Suzanne — Tue, 14 Mar 2000 20:41:00 +0000

Looks like I jumped the gun. My apologies for making an assumption about your intent. Truly. The useability problems come in that I use Netscape, one, that I view at a resolution that makes font size=1 painful (at least I use windows, if I had a Mac or Linux system I wouldn't be able to read your text at all, it would appear to be a series of dots). Those are the biggees.

The other useability issue is that you have a lot of text for reading. Long pages of text for reading. And I just cannot comfortably do so at that font size in that small of a space (even though it is larger now).

About iframe -- I didn't attempt to view your code, sorry.

As long as you are using iframe, you can have the page background be the image (not cut-up and placed in a table) and have iframe anywhere you want it. While I think the graphic is beautiful and great work, it's not what I want to look at. In the pop-up window it takes up over 50% of the viewing space. Since you are going experimental, I think you could have a much better look. Some ideas:

Look at more experimental and knowledge sites, if you want, like www.famewhore.com, www.zeldman.com, www.alistapart.com , www.digitopolis.com , www.tangerinedesign.com , the artists in the www.adobe.com gallery , http://www.wtproductions.com/digitalcult/featuredartist/aharvey/ , www.entropy8.com et cetera. They aren't all great for useability, but if your purpose is experimental, they should inspire.

Cheers,

Suzanne

------------------
Zero Cattle
Suzanne
Tables DeMystified

rocke — Tue, 14 Mar 2000 13:35:00 +0000

no, none of your opinions have been wasted- i appreciate all of them. i'm still trying to figure out why you have useability problems.

i did make the text box bigger like one of you suggested , and i'm going to change the color of the maroon text in the dropdown...

suzanne, i am using iframe....do you mean a different kind? i don't know the codes for others.....there's one table and one iframe in it.

i just said i like size 1 fonts. sorry.

Suzanne — Tue, 14 Mar 2000 08:46:00 +0000

If it meets your audience's expectations, then there is nothing wrong with the useability. However I am part of that target audience, and you don't, so there is. Not the least of which is that you can achieve better useability without sacrificing your look at all (or even the pop-up or the size of the pop-up) with better planning. Since you don't care about Netscape, use iframe (future versions will support this recommendation, I think) and place it properly so that there is more visual space.

But I have to ask -- why did you ask for a critique? Every point that people have brought up you have dismissed and say you don't care about it. Not that your opinions are wrong and that those of others are right, but the arrogance of stating that because you like it's okay, hang the readers, doesn't fit with asking those same readers for their opinion.

Regardless, best of luck with your site, and I hope the time of those who have responded to your request hasn't been wasted and that you will consider their opinions.

Suzanne

------------------
Zero Cattle
Suzanne
Tables DeMystified

rocke — Tue, 14 Mar 2000 08:03:00 +0000

well....about the useability problems....everything is fine with me and my regular visitors, so i dont really care about that.

suzanne, trayci's site and mine are sister sites and she'll be putting her site back up soon.

lots of people have their sites in popups these days...it helps to fit the graphics and all...which wouldn't really look good in a non-popup. i want to make it look good more than anything.

many of my visitors like size 1, its small and elegant. small fonts are better in webpages....thats my opinion.

in this layout, i can't use anything but a drop down- its small, its not ugly and basicly it does whatever i want it to do.

Megan Jack- I checked the art pages and all the links are working.

Brooke- thanks for telling me about the maroon text in the drop down...i'll fix that.

quote:The entry page never fully loads - it just keeps going.

can you tell me what exactly keeps loading? becuase there are only two things to load - the counter and the splash graphic and it loads perfectly for me.

oh by the way, i hope you guys are use Internet explorer 5...i've never even tested it in netscape...

Brooke — Mon, 13 Mar 2000 19:59:00 +0000

The entry page never fully loads - it just keeps going.

I think your colors are great and so is the graphic. But I do agree that it takes up too much room on the pop up box. The text seems like secondary information.

I like the drop down box - it works well with what you are trying to do. But you have two different colors for text and I can barely see the marroon one. The white really stands out, but I think you need to change the other one to a brighter color.

Good job

Brooke

------------------
Providing quality websites for businesses and individuals!
www.cataluna.com

fairhousing — Mon, 13 Mar 2000 18:31:00 +0000

i personally have never cared for entry pages to sites, it's a turn off.

------------------
Thumbs up or down ratings of the best and worst ways to make $$$ on the net. CLICK 4 CASH! from Affiliate Programs and Ad Networks

Megan — Mon, 13 Mar 2000 15:08:00 +0000

Well, too bad if you like size 1, it makes things very difficult for the reader - no one's going to stick around to read such miniscule text.

I agree about the usability problems. A lot of the things you've done here just don't make sense (the small pop-up window for the entire site, frames on the "art pages" (none of those links are working BTW), dropdown for a lot of navigation). It's also really annoying how some of your links open up a totally different site in a new window. Make a links page for that kind of stuff.

rocke — Mon, 13 Mar 2000 11:42:00 +0000

i made the text box bigger....i can't make it any bigger than that.

and i used size 1 cuz i like size 1

Suzanne — Sun, 12 Mar 2000 20:12:00 +0000

Well, um, it froze my browser (Netscape 4.6) and while I could get to see the requirements first, it still froze my browser before I advanced to the point of needing anything, I thought. After poking around in IE 4, I don't see why I need to have an advanced browser at all. Other than the pop-up (JavaScript) and the drop-down menu, it's pretty standard. Arial is a standard font, too (Helvetica for Macs, you should specify this if you don't in your code -- maybe even be nice and provide Lucida for the Linux users who won't be able to read it anyway because the font size is too small).

Gotta tell ya, I know what you are going for, but there is no reason to have so much space taken up by the image in the little pop-up and so little by the text. It looks unbalanced. I agree that it could be larger (rescan the picture at a slightly higher resolution or resize/resample it, redraw it, et cetera. You do NOT have to keep it that size at all, the miracle of software.)

I have an aversion to seeing the entire options in a pulldown, dropdown menu. It is very overwhelming. As along as you are going completely experimental and artsie, why not use DHTML and have a better navigational system. Of course having your entire site in a pop-up window is proof that useability isn't your aim, so that may be useless advice for you.

The Tracyi link just opens up a directory window (I assume not quite what you were going for).

The graphic is beautiful, but the rest of the site is such a useability nightmare that I couldn't really check out the content. Forcing the viewer to read in a textarea size box (and a pretty damn small one at that) and in micro-text too boot is just mean.

Suzanne

------------------
Zero Cattle
Suzanne
Tables DeMystified

Justin S — Sun, 12 Mar 2000 18:49:00 +0000

Well- you could always draw the background bigger. Also- why not make use of all the white space below the logo, and put the navigation there?

------------------
The fireburn.com Network:

fireburn.com [www.fireburn.com]

Flame Hosting [www.flamehosting.com]

Ineffable Designs [www.ineffabledesigns.com]

The Webmasters Portal [www.webmasters-portal.com]