theprofessional — Tue, 16 Apr 2002 15:38:36 +0000

Here's my .02 cents worth.

IE6, 1200x800, true color, win2000pro

First impression: nice professional layout, I would trust and use this site if needed. Color a little drab but I don't do business just because of color.

It could use some bigger text in color to highlight some main points or something. Needs pazaze(spell?) I guess. Float the tabs off the main table, make the logo larger (looks good), mid table butts up to edges in places, and no clear Home link throughout.

This site works and has a great layout, now it's time to start adding some splash. A little color here, a starburst Special! thing there. Good luck.

Great

dinsol — Tue, 16 Apr 2002 14:12:27 +0000

The site is very good and useful.

Keep it up!

Hemant Kumar
CEO, Diamond Internet Solutions
Dinsol.com

Busy — Tue, 16 Apr 2002 05:41:43 +0000

I like you logo, has a real sweeping affect, not sure if its to high or should just be taken off the solid line,

the sign up now, no monthly fees ... part looks like a link, maybe use italic instead of underline or change the color to black or something.

the tabs at the right could be confusing, i think if the lighter tab was used to show the page which is being displayed could be a better solution.

as mentioned you need to stick to one font style/size throughout etc I just looked at your code and notice your using class tags in your font tags, put them in span or div tags or better yet in your td tags,
site colors, maybe, even changing the font color would help a little

rapio — Mon, 15 Apr 2002 17:52:48 +0000

i have to disagree with some of these post I like the overall design and layout but your color scheme could use some work.Try to brighten it up a bit (I learn't this the hard way) and I think your logo looks good.

Abhishek Reddy — Mon, 15 Apr 2002 13:08:40 +0000

I don't like the way your tabs (top right) are set up. When a tab appears joint to the "base" it sits on, that suggests that the current page is the highlighted tab. In your case, three tabs are the same color as the bar. Use another color for the tabs to separate them the base.

I think you should change the Set Default Homepage option to an Add to Favorites function. It's less invasive, and people would be more prone to doing that than changing their homepage setting.

galt — Mon, 15 Apr 2002 12:44:49 +0000

Okay, I went back and tried again. The offending link is "Venister Classifieds", which happened to be the first link I clicked on. On the web, you are associated with companies you link to, so choose carefully. Linking to popup-spam sites can ruin your retention rate VERY fast.

I think site looks nice visually. While it could be more colorful, it depends on who your target market is. If you are selling to artsy-type webmasters, you want (need?) to be more visually appealing than if you are selling to Grandma's web page. This is especially true if you are hoping to connect page designers to clients here.

But from the little I looked at, I think you have a seriously flawed business model. I could be completely wrong. But that is not what you asked about, is it?

Good Luck.

disaster-master — Mon, 15 Apr 2002 12:14:59 +0000

What was all the fuss about the pop ups? I think I clicked most everything and didn't see a one.

Anyways...I think this site isn't that bad it just needs a bit here and there. You content looks ok. The logo needs work. I think that if you included some of the yellow and orange color like the "you could win, tell a friend" thingy at the top right, that would bring your logo out nicely. Those colors will look good with the blues.

The only other thing I see are you fonts. Some pages you are using them and others are set to default. I see you have your styles at the top but you are not using them peoperly. And when you do specify a style, like class="navlinks" you are also adding the font tag. Really no need to do this. You could fix your style sheet and not have to use the tag at all.

Also, if you use , you should close it. Same with you . Remember "Open tag...close tag" and you will be good to go.

Oh, I don't think you site sucks. It just needs a little work. Which is why you are here....right?

galt — Mon, 15 Apr 2002 11:26:17 +0000

I have a knack (lucky?) for testing. Maybe I immediately hit the only popup on the site, maybe something else entirely happened, and popup was related to site I linked to. But I was 2/2 and quit. I really hate ad popups.

The Webmistress — Mon, 15 Apr 2002 07:40:07 +0000

Firstly thank you for participating in some of the other reviews, it always helps to get a fresh pair of eyes on a site and it helps you get new ideas as well.

I didn't get any pop ups at all!!

The site itself seems ok content wise but I'm just not keen on the overall look of the site. The colours are a wee bit drab and the logo just doesn't do anything for me as it just looks a bit dated to me. The top part where you have the tabs looks disjointed and would look better if the whole page were linked in a box from that top part IMO.

You need to make sure that all the text has a font assigned as on some pages it's defaulting to TNF for me and it doesn't look good, I would start using CSS as this can control every page.

You also need to look at your spacing as on some of the pages (eg. Terms) the middle text is butting right up against the left box.

I would make your external links open in a new browser window (not pop up) as you are potentially going to loose visitors straight away!

galt — Mon, 15 Apr 2002 04:27:40 +0000

I clicked on alink, got a popup.

I clicked to go back to orignal page, got another popup.

You Lose. Site sucks. Get rid of popups and I might hang around long enough to figure out what you are about. But 2 popups in two clicks is three too many. ANY popups is almost always too many, unless I am deep into a site.