somier — Thu, 27 Nov 2003 18:15:12 +0000

Hi,

The first impression that I got is that is too narrow, maybe you should make it wider.

In general I like the layout, is clear simple and consistent, as soon as i visited your site, I knew what you offered.

I would improve your top banner with a nice logo =)

Go to http://rentacoder.com and you can post your project and they can have a nice banner / logo created for as little as 10-25 dollars.

-somier

The Webmistress — Thu, 27 Nov 2003 16:22:14 +0000

Better, but now I think it si slightly too narrow. Aim to fill the screen width at 800*600 by having the main table 750px wide. That way it wont look quite so lost at higher resolutions.

I still think that you need to have a better logo. Find a nice font and do it as a graphic rather than html text, it will be much more effective and it needs to be the same on every page.

Review request: I changed my site based on everyone's suggestion

writingwizard — Thu, 27 Nov 2003 15:59:38 +0000

Thanks for your suggestions on my site everybody.

Check out the new design:
http://www.writingwizard.com.au/

I still have to finish it and I have a few other ideas, but what do you think of the new look?

writingwizard — Wed, 26 Nov 2003 02:48:52 +0000

Wow! Thanks for the advice everybody. I'll get started right away.

As to the error Megan pointed out, I just updated that page and (stupidly, considering the site) forgot to go over it one last time! D'oh!

cbc58 — Wed, 26 Nov 2003 00:59:29 +0000

Hi-

Off to a good start.

My suggestion would be to get away from frames and
make your site simpler, and maybe put in a few photos.

You can find plenty of free templates on the web that
will really spruce up your site.

When I looked at the site there was no space at all between the
frame edge and the wording.....fyi.

Take good care.

Megan — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 20:01:25 +0000

At a high resolution when I can't see the frames this is a nice clean looking site. I like what you've done with the icons along the left side. It really adds some spice to the layout. I also think that you're doing a fantastic job of practicing what you're preaching so to speak. A lot of people could benefit from your advice IMO. Your navigational scheme is also very solid. I'm having no problems getting around the site.

Some things to think about

A better logo - maybe you could trade your writing services for a logo design in our Market Place forum
The issue of frames - look into something called Server Side Includes, or SSI. SSI's will give you the same functionality of frames without the problems that Julia mentioned.
You might want to read up on some basic graphic design principles. Centering text, for example, is a bit of no-no first of all because it makes things difficult to read and secondly because it looks too formal for more presentations. I reccomend a book called Looking Good in Print. That would probably be a good compliment for your existing skillset.
Keep your fonts consistent. I'm seeing a few pages here with a sans serif font (the FAQ page for example) while most of the rest is done in serif. YOu might want to look into CSS (cascading style sheets). They will let you control your fonts site-wide with one easy file, rather than trying to apply font styling to every bit of text individually

Quote: From Pricing information and AccountsWork rate depends on the complexity of the work. For complicated text with unusual elements, work will take longer higher.

Is that a mistake I see ? Information should probably be capitalized in the header on that page too. Just shows that even the best of us make mistakes when it comes to copyediting. All the more reason to use a service like yours!

One more thing I'm finding to be interesting here. When I look at the navbar I tend to want to focus on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th entires. The "services" link didn't catch my attention until I cam across that pge through another link and wondered how I had gotten there. When you look at the navbar, the top and bottom entries are lighter in look and feel than the middle three. The heavier, darker icons of the 2nd-4th entires contrast with the lighter look of the other ones and therefore stand out. You may want to consider repositioning things or finding different icons to make the more important information stand out.

The Webmistress — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 14:02:06 +0000

Welcome to TWF and thanks for reviewing some of the others sites

FRAMES!!! You may be able to tell that I hate frames. Why because I think they are generally unnecessary and cause too much scrolling. Looking at yours at 800*600 there are just ugly grey scrollbars everywhere and there isn't anything here that really needs to be in frames. Plus they aren't particularly SE friendly and it can be very confusing if someone gets to the site to a page out of the frameset.

As for the actual site content I think you really need a better logo. Get a nice stylised font and make a graphical logo rather than just html text and underlined text implies it's a link. Your other graphics could be a bit better as well as some of them look rather jaggedy and I'd make the text the link as well as the image.

Overall a good start for a first attempt but I think it lacks a real design and the colour scheme is a bit dreary.