RickW — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 06:13:05 +0000

It's very... brown...

I think you did a good job deciding on a color scheme, but when I look at this site I really don't want to stay there. The layout itself is nice.

I think it know what it is... your background... what I would do, is make it a very very light tint of the current color, then use that current color to around the center of the page. So to the left and the right of that center block is the darker color. It will make the text easier to read and force it to stand out more, grabbing your attention.

timjpriebe — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 12:58:30 +0000

That's much better. The graphic is still just a hair too tall for my tastes, but much better.

I would suggest changing the text to a slightly darker grey, though. There's still not much contrast with the background. Makes it hard to read.

Busy — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 09:37:58 +0000

congrats on breaking out of your shell

the changes are better though could be improved still.
some text is stil very tiny (stuff under title in main section)
Also now the right column is very long while the content is very short, maybe put the 'scene change' under the title image?
Although the text and background are better it is very hard going from your site to a white background site.

Give the XHTML a shot, what you got to loose? heaps to gain though, big impressive 'valid Xhtml label for your site

sirgeoph — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 07:20:56 +0000

Wow, thanks for all the critiquing. I tried out some of the suggestions and I actually think the changes I made were for the better. I shrank the height of the ehader graphic a tad and I darkened the body text by 2 shades, which makes the text stand out a lot more. And just for kicks, I used the title attribute for the menu links to offer more clarification of each section, what with my cryptic titles and all. Oh, and I added a few pixels of padding to the blog headings... defintiely a noticeable improvement, even with just 3 pixels shifting the text.

I appreciate the constructive crticisim. Lemme know what you guys think. I think I've tweaked it to where I'm satisifed, but you never know. Sometimes you need someone outside the project to point out minor details.

mattdes — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 14:10:24 +0000

I like the style of the site, the colours make it very sophisticated and the site is memorable and different to all those light blue sites you get, yawn.

However the text colour could contrast more with the background colour, it's a little hard to read.

Megan — Fri, 11 Mar 2005 14:13:55 +0000

I agree with Tim. That header is totally out of proportion, especially since it isn't all that impressive. If you did some more with it, maybe in a sort of grunge style you might be able to justify keeping it big.

I also agree about the text - it's really important to make reading your site comfortable for viewers - this means that text is a reasonable size and has good contrast on the background.

Another thing is that in a lot of places the text is cramped up too much against itself and agaginst the table edges. Particularly the blog header with the title and timestamp (as Busy mentioned)

timjpriebe — Fri, 11 Mar 2005 12:55:24 +0000

IMO, the single biggest thing is that the text is hard to read. There's not enough contrast with the background.

Other than the somewhat monotone color scheme, the only other thing that really bothered me was that massively huge header graphic. Massive in terms of height. I would advise not making it nearly as tall. Too much of the actual content is forced off the bottom of the page, making it less likely that people will stick around to read it.

Oh, and I'm using 1024x768 also.

Fluffi — Fri, 11 Mar 2005 09:58:03 +0000

I totally agree with the other guys, your logo is totally disproportional, especially given that you are not using the full page width.......

sirgeoph wrote:
I've been coding for... ever (?) and I've stuck with standard HTML for layout. What are the advantages of XHTML over HTML 4.01? I tend to stick to my guns and not venture out into the new coding standards (again, poor practice).

Xhtml is cleaner, slimmer, and somewhat sexier than html. Busy is right, the change from Html 4.0.1 Trans to Xhtml 1.0 Trans is not a big task, there's no new elements, just that tags must be closed, as opposed to the assumption that they are closed as with many tags in html. More so you are already using style sheets, there is the option of using Xhtml 1.0 strict (or even Xhtml 1.1, theres, only 3 noted diferences between the two, small changes).

sirgeoph wrote:
Thanks for the tips... anything else? How about navigation? That's usually a weakpoint for me. How'd I fare this time?

Navigation seems fine, although there's one problem, there's no clear link back to your homepage(referred to as plot).....whether that's a biggie is for you yourself to decide....

sirgeoph — Fri, 11 Mar 2005 09:28:17 +0000

Padding in the cells has always seemed like a good idea that I've enever followed through on.

Good call on setting image sizes. Often a forgotten task on my part.

I've yet to try the layout on anything smaller than 1024x768. (I know, I know, poor practice), so I'll try that out and see what I can do. I am partial to the way it looks in higher res's though.

I've been coding for... ever (?) and I've stuck with standard HTML for layout. What are the advantages of XHTML over HTML 4.01? I tend to stick to my guns and not venture out into the new coding standards (again, poor practice).

Thanks for the tips... anything else? How about navigation? That's usually a weakpoint for me. How'd I fare this time?

Busy — Fri, 11 Mar 2005 09:19:17 +0000

Thanks for reading the instructions

I'd have to say the same as to what Megan said last year (but now the colours are opposite), still need some padding in the cells too.
The main image IMO is too big, at 800x600 it kind of appears as a 404 page.
Is a good idea to use width and height tags in all your images as it can (does) make the page load very jumpy on dialup.

It's got an arty look/feel to it, maybe not the right way, whos knows. At the end of the day it's your personal site so you can make the rules as you go

You should go to XHTML, not much of a step up, I had a quick look at your code, you wouldn't have to change much, just into and /> on your image tags