SecureSearch — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 15:57:02 +0000

Looks pretty good to me..I think the banner logo/decal seems a bit large though

rundex231 — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 04:10:44 +0000

good design, simple navigation, a lot of information.

I think it is a great job. Congratulations!

Busy — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 10:30:44 +0000

I have a few nit picks on the layout, first up your using flash (I dont have the flash plugin so cant see it) and it doesn't fit my screen size (800x600). Also there is a big blue patch down the bottom that looks like there is text there (very common for people to use black on dark blue) but is nothing there, should something be there?

When I review a site like this, I put myself in the seat of, in this case, a Renault owner/wannabe owner. When I look at your site I have no idea where to go (unless the flash tells me). The site reads more like a company site rather than a car owners site. The welcome message (which I have to scrol across to) should in my opinion be above all the stuff on the left and center, maybe cut it down to two columns (be easier to do in CSS as well), this way the intro is right there, or if you must have three put the welcome on the left or center.

I like the yellow icons, they relate well as they give that auto feel (street signs).
I don't like how all the links open in new windows/tabs as pdf files, which I should point out crashed my browser, luckily I was able to copy this first.
Some of the links open in new windows/tabs but aren't pop ups, which by the look of them are meant to be as they have no links to get back to the main site and a 'close window' link at the bottom.

Regarding the country thing, on the index page there is a link to Renault Australia under Renault links yet the url is .com.au which is all in flash so have no idea if it's related.

z4z3 — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 22:36:17 +0000

I like the colors and layout. I think you can make some underline links, I mean, when visitors hover their cursors over the links, then underlines will be revealed.

AndrewP — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 18:43:49 +0000

I really like the look and feel of this site especially for someone who claims to have little experience in this area. Can't really pick much fault with it. I agree you should put Car Club of Victoria, Australia if you are hoping to showcase your website elsewhere in the world, but if you are just planning to advertise in Australia you should be ok. I drive a Renault also, but its just a standard Clio

mistareno — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 10:39:10 +0000

Megan wrote: Anything can be done with CSS, you just have to figure out how Getting those three columns with backgrounds extending all the way down will be a bit of a chore. Do a google search for "CSS Equal height columns" or something like that and you'll find lots of resources.

The site looks really good. The colour scheme is really good and the overal layout is very well done. I think you might run into problems with those tabs - there's already a lot of them and adding more will make it way too cramped if you ever want to do that. Switching to a left-side navigation menu might work better. I do really like the way the tabs have different colours to differentiate types of links available. That's a great idea. I don't like the way my cursor doesn't change to a hand when I mouseover them - that's standard web behaviour and could be very confusing to people.

I am finding a few small problems with the site. The first is that I don't know where Victoria is - I'm guessing you mean the province in Australia but it could also be the city in Canada or a number of other places I don't know about. Another big problem is the "more" links on the front page opening PDF's without warning. Content should be done in HTML unless you absolutely can't avoid PDF's. They should definitely be labelled as PDF links as well. Some of the links open in new windows and don't include the rest of the template formatting. Providing visitors with a consistent experience is really essential.

The font size for most of the site is a little bit too small - make it a little bigger so people can read it without having to strain. When you do your font sizes in your CSS make sure to define them in relative sizes (ems or %) so that they will scale according to the browser's font settings.

I noticed the forum is pretty dead - you should probably highlight that on the front page to get people more involved.

Thanks for that.

Regarding the menu, I was thinking about using a drop down menu with 4 or 5 categories, but I don't think I'll be adding any more options (I might even prune/merge a few) so I'll see how it goes with something similar to current style as it is easy to navigate.

Hmmm, I'd never really considered the country... I might add a small text image in the top right hand corner with the Club contact information, including full address.

The other option was to include the word Australia in the logo (perhaps spaced out under a thin line below the "car club of victoria" text )

Would changing the 'more' links that open to a PDF to 'read press release' or similar be enough to solve the problem with the PDF links?

Yeah, the forum has only been going for less than a month and I've not given it much promotion, and it was really a 'foot in the water' prior to re-doing the site in CSS.

The main links that open in new windows are the printable 'event spotlights'

These are also linkable through the calendar so I might make the links on the main page links to bookmarks in the calender instead?

Thanks, for the feedback. It's great to have an outside view from someone that doesn't know the site...

Megan — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 16:41:51 +0000

Ooh, one more thing - just noticed some links that look like plain text. Make sure that links are styled differently from the rest of the text so it's immediately obvious that they are links. People probably aren't reading everything on your site - they're skimming around looking for something they can click on. Make sure links are obvious.

Megan — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 16:40:53 +0000

Anything can be done with CSS, you just have to figure out how Getting those three columns with backgrounds extending all the way down will be a bit of a chore. Do a google search for "CSS Equal height columns" or something like that and you'll find lots of resources.

The site looks really good. The colour scheme is really good and the overal layout is very well done. I think you might run into problems with those tabs - there's already a lot of them and adding more will make it way too cramped if you ever want to do that. Switching to a left-side navigation menu might work better. I do really like the way the tabs have different colours to differentiate types of links available. That's a great idea. I don't like the way my cursor doesn't change to a hand when I mouseover them - that's standard web behaviour and could be very confusing to people.

I am finding a few small problems with the site. The first is that I don't know where Victoria is - I'm guessing you mean the province in Australia but it could also be the city in Canada or a number of other places I don't know about. Another big problem is the "more" links on the front page opening PDF's without warning. Content should be done in HTML unless you absolutely can't avoid PDF's. They should definitely be labelled as PDF links as well. Some of the links open in new windows and don't include the rest of the template formatting. Providing visitors with a consistent experience is really essential.

The font size for most of the site is a little bit too small - make it a little bigger so people can read it without having to strain. When you do your font sizes in your CSS make sure to define them in relative sizes (ems or %) so that they will scale according to the browser's font settings.

I noticed the forum is pretty dead - you should probably highlight that on the front page to get people more involved.