anti — Thu, 25 Jan 2001 15:38:19 +0000

As usual I didn't read the previous comments so forgive me if I duplicate anything.

1. The orange and grey look .... hmmm ... unfriendly ?
Well, just not right.
2. Loose the counter.
3. The spacing between the chapters is to big.
Try alternating the pictures left and right and interleave them.
4. Your HTML is broken.
No DOCTYPE, no closing BODY, no closing HTML.
Always use weblint or the w3c validator.
5. The pictures (in the top bar) look "cheap".
(Jagged, low contrast.)
6. All pics on the right are b/w, but chapter 2 is color.
Stay consistent.

7. PART2: The left/nav-bar is far to big (twice the height of the content column)

8. The color of the navbar keeps changing from page to page.
9. Try to use the full browser width, this is important for sites with long texts. Scrolling annoys me.

20. How about putting the "home/guestbook/etc"-links horizontal ?

21. If you link to WAVs, please mark them !!!
Some of us might see this from their cubicle

Just take this as hints not as offence.
I like your content, but the presentation could use some improvement.

thanks..

mack — Wed, 24 Jan 2001 22:22:44 +0000

Thanks for the good advice....I've made some changes, tried to include some less conspicuous sepia tones....but to be honest I feel a little worse about it now. I'm just obsessed with this site at present - I think I need to sign up for an advanvced spoon-bending course or something, and just leave it alone for a few months. I like this forum..people here don't seem so "up themselves" as can happen when people get the opportunity to criticize others.

Megan — Wed, 24 Jan 2001 14:04:02 +0000

I definitely think that you need to settle on a colour scheme. Every page looks different and it's kind of distracting. You wouldn't see a print book changing it's margins or typeface on every page, would you? This is the same thing.

Speaking of typeface, yoiu might want to try a serif font for this. I don't usually think that they look very good but serif might give your site more of a historical look.

Another thing that should be fixed is the spacing and layout on some of the pages as well as the bottom section. The footer part has a whole bunch of random looking stuff centered on the page which doesn't look good (and then there's that return to top link which isn't centered and thows it off even more). Lose the scrolling text and the home button (there's a home link on the left side there so you don't need another one - either that or just make it a text link). Also find a better sound button - it's tacky looking, and the black background doesn't work with the white background of your page.

As for the page layout, there are just a few things that are a little off. On Part 7, for example, there's a guy with binoculars who is facing off the edge of the page. People and characters should usually be looking into your design, not out of it.

AndyB — Wed, 24 Jan 2001 04:37:11 +0000

Wow!! That brought back so many childhood memories. I just read and read and read. Forgot to 'critique' it as I was so busy remembering ... and then "we'll meet again .." was the clincher. All I can think of is that you might want to inject some sepia tones into the pages somewhere to reinforce the impression of an old, old story.