chris_anto — Wed, 30 May 2001 18:41:20 +0000

Everyone,

Thanks for all the suggestions. Its obvious that you spent quite a bit of time looking over the site to provide ideas. I am currently changing it around and implementing your recommendations.

Thanks again,
Chris

I'm off again

KarenArt — Wed, 30 May 2001 15:11:45 +0000

You have a great start here and a worthy cause (says the recluse). I do have a couple nitpicky points though.

A couple link color problems appeared.
First, on your home page the links are blue...
this is cool with me as long as that color is consistant.
The problem is that your text that you have colored is also blue. It can be confusing to people who see the color and assume it's some sort of hyperlink. (I know links are underlined, but some people turn that feature off in their links, so the color becomes the important factor.)
If you choose another color for that text, I beleive that it will look better. -Please don't use red!-

Your links on the "Forum Page" are a different color altogether. Change them to blue to make the site consistant, so visitors won't be confused.

Now for my main problem...
I understand that you have much of your resources on pages off your site. That's fine! (I have links to tons of off site resources)
The problem I have is that the way the links are organized lead me to believe that these places are all on your site.
A reorganization of your main links and a note letting visitors know that the link is off site and will open in a new window will lead to a more professional feel and a higher level of trust.

btw: the "pics" page took me to a Yahoo page where I was supposed to "verify my password". I am a member of (way too many) Yahoo clubs so I could have gotten in, but not everyone Yahoo's. Create a page (or two or three) with your pictures that you can put on your own site... like you did with the cartoons. Making people log into Yahoo to see your pictures is a no no!

All in all I think you have a great idea, just don't surprise visitors with unexpected off site links or make them log in to see your pictures and your site will earn the professional status you desire.

btw: Tell James his cartoons are really well drawn and clever... good stuff!

Karen

The Webmistress — Mon, 28 May 2001 12:31:50 +0000

Hiya chris_anto,

Personally I'm not a fan of backgrounds but as mairving said it's not too bad, although I would personally make it static. I also agree that your graphics are a bit on the large side, the cartoons take far too long to download.

On the books page I would make the link to the tapes at the top as well, it's easily missed right down at the bottom.

On the forums page, the cartoon is way too big! The feature here should be the forum not the cartoon as you have a seperate page for them anyway.

I also don't like it when I can't see where a link is going to take me. Just is too gimmiky for me, the whole point of a status bar is to see the status of something!

Other than that not bad at all.

ps. I don't like the "Thanks to Yahoo....." bit on the home page but that really is just a personal thing, I don't see any reasoning for it as Yahoo won't take any pride in listing you and being thanked for it!

One pet peeve

rivimont — Mon, 28 May 2001 03:12:22 +0000

The only thing that really bothere dme about the site was the large graphics at the top of the page. Not only the size, but the dimensions, I think it would look better if the images were mre like banners instead of being so tall.

~Chris

mairving — Mon, 28 May 2001 02:04:29 +0000

Quote: Im hoping that Ill learn some new stuff by hanging around here.

Your wish has come true. Just kidding but a willing attitude is a great attribute to have. I thought that your site was okay. So here are my thoughts on what you may want to change.

The background is not obnoxious as backgrounds go. I have never been a big fan of backgrounds preferring solid colors myself. The color is good though.
Layout of the site. On most of your pages, you have a rather large picture at the top of the screen. Mostly nice tranquil pictures however I think that they may be a bit too big or maybe just in the wrong place. The picture on the home page would drop your links and your page down a good bit. On the forum page, it can be difficult to see the forums because they are at the bottom of the page. One of the reasons is because of the cartoon at the top. It is too big and unless it is rotated, people probably get tired of it. At 1280 x 960 I could barely see the forum at the bottom.
Style-wise I don't really like underlined hyperlinks for the most part. Sometimes they are neccessary to be underlined. I would at least remove the underline from the top nav links, ie home, forums, etc. I also would possibly change the hyperlink color from blue to something else.
I don't like it when I mouseover a link like Home, forums, etc and I can't see where the link is taking me. It makes me a bit suspicious. It looks like what was being hidden was the fact that three of those links actually took your somewhere else. Just a little bit of bad etiquette in my opinion.

Overall I thought that it was a good basic site but could be gussied up a bit.

Busy — Mon, 28 May 2001 02:00:36 +0000

Nice site, all thou a few pet peeves, the links 'home, forums, chat ...' you've removed the status bar link name (used window.status=) I personaly like to see where the links go before I go there, is it taking me off the site? is it going further down the same page? I think window.status belongs with blink and marquee tags.

On the books page, your missing a few alt tags, and the ones that do have them, have "cover", maybe a bit more descriptive. All the alt tags including the banner ones up top too.

Some of the pages are long, maybe have the links at the bottom as well, or at least a 'top' link. The 'tapes' link should be at the top, didnt even see it the first time down the bottom there.

The graphic (cartoon) on the forum page is to big, takes ages to load, just checked, its 62kb.

great cause, good luck