. Why not convert this design into the site's main layout?

[hecker]

Honestly bro, that is one ugly looking site. C'mon! White image background on a black site?

Maybe you should think about what you want your page to represent (you know, like a main theme) before actually making it.

 

Good luck,

 

hecker

[scj312]

Take a look at some of the designs and reactions to them here http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/web-2....style-guide.cfm

[borisbadenov]

I am in agreement with both hecker and inimicus. Not much more here to add for me. Yeah, the site works, is functional but dull and the blue font on the links is so hard to read against a black background. For the positives, I really do like the theme you have on the forum page. Think about using that theme on the rest of your pages.

 

Good luck

[Azurael]

I think something has gone a little awry...

[~pcwiz]

Guys, for your info there are some who like it.

 

1) 1024px is the new standard, considering the larger monitors and bigger resolutions

2) Theres no way a forum design will work for a main site

3) The sites not supposed to be a flashy advertising banner, its just plain content. Formatted text and images

4) It meets the needs it was meant for

 

Sure, there are way better designed sites but this design meets the requirements for the content.

 

Taking that into consideration, what do you think?

 

P.S.Azurael, the site works fine here in IE, Firefox, and Safari.

There isn't much bringing together all the parts of the site, like everything was placed on the page... not designed into the page.

You are pretty much right there. I just copied the content from the old design and placed it on the new design with a few minor adjustments. You can't expect me to re-write everything and weave it into the design.

[skyhighmac]

Also guys, I designed this, just trying to help out. I think this look is cleaner than what it used to be, but hey, thats my opinion. Its not the gretest it could bem but hey, I did this pro-bono, and no offense to pcwiz, but I'm not going to go and spend a month making the site really complicated, thats what you get paid to do.

[~pcwiz]

The votes really aren't too bad:

 

0 [ 3 ] [25.00%]

1 [ 3 ] [25.00%]

2 [ 1 ] [8.33%]

3 [ 1 ] [8.33%]

4 [ 3 ] [25.00%]

5 [ 1 ] [8.33%]

 

8 percent think 3, 25 percent think 4, and 8 percent think 5 so close to 45 percent like it. Thats not bad. The site still works for what its meant for so I'm happy.

 

And I greatly appreciate skyhighmac's help. Not many people will use their own time to design you a site for free so I am very grateful.

 

And another note, the site is best viewed at 1280x1024. Looks good to me. I don't have to horizontal scroll one bit to read a line of text, and there is a nice shiny black background on both sides.

 

I just tested it on 1024x768 and I will admit it does look bad. The search box extends over, the shiny black background doesn't show, and its pretty wide and you have to horizontal scroll to read it.

 

skyhighmac, is there any way to make the site look good on 1024x768 without making ANY changes on the way it looks with 1280x1024

 

So, for everyone, please view the site in 1280x1024 BEFORE you vote or add a comment

[shadow1234]

Guys, for your info there are some who like it.

 

1) 1024px is the new standard, considering the larger monitors and bigger resolutions

2) Theres no way a forum design will work for a main site

3) The sites not supposed to be a flashy advertising banner, its just plain content. Formatted text and images

4) It meets the needs it was meant for

 

Sure, there are way better designed sites but this design meets the requirements for the content.

 

Taking that into consideration, what do you think?

 

P.S.Azurael, the site works fine here in IE, Firefox, and Safari.You are pretty much right there. I just copied the content from the old design and placed it on the new design with a few minor adjustments. You can't expect me to re-write everything and weave it into the design.

 

1. 1024px is new standart, but actual size of page is not 1024px

2. There is always a way

3. Yeah, but blue still dosnt read good on my LCD. Try to use some software like color schemer

 

Also learn to write clean, valid HTML code, i checked your site and there was about 100 errors. Get familar with CSS. And DON'T use crapy software like Macromedia Dreamweaver.

[skyhighmac]

Ok, shadow1234, I just went and did a validation check @ w3.org. The css passed, and I created that, and all the errors on the home page are from code either pcwiz added, or code from google for the search or ads. And second, Dreamweaver is not crappy. Sorry I don't have 50 hours to hand write every line of code. The way I have the code set is for 1024 pixels wide, with the silver to appear when the screen is wider than that.

[shadow1234]

I don't mean to offend you. I'm programmer not a designer I write sites with complex functionality mostly. Now i'm working in this project Deltadraco. It's a web based game, and we have magnificent designer This game is plain HTML + JS + AJAX, so i know what can be done just using CSS and block design.

[~pcwiz]

I want to make a few points clear:

 

1) Before you make ANY comments, please view the site in a resolution of 1152x864 or higher. 1024x768 or lower appears overly wide.

 

2) There is no way I can use a forum design for a main site unless you mean to put all the content into a forum interface which I don't want to do

 

3) The width, infact is 1024px. Here is part of the code from the CSS file:

 

.oneColElsCtrHdr #container {
width: 1024px;
text-align: left; /* this overrides the text-align: center on the body element. */
background-color: #000000;
margin-top: 0;
margin-right: auto;
margin-bottom: 0;
margin-left: auto;
border: 0px none #000000;
position: static;

 

4) The only things I added were text. The errors are from the ads, the PayPal code, the Google Analytics code, or from Google Search. These are not things I have the power to change.

 

5) I can't make the color scheme work for everyone. The blue looks fine on my LCD although it may not look good on yours (try increasing the brightness). If I change the colors it might make it look bad for others.

 

6) Macromedia Dreamweaver is the most used and best editor among professionals. For you to be saying that it is a bad web editor, you clearly are not familiar with web design. I used to use MS FrontPage and now I see how much damage it did to the site. Online editors or older editors like FrontPage have tons of coding errors.

 

6) Here is an example of what the website looks like for me:

 

[scj312]

having the width be 1024 doesnt take into account window borders and vertical scrollbars. Try 1000px

[Liran Koren]

This is my ideas.Bottens are too big and old fasion, the top picture is a low quality .gif flie set to white backgroung.Need to be a littel more argonized.The rest is good.Wish you luck, contact me for help and ideas. I might help you with flah and dreamweaver.BTW you dont need to take resolution in cosideration at alljust use dynamic tablets.

[~pcwiz]

The logo isn't GIF, its JPG. I converted the image to PNG (good quality) and tested it out, looks the same. I think the buttons look OK, will leave them as it is. If anyone has any suggestions what I should ADD (not change) using FLASH to make it look nicer, then please say so

 

Regarding the width, I don't think I'll change it because: If you check my guides, they have lots of big wide screenshots on them so if you make the width small and the images are large, it will make it look ugly.

 

kior,

 

How could I be more organized? I've divided everything into sections and things. One thing, the ads on the pages make it look sorta disorganized and the site looks better without them but I get a small profit from the the ads so I'll keep them.

 

And what are "dynamic tablets"? Did a Google search and nothing came up.

 

P.S. So far the votes are about 50-50. Votes from 0-2 are considered bad, 3 is considered good, and 4-5 is considered very good. Good and bad are 50-50.

[skyhighmac]

Tables. Old School. Use div tags.

[~pcwiz]

I doubt that making it work with all resolutions is easy. If it was easy, it would have been done already.

[inimicus]

You ask for feedback... and then fervently defend what others find to be flaws.

 

Then what's the point in asking for feedback?

 

I may be wrong, but it seems like you're not willing to improve these "flaws" because "it meets the needs it was meant for."

 

If you already deemed it sufficient, why are you asking our opinions?

[hecker]

You ask for feedback... and then fervently defend what others find to be flaws.

 

Then what's the point in asking for feedback?

 

I may be wrong, but it seems like you're not willing to improve these "flaws" because "it meets the needs it was meant for."

 

If you already deemed it sufficient, why are you asking our opinions?

 

Hear, hear. Just what I was thinking. If you can't take constructive criticism, then you may as well close this topic and do whatever you like. Websites are a matter of taste, afterall (but there's good taste and bad taste).

 

hecker

[Liran Koren]

OK as someone sad befor, the with is long one thing you can do is to put text inside columns, you might want to use longer text's or/and add some images (make sure the images will not exceed the clumns you have made).

 

In order to make your web site dynamice and fit on any screen - in dreamweaver - select the site table (make sure the inner frames are at the right proprtion) and on propaties panel

next to the word with change pixels to % and set how much you want it to take off your screen.

now it might even work on mobile phones an old people's computer with a res of 640X460.

Good Luck