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Hey guys,
i posted here about 2 weeks ago i think it was, anyway, the site i posted was:
www.technodogs.com
i had replies saying that their was too much whitespace and the navigational text should be made into buttons.So i finally got around to doing it. What do you think about this:
Old idea: www.technodogs.com
New idea: www.technodogs.com/test.htm
cheers in advance guys.
Yoda
overall i think its good...
I don't like the new idea... the menu buttons are out of place...
check this site tho it will help you:
http://www.hydro74.com/hydro_v4/index2.html
Ehh the buttons make me want to eat my own puke. :eek: Because of the gradient you cant see the text at the bottom of the page. You could probably compress the file size of the graphic within the content down to 1/10th of its current size.
One of my big problems with the buttons is that you centered the text on that about link. I don’t know what it is but people love to center text and that is usually a really bad idea, the other is that they aren’t legible.
"Welcome to the Official TechnoDogs.com Website"
^I read somewhere that internet users don’t like to be patronized, I would have to agree, of course we know that we are at the official technodogs site...
"Welcome to the Official TechnoDogs.com Website, please use the navigational bar above to move around the site."
^ Your first statement should probably be used to get the viewers attention not bore the hell out of them and make them wish for more tasteful surroundings.
Omg lol why did you put the about content into a text area
:confused:
I don’t know how the rest if the community feels but jump menus should have went out with scrolling text bars.
Your interactive slide show could probably get by with a flash 4/5 player. It’s all about backwards compatibility.
Yes its mean but there is some usful infomation in there if you can get by me being a prick.
well...........
the text at the bottom of the page is supposed to be very faint, didn't see the point in having that info over powering the main content of the pages.
I'm on a 56kb line at the mo here, and the page loads quickly enough.Cant see why you think the centering of the text on the buttons is bad? what would you do? any suggestions?
As for the content in a text area, this is done to stop the menu bar tiling in a horrible manor, and keep the pages the same height.
I have never heard of anyone with such a passion for hating jump menus though? they are small, legible and do the job.
Anyway. Cheers for the comments anyway mate.
Yoda
Ok Ill break it down for you one at a time.
Lets start with overall appearance of typography, first and for most I will explain why you shouldn’t center. Ask yourself first does it look good. Look at the tangent it creates in contrast with the rest of the document, all your characters should line up evenly through your navigation to keep the look even and straightforward.
Typography is a giant industry you can think I’m wrong all you want but do some research and you will find that major design companies pay people big bucks to simply design type and arrange it. A perfect example of poor taste in type is the header image you are using.
Look at how you have spaced the word dogs, look at it in contrast to the word techno, see how you break your design by spacing it like that. Not only that but you follow it up with the tiny .com in the lower right throwing away any hope you ever had in having an attractive header. Why not use the same spacing you had with the techno line on dog and simple use the .com to fill the rest of the space?
http://phenomcreations.com/headernew.jpg
Similar problems are in your navigation but you also introduce several other blunders that are killing me. The use of images here at least how you have It done does little for your layout. Regular html links jazzed up with CSS would do you better than what you have. Big problem right away is that your links are not searchable. Search engines cannot read images never have and it is far off that they will. Second the tangent created in the design, and third pill buttons are so 1990’s… Finally the order in which you present your information in screwed up as far as what’s in the norm. Ask yourself what is the first page you come to when you enter the site? Index right? Now ask yourself where do you usually see the home link? First link in the navigation right? So why is it your last link?
People already know they are at Techno Dogs why do you reiterate it on the about link? It pretty obvious that about would work just fine, don’t you think? Order of importance and how it will be used my friend. Home first, about second, characters third, other scripts forth, and finally contact. You know why contacts last? Its because people don’t care about talking to you unless they are interested in what your selling, and I don’t mean selling in the literal sense so please don’t argue the point just stay with me I’m giving you Champaign for your Kool-Aid money.
Image optimization on any and every image is a good habit to get into because some day your going to need to know what compression method effects what image on what settings and your going to look like a fool when you don’t. Not to mention that your also wasting bandwidth so why take the chance. Oh and just an FYI images and sites will load fast on your computer if you made them… Want know why? Its because they are stored in your temporary folder which means that are cached and can be accessed with a quickness. Also current standard for catching a persons attention is about 30 seconds, the image I pointed out will take about 13 to 15 seconds to load that’s half your time, are you willing to bet on the rest of your site really making them want to stay when all your eye candy is still loading?
”Site Best View With IE 5+ with 800x600+ Res Site Designed By D.Phillips” Why did you even put it in the site if you aren’t worried about it being read… Your doing two things here number one showing me that you don’t care if people know you made the site and two showing people your sloppy and or lazy by not figuring out whether it legible. Not to mention that its at the bottom and takes up a small fraction of the space on the web page “over powering” eh not even close.
Jump menus aren’t really friendly to search engines and doesn’t really present your linkage in an attractive manner.
The text area?!?!? Pffttt learn to make liquid pages….
Slice out a part of the site that can tile down the page set it as a background image and let it expand away.
I’m not flaming you I’m just giving it to you straight these are things most of us do in the beginning the thing about it is that you can take others advice or you can give me the big finger and go on your happy way. You don’t need to do what I say to make it look good just take my experience to mind and build your own unique vision armed with the knowledge of other people failures. J
Honestly...just to make sure you get what ZeroInspiration posted.
He's absolutely right on every point. Take his suggestions.
I'm not a pro, but agree will 98% of what he said.
I just say it all with a little sour wit its my way of getting at people while Im making a point. Its probably not in the best taste most of the time since not everyone subscribes to my sence of humor but its all just good fun for me.
To be quite honest though Ive taken quite the beating here many a time, its just in how you deal with it. Design is an insainly tough industry, its a profession that will chew up and spit out the weak. Im still really wet behind the ears still, 3 years in and I know reletively nothing but what I have learned Ive studied hard and eye balled what other people did to achive results I like. My biggest form of inspiration for what small things I have done is getting an outside eye. I find it intresting what other people will say, they usually lend a perspective that is almost impossible to view on your own.
Learning to laugh at yourself and see it all as it really is will take anyone a long way.
Weee Ive made some crap havent I :D http://beaverach.coolfreepage.com/
i'll take all these point into consideration and try to include them. But i still can't understand the hate for jump menus? what would you suggest instead?
Also, the link buttons, they were originally text, but seemed to get lost amoung the page, what kind of CSS would you suggest?
Thanks again for the comments and interest in my post.
Yoda
I do like Zero's layout of the title better. Overall I don't think it's all that bad. You could tweak a few things and fix it up. The type of buttons doesn't bother me much but it is hard to read what they link to. It has become conventional to have the home button first. My main criticism is that the page is layed out vertically with a lot of room on the sides but it has a scroll bar to be able to see the bottom of the page. Personally I like to make my pages more in the aspect ratio of the monitor (or a tv) instead of the aspect ratio of a piece of paper. As your site is you have enough room on the sides to fit the information on your page without having to use a scroll bar. One of the things I really like about flash is publishing in percentages so it fits well on any monitor without scroll bars.
Hope this helps. Putting your site up here for criticism takes thick skin...I don't think I'm gonna do it....good luck! Zero has obviously spent some time on your site and has some good points.
yeha i like his layout of the header better myself too. i will tweak the parts he said about later, at the mo im on the laptop. the designs are on the pc.
Anyway, i gotta meet hte client later on today so will put foward these points and see what he says.
Im always skeptical about using a wide ratio, as i prefer to design for people using 800x600 res? am i right thinking this, or should it be a wider ratio and no vertical scrolling?
Any ideas for CSS styles for the links?
Thanks again
Yoda
when designing w/ html i like to use percentages in my main tables, so they flex no matter what resolution... look good at 800 x 600 and larger... i think.
see my urls
http://courtyarddecor.net/
http://newenglandgiftshow.com/
http://atelierlizio.com/
Yeah, using percentages really helps deal with that monitor size/resolution issue.
mmmm
dont thikn im gpnna be able to incorporate that with my design though, due to the header being a fixed size, i dont really want to make a crappy background that tiles on the edges of the main header, if you see what i mean?
Yoda
i think the crappy background looks fine
http://addesignconcepts.com/yo/
well your right!
that will look ok!
Cheers! i'll get onto that this afternoon and let ya know
Yoda