Website critique please.

wilsky

wilsky

wilsky

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Joined
2 Dec 2008
Posts
275
Hi, this will be the 2nd site I have developed purely by myself from scratch. I would like some feedback from both professional developers and from the average layperson.

Constructive criticism will be most welcome.

http://www.zen-labs.co.uk/

I liked this site when I started it. Beginning to hate it now. But I refuse to start again as I beleive if you go down this path than you will never get to finish it. It doesn't help if you are your own client either!

I won't be a minute, just going to digg out my thickest skin suit...
 
mixed thoughts about it

ithink the colour theme is very nice,though i prefer lighter sites it works well. only thing i have noticed so far with the colours is the links don't stand out at all in the main content,very easily misable. this may be down to my laptop monitor though but even so if mine is like this others will.

the (jquery?) slider onpc repairs page is good but perhaps not visible enough that it slides as the next buttons are very small. perhaps a higher verticle image woujld work better?

on ff3 the curreny symbol is not showing correclty, � is what i get, what should it be? £?

on the index page the boxes at the bottom aren't centered.

the titles for the boxes should be clickable, not just the more link

imo i don't like images like these, unsure what they are there for?
 
I'll try and find some more time later, but what immediately hits me is the need for smaller text and greater line height. Its far too cramped at the moment
 
Nice site, think the footer should be 100% width too, like the title. Not a hugh fan of the font/size/line-height chosen.

Don't like how the boxes on the front page have dashed edges (also think the text should be slightly smaller on these).

Like the header/logo, layout a lot though.
 
Mucho thank you's for the kind advice guys. I have added 1.3em; line height, increased the font size to 18px and added word-spacing of 0.1em;. I can now read the text sat back in my chair easier than I could sat forward. I have also changed the border style from dashed to dotted on the boxes. I kind of like the dashed affect on the main titles though. I do think the text in the boxes could do with dropping to 14px; and the word spacing removed, but the line height will remain 1.3em.

I will be changing the buttons on the coda slider as at the moment those are the default buttons that comes with it. Well spotted about the boxes not being aligned properly because they arn't! LOL! I got a bit lazy and created padding-right;20px to created the gaps between the boxes. Since I created those I have created a center div. So I need to go back and equalize the padding on the boxes so that it balance both left and right, and the whole lot gets centered.

As for the swirly pattern, it is basically a place holder. I want something there but not sure what yet. So in the mean time until inspired it can stay. Although I am kinda digging the image on the right idea like on pc_repairs. Hmmm.

Footer will be coming out. I intend to fade down to black with a dark grey texture (something like a cross hatch or diagnal lines or even tiny dots - will have to see how that comes out) and have one of those big footers that seem to be going around. Maybe include a few relevant feeds and some useful links to relevant resources (such as this place!!)

I am unable to show you right now as I am on my gaming partition and want to have a blast on GTA. I never do anything work related on a Saturday. Will upload the changes sunday night and provide the link for the jquery coda slider I used.

Thanks.
 
Mammalian said:
i am a fan of the bigger text on sites, no reason to have small text any more now we have big screens :)
Click to expand...

We don't all have big screens (I do, but that's neither here nor there), especially the type of people who need PC repair - they will have a 17 or 19" 5:4 (potentially a 20" 16:10 if their computer is very new) or even worse, be browsing on a 1024x600 netbook screen.

The whole netbook craze has torn up the rulebook on screen size in web development.
 
Mammalian said:
oddly when i slide the jquery coda right and then back left on the pc repairs page, you can still see text on the right hand side. anyone else get this?
Click to expand...

I can a few pixels of the right hand text. Wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't have mentioned it :)
 
philjohn said:
We don't all have big screens (I do, but that's neither here nor there), especially the type of people who need PC repair - they will have a 17 or 19" 5:4 (potentially a 20" 16:10 if their computer is very new) or even worse, be browsing on a 1024x600 netbook screen.

The whole netbook craze has torn up the rulebook on screen size in web development.
Click to expand...

i'm on a 15" laptop (1024x780) and it still works fine, imo of course. I don't think it needs to be bigger though which it appears the op has done just not updated?
 
ah also forgot to say i like that the footer isn't full length, but imo it would work better if it was say 10px from the bottom

good spot slogan with the un-finished header image. took me a few times to see what you were talking about.
 
It's alright but looks about 50% done to me. You're lacking in the details that make a site work, such as the grid and pixel sharpness, the boxes you're using don't look aligned with the top part of the navigation - and either side should be in a grid like structure.

The text looks too like it's just floating about too, you need a bit more structure.
 
Personally not a fan of the logo typeface, it doesn't look very web 2.0.

Site looks OK though, just needs a little work.
 
Hi Guys,

As promised

http://jqueryfordesigners.com/coda-slider-effect/
http://jqueryfordesigners.com/demo/coda-slider.html

Yeah, would love to change the width, but I am trying to accomodate those with 1024 x 768 resolutions. Any machine (other than a notebook) with a resolution less than this that needs a repair is going to be a write off (cheaper to build/buy a new machine).

Yup. Is only about 50% done. The title bar for instance will have info on the right but for now I am trying to get the overall structure right. It's been a great learning curve. And thanks for all the advice guys, its totally invaluable. I have now turned on the grid on dreamweaver and I don't know why I didn't do it earlier! I'm such a gimp!

I will do a bit more but roxanne pallet is about to have a skate off. Roxanne Pallet in a leotard or divs and padding! Hmm.
 
Hi Guys, slightly distracted by Roxanne. Gutted she was out...

Anyway I come to the conclusion that the front page was looking a little flat. Decided to get rid of the dashes on the text box. Also corrected a few howlers in the spelling. Added a little bit of variety in the background.

I need to tidy up the code now as its a bit messy. Will do this tommorow. Does anyone have a program that I can parse the .html files that indents <divs> so you get

<div class="class1">
<p>
Text
</p>
<div class="class2">
<img src="pic">
</div>
</div>

(ah well, its deleted the white, but there was white spaces that indents...)

Or do I have to do it by hand? I wonder how hard it is to write such a program if one doesn't exist. No... No... No... No programming until I have nailed down CSS and HTML.

Perhaps you guys can help me out. I liked the effect on the front page. However the coda slider needs to be wrapped in a <div="slider"> for it to change the secondary nav. But of course I need to break the div to change the background... Damn... I kinda know how I am going to do it, but it will require a lot of re-writing. Good lesson though. I will plan ahead a lot more next time.
 
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