Fluffi — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:59:39 +0000

Well,

Since you are using an out of the box solution, then it is more than likely that your code does not validate, which I investigated, and found to be true, 50 Errors on HTML 4.0.1 Trans (as declared in the doctype), and with your css there's 5 Errors and 2 warnings, thus neither are valid........which is not very helpful given that Mozilla, et all (obvious exclusion being IE) depend on your code being valid to parse the html correctly!!

There is far too much going on with the navigation and the login in the area at the top, and similarly what's the point in having the 'active alerts' box taking up the homepage, sitting empty, providing nill value to the user?

The forum looks like a poor clone of phpBB, and while it may have got rid of unneccessary features, more though could have been exerted on the design, for instance the forum could have stretched to the far right using up as much of the screen as possible and removing no man's land on the right there......

The choice of colour colour scheme lacks originality, in fact it's kinda dull, no wow factor!

RickW — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 19:15:00 +0000

Megan wrote: What about the forum though?

Temporary fix. I put another link to the forums under Quick Resources.

Megan — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 19:00:23 +0000

What about the forum though? That's the main reason I brought it up. Otherwise I agree that the top is a suitable placement. I see that you've got some postings higlighted on the front page but it's down blow the fold where people probably won't think to look. Sounds like your new idea will solve this problem though.

RickW — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:54:43 +0000

Megan wrote: One thing you could do is move the top navbar down under the logo area. People might miss it where it is now. I was thinking that it could be dressed up a bit with tabs or something but I don't think that would suit the site as much.

You can easily downsize the H1 tags via css. I've already made them smaller but I figured a slightly large article title would stick out.

As far as the nav bar at the top, the links aren't particularly vital to navigating the site, more like general resources in case the visitor cared enough to look. I already have an image in my head of what the next redesign will be - yes it will use tabs - the dark gray header will be gone, and the tabs will replace it (where the logon bar is at), and the logon fields will go to the top. And I'll probably add some dimension to the red header. That'll probably be a year away though.

Megan — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:36:57 +0000

Welcome to the forums, Rick! Thanks a lot for reviewing some other sites first. We appreciate your feedback. I hope you'll stick around and be a part of our community here

timjpriebe wrote: I would have to agree that the headlines are a bit too big. I personally never use h1 tags, and rarely h2. Normally h3 is the starting point for me.

Except that the SE's are going to start looking at H1's first, and so on down the line. Not using H1's might hurt your SE rankings. I agree that those are little on the big side - no reason to pay any attention to the default size for headers.

Otherwise, I can't find anything wrong with this site (and that's a BIG complement!). The design is nice, not spectacular, but very suitable for the content. One thing you could do is move the top navbar down under the logo area. People might miss it where it is now. I was thinking that it could be dressed up a bit with tabs or something but I don't think that would suit the site as much.

Excellent job! Sorry I couldn't come up with any more constructive criticism Normally I'm really good at that

timjpriebe — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 13:22:28 +0000

I would have to agree that the headlines are a bit too big. I personally never use h1 tags, and rarely h2. Normally h3 is the starting point for me.

I really like the color scheme, and your logo is cool. And self-explanatory, which is a huge plus.

The only other suggestion I would make is to add more graphics somehow. The front page, though the color scheme and layout are good, is kind of blah.

I personally use PHP-Nuke on a site, and they allow for icons for the different categories to be displayed in each news update. (See my site, coolcollecting.com for an example). Maybe some sort of topical icons like that would work. I've never worked with Geeklog myself, though.

RickW — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 13:02:39 +0000

webgrabber wrote: The content is informative...

Try to reduce the Font Size of each article Header. Though it grabs your eye, it is too bold & big to disrupt the layout.

You can add some design on the top panel ....

On the whole it is good if you can make the middle panel of the webpage a bit sleek

Sleek how? As in a gradient?

The article headers are using H1 tags, and I've actually set it lower than the default h1 font size.

thanks for the review

Informative

webgrabber — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 07:30:22 +0000

The content is informative...

Try to reduce the Font Size of each article Header. Though it grabs your eye, it is too bold & big to disrupt the layout.

You can add some design on the top panel ....

On the whole it is good if you can make the middle panel of the webpage a bit sleek

Jai :alien:
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