Archbob — Sat, 15 Sep 2001 03:34:06 +0000

I think you should use CSS stylesheets. But overall, the design looks clean and should do fine.

The Webmistress — Tue, 11 Sep 2001 08:10:02 +0000

Let us know by continuing with this thread when you have made the changes. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with

Gino — Tue, 11 Sep 2001 03:07:02 +0000

Thanks everyone for your suggestions - they've been really helpful. I'm going to have a look at keeping the theme of the opening animation running all the way through the website and getting myself a simple 3 or 4 colour scheme happening. Onc eagain, thanks a lot for all your suggestions.

build.com.au

Her.ph — Sat, 08 Sep 2001 21:54:05 +0000

~~Likes~~
Layout is neat and uncluttered.

~~Dislikes~~
The visible area is larger than 800 pixels accross (I need to scroll left & right to see it all). Maybe you can cut down on the white-space by moving left-navigation area to be flush with the browser LHS. You have two gutters running up and down on each page. Try shrinking them down to half current size. Shaving 5% of the right hand graphic/text box would help too.

Your logo would be nicer if it were easier to see. Perhaps use some anti-aliasing or enlarge the graphic of the two (men?) that are huddled so close together. You seem to have something occupying the center of the 'o' of .com, but I just can't see what it is. If its important, make it larger, if not, take it out.

The Webmistress — Sat, 08 Sep 2001 13:47:50 +0000

I think Megan hit the nail on the head (pun very much intended!!) you have a very nice splash page (although build.com.au needs to be changed as it's really blocky) and that should be the basis for the rest of the site.

Stick with tables not layers and get a layout that fits most screen sizes, sort out the graphics/logo tighten the colour scheme and you'll have a very nice site.

Toeng.com — Fri, 07 Sep 2001 17:56:01 +0000

I love the splash page. Looks professional and simple. But once I got to the main page ... Doh!

1. Hate the top left logo ... kinda cranky there. you might want to redesign the logo and this time, makes it look crisp and clear.
2. if I were you, I'd make the header part to have different background color to reduce the empty-whitespace effect. I am thinking about making it dark blue.
3. redo the images in the right table, they all look kinda jagged and ugly. You might want to make it simple and yes ... change the background color too while you're at it.

I'm not sure about layer and everything, it works fine with my IE 6.01 browser hehehe ... I don't have Netscape installed since Netscape crashes big time with my W2K pro.

Keep up the good work tho.

BOF — Fri, 07 Sep 2001 14:57:38 +0000

Nice intro page - not too protracted, and makes the point very well. Good that you allow the option to skip it if required.

Very slow loading in Opera 5 - no idea why. (I only keep Opera & Netscape aboard for site checking). Horizontal scroll bar in both Opera & IE5.5.

Overall I like your site - it's bright and clean and navigation is clear. Nice job, if I may say so - well done!

Megan — Fri, 07 Sep 2001 14:16:14 +0000

Welcome to TWF Gino! Please take the time to return the favour and critique some other sites. I'm sure the others will appreciate it.

First of all, I really like the intro. It's short and to the point, the cartoons are amusing, and it gets the message across. I would like to see a more interesting logo there though.

Now, once I'm into the site it's a different story. What you should do is carry the theme of the introduction into the site itself. Take that logo and re-do it (it looks really rough around the edges there) - use the orange colour from the building in the intro and replace the two men that are in it now with cartoons from the intro. Actually, a lot of your graphics seem to have this scratchy, aliased look that looks terrible. Always anti-alias!

The next thing you need is a colour scheme. The orange, black and yellow from the intro would work fine. Once you've created a pallette of 3 or 4 colours you need to go over your site and replace all other colours with one of those. So get rid of all the different blues you've got on there.

Another thing you should do is invest in an appropriate collection of stock photos. It would make your site look a whole lot better if you had some corresponding good quality photos.

As for your layout, I'm sure this will work fine for your site. What you need to do is look into using Server Side Includes or even a more advanced scripting language like PHP or ASP to automate your site. If you ask in the Web Authoring forum I'm sure people will be more than willing to give you more information about these technologies.

taff — Fri, 07 Sep 2001 13:48:19 +0000

oh boy...

The site DOES fall to pieces in Netscape 4.72.

In IE 5.5 :

It is the upper logo/nav table that's causing your sideways scroll at 800x600.

Graphics are of poor quality and some are monstrous in size for what they are.

You really need a colour scheme. I count 3 blues, 3 yellows, black, and a smattering of reds and greens.

Way too many thing flashing at me. But then again, my ideal number is zero.

Structurally, the site is well laid out and easy to navigate. Having said that, your main page (post-splash) is too busy. I've got 3 things flashing at me, 2 sets of navigation, a poll, and a whole lot of reading to do. Yet, I'm left with some uncertainty as to what the site purpose is. Are you a store? An E-zine? A portal site? All of the above?

As Keegan mentioned, the foundation is there. It definitely needs work on the presentation end.

edit - taff make typo! :eek:

Busy — Fri, 07 Sep 2001 05:04:18 +0000

WOW what a mess, sorry but everything is everywhere,

aghhh thats what its meant to be,

your layout doesnt work in Netscape 4.7, but works in Netscape 6, looking at your source I see your using layers, youd be better off using tables as layers can and does cause havoc on some browsers.
On Net 4.7 I have the right's column, or bits of it at the top, the icon with links about half way down and the navagation buttons at the very bottom right, I can send you a screen capture if you want.

I have a scroll bar at 800x600, using a base table at 100% would fix that.

That icon at the top looks like it was made for a coloured background.
OK, I perfer Netsacpe but will do this in IE

I think the scrolling ruins what you have as there is so much white space, it looks like everything is stretched out to much.
Have you thought about or tried a top and left background colour? (with curves)

I think the green for visited links is a no no, it makes it look like part of the text so would be hard to revisit that page.

The magazine images need to be a lot more clearer, they are very fuzzy and slow loading, try using .jpg's

-I have a few friends in the building trade that I'll pass this onto, even thou were in NZ I'm sure the contents are similar, I don;t think we have a bulding mag here - dont quote me on that I could be wrong.