TheGizmoid — Mon, 30 Apr 2001 00:51:16 +0000

Yes, I think you need to work on a logo and clean up the top considerably.

The scriptish font you used for the top mouseovers is hard to read. Why are "Wise Forum" amd "Guest Book" in upper/lower case, but "Cool", "Amazing" and "Hot" are all in uppercase? Be consistent. The rollover effects on each is different, again, be consistent.

In the "body" of the page you have a five cell wide table. The top row has columns 2 and 4 as blue, but in lower rows these cells are white, creating an awkwardness. You really don't need 5 rows, with so many empty cells and blank spaces. Just go with one row for better flow. And you can get away with only 3 columns by using cell padding/spacing to make sure text doesn't collide.

About that animated globe at the top right of the page...

My all-time favorite web design book is "Web Pages That Suck - Learn Good Design by Looking at Bad Design" by Flanders and Willis. (They have a website, too: http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/) On cliched images, they say, "If you want to make both of us scream, make an animated globe. It's the web-graphics equivalent of fingernails on the chalkboard."

Your site has no meta tags, necessary for indexing and placement with certain search engines.

Don't use all bold text in your copy.

Like TFE, I also get a sense of "what is this site supposed to be about"? You need to clarify this.

Some of the FrontPage code is rather sloppy. For example:

[ font size="2" face="Verdana" ] [ strong] [ /strong ] [ /font ]

(edit: changed carets to []s because the code wasn't showing up.)

You've defined a font size and face and made it bold. Then undefined the font size and made it unbold. But there's no text for it to affect so this is wasted code. There are numerous similar incidences like this in your code.

I didn't see an earlier iteration, but someone commented that it's getting better, so keep on refining it. Good luck!

TFE — Tue, 24 Apr 2001 13:50:34 +0000

I'm kind of curious as to what you plan to post on your site? Before you start posting tips for webmasters maybe you should start understanding them yourself.

Bookworm — Tue, 24 Apr 2001 12:25:28 +0000

A good start, no doubt about it, If you follow everyone's suggestions you'll have a fine looking site.
Here's my 2 cents...

From the roll over buttons down every centres nicley, but the headers at the top stick to the left in higher resolution making it a mess.
I agree the rollovers should be pre-loaded and stick to the same style.
Dark sites can look good, but save it for a subject that suites it. Choose a few lighter colours and brighten it up. Stay away from opposite colours in the spectrum together.

red-green
blue-orange
purple-yellow
Verdana is a good choice for font as everyone has it and it's easy to read but I hate the black background effect on the text rollovers.

Another thing to consider is to learn HTML rather than using frontpage. Frontpage has a lot of limitations and uses 'frontpage extensions' which many browsers read in different ways. You will also need to ensure your host supports frontpage extensions or the site will not work at all.

You can learn HTML from scratch at http://www.htmlgoodies.com
This is where I learnt and it's really not that hard and gives you a lot more control and a huge sense of achievement.

TFE — Tue, 24 Apr 2001 00:31:02 +0000

Try inserting a pre-load rollover images script. Also, ditch the online graphics generators. I see that's what you have used to create the gold images.

Write me at graham@theflexeffect.com and I'll hook you up with some new graphics..you just have to promise me you will change that color scheme .

Fringey — Sun, 22 Apr 2001 19:23:56 +0000

I agree with webmistress here, the color scheme definately needs to be improved. If it were me I would go with a lighter scheme, the darker scheme is not only harder to look at but somehow it make your site less trustworthy. The rollovers at the top should be changed. It would look more professional if they all had the same effect. What i mean is that rightnow the image you see when you put the mouseover is a different color or has a fiery look or whatever, they should be all the same. Yes, it is kinda a cool idea for the different looks, but it isn't very professional.

The Webmistress — Sun, 22 Apr 2001 14:01:46 +0000

I must say that I personally don't think the colours work at all. The black/gold/light blue/white. It either needs to be a dark background with light writing or the other way round. To me this seems kinda caught in the middle, something & nothing. Sorry just my preference!

I agree that your logos need to be stronger and to get rid of the surplus headings, at the moment it is hard to tell what are links and what aren't. I also don't particularly like the way on rollover the side links have the black background appear, I think this spoils it.

I would say that you need to decide on a few colours and run only with them. If you are sticking to the balck/gold in parts because they are the graphics you have got then follow on with this scheme, otherwise ditch them all & start afresh.

If you want a professional looking site create graphics for the headings rather than just use a large font size as this never looks good.

I think the main thing here is to decide on a firm colour scheme, then start creating your logos/graphics then put them on the page and lay them out. You have a good idea that just needs polishing

mairving — Sun, 22 Apr 2001 12:24:12 +0000

Well it's better.

(1.) First, you have two body tags. Only one is allowed. One needs to be removed.
(2.) Also you have a slight but very noticeable indent in your table. Probably caused by the text on the side.
(3.) Your 'script' tag needs to go within the 'head' not in the body where it is.
(4.) Since you have somewhat of a stylesheet, why not get rid of most of your font tags by using classes in your stylesheet. You may also consider building an external stylesheet so in the future all you have to do is change one page and all the style changes are made.
(5.) The text at the top still looks a bit jumbled to me. I would strongly consider creating all of that test as small gif files. You can get it to looks better as anti-aliased and sometimes it makes placement easier.
(6.) What I would probably do is the make yourself a little bit better logo. Put this logo at the top center. Underneath your logo put Free website builders guide. I would then lose the 'All free with no hidden cost'. To me this makes people wonder about hidden costs. Put in a short paragraph about what you do. Use your best marketing skills to polish this statement. I would then move everything in the line "Tools, Tips, Tricks ..." and create a link for them on your sidebar. I would then create some more gif's for the links at the top like "Wise Forum...". I would also lose the guestbook. Nobody but your friends and family and idiots will sign and it looks unprofessional. I would also consider getting rid of all the text on the right side of your table like "Powerful, Free ...". Move it the the left side.
(7.) I have also noticed that upon mouseover of your links like "Free ISP, Free Email...", that text is underlined on all but the Free ISP.

You are getting there.