do you like my site design; because i do!

Sic

Sic

Sic

Soldato
Joined
9 Nov 2004
Posts
15,365
Location
SO16
www.sameagain.net

any comments/criticisms on the colour, layout, anything would be cool. and i've not fallen into that OcUK validity trap either...i checked it!

i've got no way of testing in IE7, so it'd be nice to know if it's spazzed out in that!!
 
Whilst the page does validate, you are serving it with a text/html MIME type. The W3C is very lenient regarding the XHTML 1.0 specification, and will allow you to do this (later versions will not). However, I'd suggest reading this article by Ian Hickson as to why serving XHTML as text/html is generally a bad, dangerous idea. Due to IE6's lack of XHTML support, one compromise I have found to be effective is to send the page as application/xhtml+xml for non-IE browsers, and to retain text/html only for IE.

That aside, aesthetically I think your site looks simple and effective. A few suggestions: the background looks a little dull. Perhaps some (dare I say it) soft scanlines or motif. If not, perhaps a soft border on the actual body of the page would work well. I like the use of Web 2.0-esque colours, but make sure you don't overdo them (not saying you are at present). I personally find the right-hand navigation links somewhat hard to read; perhaps switch the colours of the list item anchors and text decoration around? I'd also recommend creating a footer which stands out somewhat from the content division.
 
whoa whoa whoa...what's going on there?!

i read that article briefly (i'm quite tired!) - are you saying i should send as text/xhtml+xml? i've never heard of this before! can you give me an example of a well-formed doctype declaration so that i can try it?

cheers :)
 
I'm afraid to say I'm not too keen on the colour scheme, well I think it's everything but the green and the header, not really sure what I could say to improve it but everything seems very pastelly until you get to the green, and the white text isn't the easiest on the eyes to read there :)
 
Your doctype is fine. It's the MIME type, which relates to the HTTP protocol more than anything else, which you may wish to change. This must be sent as a Content-Type header; which you'd apply by modifying your server's configuration files to set the Content-Type as application/xhtml+xml for documents with the .xhtml extension, for example; or by using server-side scripting. With PHP, I serve a conditional MIME type. If the browser accepts application/xhtml+xml, I set the content type to it; else send it as html.

Example, from HTML Dog.

<?
if(stristr(\$_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT"],"application/xhtml+xml")){
header("Content-Type: application/xhtml+xml; charset=UTF-8");
echo('<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">');
// You may wish to serve the above as XHTML 1.1
} else {
header("Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8");
echo ('<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">');
}
?>
Click to expand...
 
i'm having a dilemma with that white-on-green...because all the monitors in my house are calibrated perfectly, and it looks absolutely fine on them, but i have had a couple of people say that. i guess that's where i get to a compatibility issue; i'm fine with catering for people who want to choose their browser, and who want to choose their resolution, but choosing not to calibrate your monitor correctly, that's just not my problem; i've decided.

Tom, with regards to the green not matching the blue, they're precisely the same shade - i'm not great at picking colours that go, so i've had to buy a program to help me pick colours that are the same shade - maybe down to monitor configuration?

Roaddhogg; i've taken your advice about the scanlines and the link colours, so i've changed those and i definitely prefer it. thanks for the idea :) i also changed my content type to xhtml+xml and it validates. it also works fine in IE6. have i missed something? my doctype is now:

Code: 
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/xhtml+xml; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
 
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No problem, I personally think it looks a lot better. I'll let you know if I come up with any more ideas.

Edit: Unfortunately, it is not possible to specify the MIME type in a meta tag; it must be set as a Content-Type header: in simple terms, before the <HTML> tag. If you know or use PHP then it's a simple case of copy and pasting the code into your files, if not, you can set it in the document itself: however, as IE doesn't support XHTML you will be prompted to download the file; it will not attempt to parse or render it as it is incapable of doing so. My advice, if you don't know PHP, would be to continue serving your content as text/html; but making sure it also works as application/xml+xhtml. Not the best solution, but unfortunately IE's dominant market share forces compromise.
 
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Sic said:
Tom, with regards to the green not matching the blue, they're precisely the same shade - i'm not great at picking colours that go, so i've had to buy a program to help me pick colours that are the same shade - maybe down to monitor configuration?
Click to expand...
Hello thar, Yeh i notice that they both match, which is a plusm but I think it's just down to my personal preference that I'm not the biggest fan of pastel greens, it seems out of touch with the usual blues and greys of websites. :)

I actually think the only gripe I have is the header really, but it's just my opinion. :)
 
you mean the header as in the graphic or the header as in the announcementy bit? i'm looking at different colours to use for the announcement bit, but that photo is one of my favourites from this year :)

fair enough if you don't like it :) appreciate the honesty
 
Sic said:
you mean the header as in the graphic or the header as in the announcementy bit?
Click to expand...
the graphic, lol I've just used the adobe gamma thing and my monitor was a bit out of touch, I think it's just a bit too random and doesn't look too nice, sorry if I'm coming across as getting at your design here because i do like it, it's fresh.
 
I don't think there is anything wrong with using cool green colours on websites: they tend to connote health and growth (in terms of vegetation), which I feel is complemented well by the nature of your site's header. I'm not too sure about the font of the text used in it, but I think your image selection was thoroughly appropriate.
 
meh, well...fair enough! once i've taken some more photos that aren't crap or of bands, there'll be a rotating image thinger in the header...so you've got something to look forward to!

on a sidenote - haha, i made you check your monitor settings!! :p
 
it's not really. i think wordpress has a small link for it at the bottom. it's not a main part of the site for the user, but it's there for me when i want to log in. i'm not getting touchy about this at all, but you seem to be being awfully facetious about this. any reason for that?
 
Looks pretty good to me. The light grey text on the white background is a bit hard to read, and if I get really fussy, like I do, the text in the header image looks ****ed. The white text on the green background looks OK to me, though. And yeah, wordpress does have an admin login link, nothing unusual there.
 
cheers. that font seems pretty unpopular - i really liked it! i'm not that big on fonts, so i was just scrolling through til i found something i liked! might have a word with the font expert at work tomorrow and see if he can make a recommendation!
 
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