timjpriebe — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 18:36:13 +0000

I think #4 will best fit the needs that you described. There's plenty of room for content, the menu on the left can expand, and I think it's very clean while not being boring.

You might even widen the boxes in the middle that hold the actual content. Just a bit, certainly not to the edges.

Busy — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 21:11:00 +0000

I think #2 is the better one, but with a few mods. the grey background needs to go, the blue on mouseover needs to be a different colour (something that blends better) and the logo maybe top left instead of right so as the top isn't so deep.

The hardest part with picking from four layouts is all the content (and links) are different.

IMO your biggest problem is you're trying to get to 'techo', try going for simple

Megan — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 13:43:15 +0000

Hi, r3a1 - sorry I wasn't able to review your site sooner. You had your links in HTML which doesn't work here (the forums use vB code instead) so that's probably why nobody else has either Clickable links make it so much easier.

Computer science people are weird about design, aren't they? I work at a university as well and sometimes they'll bring up the strangest problems.

#2 is too dull looking. Too much grey.

#4 looks good but I'm not sure that it's suitable for this type of a project. Not conservative enough.

#7 looks good. This is my favourite. Conservative but still interesting. I would try lightening the colours a bit. Sites with lots of text need white backgrounds for readability. Combine the lightness of #5 with this layout. It also needs some delineation between the design area and the background (the navbar blends right in). I think they might like this if it was lighter.

#5 is obviously a very rough mock-up. The logo is poor quality and the navbar font is not working. There's a big hunk of white space in betwen the logo and the welcome text - what could go there?? Normally white space can be useful but in this case it's just awkward.

That navigaiton script has got problems. It only works properly in Mozilla. In Opera the backgrounds don't adjust vertically properly (very strange behaviour) and in IE it's appearing up over top of the logo.

Did you try asking them to be more specific about what they like/dislike here? Clients can be so annoying that way!