pbaugher — Fri, 28 Sep 2001 01:12:12 +0000

I'm sorry for what I'm about to say, but this is the truth:
This is an unbelievably bad site.

Anything built using front page's "features" will stink of blinking, animated, crappy borders on images, terrible dhtml effects, page transitions (thank god you didn't go there), illegal filenames (about_%20us_%20page.htm), huge font sizes, alternating link colors... sooo soo much bad and ugly stuff here.

It's not completely your fault as an amateur, but please take a look around the web. Unless you get a clue as to what is out there, you will never be able to put up a decent site. If you must, download other peoples websites first in IE(use save as web page complete), and play with them in front page (I normally wouldn't recommend front page to anyone, but you have to start somewhere) play with them until you get a feel as to how things are supposed to fit together. Then maybe start over, from scratch, or if your short on time, look into buying some premade templates... or if this all sounds too time consuming and complicated, hire a professional.

-pb

PS. I am certainly not trying to make you feel bad (some people really get offended at blunt critism), but bluntly put, you have a dot-com, what are your intentions with having a website? to make money, or to experiment and become a web designer? Because unless you make a serious commitment to your site, it will most definitely fall short of your expectations. If it costs you money, whether it be buying HTML books, decent design tools (ex.Photoshop & Dreamweaver), and enormous amounts of time... or paying a professional, it will COST something either way. It's your choice which way to go...but I'm sure if you were content with the site, you probably wouldn't be asking our opinions.

acdglobal — Fri, 21 Sep 2001 13:12:53 +0000

Hi,
2 things

1. I don't like the font used in the flashing heading. If you are going to have a heading that flashes the text must be much clearer.

2. All your content seems to be over to the left of the page. I suggest you use some tables like I have at http://www.adbannertrade.com for your content. It will make it appear much neater

Andrew Drake

The Webmistress — Wed, 19 Sep 2001 15:15:01 +0000

Don't forget to keep us posted (by using this same thread) on the progress you make if you are planning on making any changes.

Thanks

302327 — Wed, 19 Sep 2001 15:08:33 +0000

Thank you to those who took the time to give me their opinions and advice. Tim

The Webmistress — Wed, 19 Sep 2001 09:10:13 +0000

Don't use black backgrounds (just a personal one but I don't like them!)
Don't use small font sizes
Don't have banners on the site unless they make you a fortune

I think Megan summed up everything else very eloquently as usual

Have a look around the sites posted on the forum for ideas (as long as you obviously don't outright copy them!!)

Megan — Tue, 18 Sep 2001 17:39:56 +0000

Yes, this site looks like it came out of 1997. Odd diferences between NS 6 and IE 5 - in IE the header slides in and there's some sliding around text below it with an address and such. in NS the top part is just the header blinking.

I'm going to suggest to you what I said to m1l the first time:

Step 1: Get a colour scheme. Pick 2 or 3 colours that match and use them exclusively. If you don't know how to pick colours that match, borrow from someone else (like another website or a sports team or something) or ask someone who can (like your mom or your girlfriend). It is important for this colour scheme to represent your topic.

Step 2: Get a decent logo. The easy way to do this is browse some font sites (like http://www.fontflood.com for example) and pick a neat font that represents your site topic. Install your font, open your graphics program and type your site name using your new font and one of the colours you chose in Step 1. Save and you're done!

Step 3: Lay out your page. One important element here is a navbar, which you have. It's easiest to start out with a white background and use your chosen colours (see Step 1) for table backgrounds and header colours. The navbar should be structurally separted from the rest of the page somehow. Usually this is accomplished using tables with background colours.

Step 4: focus on your content. Maybe this should be step 1, but you need to represent your site topic on the first page. Include some sort of text and graphics to indicate what your site is about and what people can expect to find here.

Step 5: From your base layout, create a template. Use that template to create all your pages so they all have the same look.

There are a lot of design do's and don'ts that go along with this:

Don't underline text that is not a link
Don't use graphics with jagged edges
Do use tables, headers, lists and other built-in HTML features to structure your pages
Do include a navigation menu on every page
Do use a professional writing style with proper spelling and grammar

Feel free to add to the list.

huum?

302327 — Tue, 18 Sep 2001 17:35:09 +0000

Iam lost, the site is only about 1 year old and I changed the front page 2 days ago. I took a picture off because it was taking over 500 sec to laod. Thanks, Tim

m1l — Tue, 18 Sep 2001 17:24:43 +0000

Hi,

I think it's probably untrue to say that you don't have anything to offer a site critique, I would have thought the same of myself but I can offer my view on the site, I might not be able to say how to fix it but views are always useful.

As for your site, it would say from first looks that it hasn't been changed for quite a while, everything about the heading is very much 3 or 4 years ago, so I would lose that, although I've found out for myself that logos and headings aren't exactly easy but I doubt you could do worse than this. I would also think about incorperating into the front page what you do, so either a picture of an engine or the bikes themselves, bikes are exciting, use that fact.

For the links, I would remove the bullet point graphic and make the font bigger. Other than that, as I mentioned, I can;t really go into technicallities but hopefully this "view" can give you some help.