Biotech Resources

They have: 8 posts

Joined: Apr 2009

Hello,

www.luminogenics.com

Luminogenics contains source information for hundreds of biotech incubators, research parks and associations from around the country. Luminogenics provides world news and biotech industry news updated daily.

I look forward to hearing your feedback.

Thanks

[Mod edit: Link removed. Please use your forum signature for personal links, cheers]

greg's picture

He has: 1,581 posts

Joined: Nov 2005

First appearance is it's a bit bare and nothing really hits me in the face as something I want to dive straight into. That is down to the copious amounts of white area, and the fact your header area at the top is so large.

All I get is a load of white space and a huge logo and slogan/overview.

BIG BIG no-no is a horizontal scroll bar. That is really something you should be avoiding these days. It is arguably acceptable that people with 15inch screens and 800 px resolutions or less are going to get that.

But I have a 32inch wide-screen monitor set at 1360x768px, and 90% of sites I visit are a little strip in the middle of my screen, yet even with my huge amount of space, you still manage to give me a large scroll left and right.

The main content that is in the middle - "News Headlines" - is way down the page. I have to scroll loads before I even get to anything I might want to look at.
this is due to the table your "News Headlines" is in, as you have numerous rows above the News Headlines that are empty.

The navigation on the left is ok, a little bland as grey and black only, and "ResearchParks" sub-link oversteps the boundaries of the area it is in.
(I'm also presuming "ResearchParks" wants a space between the two words).

Also in your left nav area, you have a UL within a UL. A DIV within an LI of the first UL, then call another UL and Li for the pop-out nav links.
You call classes for the UL's and other things but provide no actual class
EG
<ul class="">
You need to trim that down a bit and have a re-think. You don't need each of those main nav links in a separate div. Just have one UL and put each link in an LI.
You should probably have a look at the way some navigations are made. have a look at some of Stu Nichols navigations.

The links as blue and underlined are ok, but some styling here and there often makes a much better user experience just from a better appearance. It's not particularly necessary, but help makes the entire site feel better.

If you change them, try to design one navigation link style and stick to it throughout the site. A site with different styling and colours for different links becomes annoying trying to figure out what links and what doesn't.

Some of the images are WAY to big. scale them down a bit.
Although don't just use the HTML width= and height= if you can help it. As the full size image is still loaded then "squashed" into the HTML size specified, wasting bandwidth and unnecessary load times.

So either upload a smaller "thumb" and link to a larger image, or just resize the images before uploading them to the site.

You should probably state somewhere that the links go to another site. Doesn't have to be on all links, but once at the top of the page will do.
"All links go to another website." etc.

Overall it's a little untidy but certainly with a little TLC could be a good looking website.

They have: 8 posts

Joined: Apr 2009

Thank you Greg,
I've been giving your comments some thought.

I want to make the site as comfortable and easy on the eyes as possible. So first of all I've formatted the width to be a standard 800px. And I've gone to adjust the bring the news headlines higher up, but when I thought that it looked good in FireFox, I opened it up in Safari and there were some issues with it being too low. So, I'm still working on that issue.

I also believe that there are some navigational issue, the site relies on all of the data, so I'll consider some adjustments.

Now, the photo's are a definite complication, I'll have to make them all the same size if I want to make the width consistent, but the site is updated on a regular basis, so again, I'll keep working on it.

So I guess to some up your comments, the logo is too large, navigation looks uncoordinated, and the content appears unbalanced.

Again, thank you for the suggestions.

greg's picture

He has: 1,581 posts

Joined: Nov 2005

It's looking a million times better already Smiling

Just by bringing in the content and my being able to see some content, images and links without scrolling down.

Some styling on the links is still needed I think- the blue ones - which you can do by adding a default a:link in your CSS very easily.
Try some out. A basic example is:

a:link, a:visited{
text-decoration: none;
}
a:active, a:hover{
text-decoration: underline;
}

And that stops all the links being underlined, which as you have so many links is a little much.

The fact your blue links are the main content of the site, some really nice styling might be a good idea.

They have: 8 posts

Joined: Apr 2009

Alright Greg,
Thank you for the insight,
So, I added the CSS, that was almost too simple thanks, I think that it made a significant improvement to the site, what do you think though, I'm not sure if I actually want to change the color from blue, that might make it too confusing for viewers,

And, I adjusted all of the links so that they have target=_blank, this might make it easier to navigate,
what do you think?

greg's picture

He has: 1,581 posts

Joined: Nov 2005

Well, it would be nice for you if others gave some feedback. My opinion isn't really a true representative of the general opinion.

I don't like target=blank on links. I used it myself in the past on my own sites, but have decided from using other people's site that I don't always want to open in a new tab/window.
With target=blank I have no option, and I think most people now have the knowledge of right click --> "open in new tab".

I think the links look better all being underlined on hover, rather than all the time. If you want to keep them as is that's up to you. I just suggested something more stylish as links are the main content/point of your site.
They are fine as is though.
I didn't mean anything particularly outrageous. an example of a "little styling" is:

a:link, a:visited{
text-decoration: none;
color: #000099;
}
a:active, a:hover{
text-decoration: none;
font-style: italic;
color: #000066;
}

Copy and paste it into your link.css and see what I mean.

You still have a load of blank table rows and cells above the main content though. If you meant to push it down a bit, use CSS margin on the table instead. Is much better and gives you instant control.

They have: 8 posts

Joined: Apr 2009

Okay,
So, I think that the italics look a little weird, but that color choice is great!

This is what I'm using so far:

a:link, a:visited{
text-decoration: none;
color: #000099
}
a:active, a:hover{
text-decoration: underline;
}

Thanks for the help.

They have: 1 posts

Joined: Jul 2012

Thank you for taking the time to give us your post. Your input is what guides us in the current development and future functionality of the BizBiotech website. We take everything you have to say seriously.

biotechnology companies
biotech business development

They have: 4 posts

Joined: Jul 2012

The design looks fine, but you need to correct some line spacing and spelling errors.

They have: 4 posts

Joined: Jul 2012

Very nice web template. Using some professional skills to design. But the text alignment is not good, make sure in neat format.

They have: 5 posts

Joined: Aug 2012

Unfortunately the site seems to be down, and the domain name also is not resolved to IP address. So please check your web hosting, and consider to switch to more reliable web hosting company if you experience such problems frequently.

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