My first website done: Comments, criticism welcome!!

Draeger

Draeger

Draeger

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Following on from the thread I posted about uploading to webspace problems, I've finally sorted it out.


I had been dabbling around, on and off with Namo WebSuite 2006 for a bit, trying to get it round my head.

My father owns a driving school and had asked me one night "Can you do a website for me?".

I said "Yeah, no problem", without thinking.

Finally came up with this, its pretty basic using a template from Namo, but I'm quite pleased with the outcome and he seems to be over the moon with it.

www.firstdriving.co.uk

Registered the domain name with 123reg.co.uk and they seem to be pretty good so far.

Could do with some advice on a few things, specifically about getting the site noticed on search engines, meta tags etc.

I've got Dreamweaver Studio 8 sat here, installed on my laptop, but I gave it a go this afternoon and it confused the hell out of me after using Namo.

Any comments welcome. :cool:

Couple of things I've been made aware of so far.

A few folk have said they reckon the mouse-over effect and flash buttons might be confusing for some people as to how many "clicks" are required to activate them.

Some folk using Firefox have said the nav bar appears "white" and they cant navigate through the website using it, they need to use the nav menu at the bottom of the site. Why would that be?.
 
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Draeger said:
A few folk have said they reckon the mouse-over effect and flash buttons might be confusing for some people as to how many "clicks" are required to activate them.

Some folk using Firefox have said the nav bar appears "white" and they cant navigate through the website using it, they need to use the nav menu at the bottom of the site. Why would that be?.
Click to expand...
The first of these issues is non-existant, some old people I know double click links on the internet but the new pages still open so that's a non issue. The 2nd however is quite bad; and I'm not sure why it happens.

For a first effort it's alright but if you just tweak it it'll be nicer, the code isn't so nice behind it but that doesn't really matter to you. A few things I think you need to work on are the top image "L first driving driving'scool" this image looks old and doesnt look nice, get someone in the 'design me a sig' thread to make you something more modern. The structure of the content feels a bit whimsical, on the photo page unless text is going to accompany the imagery.

This is a massive generalisation but most independent driving school websites I've seen are pretty shocking and yours is definitely better than attempts I've seen but keep having a tweak here and there to get it looking more professional. I'm not a fan of the use of comic sans and the fact it looks dated but you're totally new to these things so thinking that just work to that. :)
 
Thanks for the kind comments m8!!!.

Yep, I reckon it just needs a few bits polished up here and there.

Will take your advice on the banner and post in the sig thread. I need it to look similar as its pretty much the same as the decals he has on his car, but I knocked that up in PSP 8 in about 30 mins by just looking at his business card and mucking about, so I understand the view you have of it there.

The photo page is pretty much a placeholder page just now. We intend on getting better pics and a few of my old man sat in the car with a pupil etc. We took them to pretty much get a bit of material sorted for the site but they wont be the ones that stay there, long term.

As far as the Flash buttons go, I'm thinking about changing them as I dont want to alienate anyone browsing using Firefox, unless I can find out why its doing what its doing and address the problem.

Text, yeah, I wasn't sure at first about comic sans I may well experiment with a few other fonts to see how it looks. Any suggestions?.


suarve said:
I dont see any navigation buttons?????
Click to expand...


You using Firefox m8?. If so, thats what I'm trying to suss out, seems like a bit of a major problem.
 
Its an ok site m8, however i particularly hate the 'third-time-lucky' buttons :/
(tbh, that alone would make me look for another instructors site)
 
v good for a 1st attempt.

Here is what i see in Firefox:




Obv this will need to be sorted out to work in the 2 main browsers (ie6 and ff)

(Home)Im not sure why im able to scoll down when there is no contents below what i can see, blank lines, line breaks etc will need to be removed.

Some of the pics look bad as was said above, but thats a quick fix w some new pics.

There are a few wods/numbers underline in general text, underlines should be used for links only, maby change them to just bold, or bold and italics?

(images) footer has been duplicated.

(about 1st driving) no email in footer like other pages?

(learner driver training) email in footer is way off to the right hand side.

Not soo keen on the contact me menu button doing the mailto: be better to open a page wich gives them phone/email/address etc, then they can click on your email if that is how they want to contact you?

In general i like it, nice and easy to use and get the info you want. I havent looked at the code this is just from a usability point of view.
 
Brilliant stuff guys, keep it coming, its truly appreciated as this is my first foray into any type of web design. :cool:



Pho said:
Here's your problem ;)

As for the buttons:

Code: 
<param name="movie" value="nav\nav_12_index_btn_homeh.swf">

try using / instead of \'s :)
Click to expand...

Can you elaborate a wee bit m8?. Just change the \ to / in that line of text?.
 
yep, firefox = borked links.

However, i would suggest that you rethink the font. Comic Sans is fine for party invites or posters however i have always thought it looks very unprofessional. A woman i worked with always used it in every letter to customers, it looks childish.

Put a bit of a gap in between the links at the top and the bottom of the pages.

And maybe ask on here for someone to come up with some alternatives for your banner, the existing one is ok but there are people on here that are very skilled and would happily do you one for free.
 
Thanks, MNuTz.

Yep, starting to think comic sans isn't the best font to be using.

Was thinking of using verdana might be better?.

Noted your comment about the gap between links, thanks.

Going to try and ask for someone to come up with a better quality banner as well.
 
I think for a first web site you have done very well, and im more impressed that you have asked for advice and help, its always a good sign. well done :D

As has been said, there are many worse "professional" websites out there.

You may want to make the '[email protected]' at the bottom of each page an actual email link.
 
Draeger said:
Can you elaborate a wee bit m8?. Just change the \ to / in that line of text?.
Click to expand...

Wherever you refernce objects (images, flash etc) you should use forward slashes not backwards slashes.

Try this, I've done it for you, just replace all your HTML with it (keep a backup though)
http://rafb.net/p/gRHg6n74.html
 
Pho said:
Wherever you refernce objects (images, flash etc) you should use forward slashes not backwards slashes.

Try this, I've done it for you, just replace all your HTML with it (keep a backup though)
http://rafb.net/p/gRHg6n74.html
Click to expand...


You Sir........are a complete.....God....!!!!! :D

Brilliant stuff, thanks a million for that!!!!.

Seems to be working fine in Firefox now!!!.

*EDIT* The Index/Home page is coming up with goods in Firefox after I edited my html index page with your recommendations, but if you click on a link to another section of the site, the page linked to comes up with the white nav buttons again. :(
 
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Total chnage of subject but I see you live in Falkirk

I am 10 mins along the road :)

Unusual on these forums.

Website isnt bad for a first attempt, I might be able to help you out as I have some web design skills.
 
Dez, thanks m8, I may well take you up on that. I'm in Bonnybridge. If thats your car in your sig, I'm sure Ive spotted it going around Falkirk. :cool:
 
Draeger said:
You Sir........are a complete.....God....!!!!! :D

Brilliant stuff, thanks a million for that!!!!.

Seems to be working fine in Firefox now!!!.

*EDIT* The Index/Home page is coming up with goods in Firefox after I edited my html index page with your recommendations, but if you click on a link to another section of the site, the page linked to comes up with the white nav buttons again. :(
Click to expand...

:)

You have to do the same for all your pages. Try doing a find/replace on each page. Find \ and replace with / - open the HTML pages in notepad and press CTRL+H and do it from there. Make sure you save it / upload after.
 
Cheers m8, I'll give that a go.

Many thanks once again, for your insight into this. It's seriously appreciated. ;)
 
Draeger said:
Dez, thanks m8, I may well take you up on that. I'm in Bonnybridge. If thats your car in your sig, I'm sure Ive spotted it going around Falkirk. :cool:
Click to expand...


Yea thats me, Im just back from Falkirk just now actually :)

I'm in Bo'ness
 
Ahhh......Bo'ness!!!. We get punted out to there every so often to the fire station on detached duties from my home station at Alloa. Nice wee station, great bunch of guys. :D
 
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