Someone please critique my simple website

Hi Guys, me again,

Just still pondering on the sidebar on my site at the moment.

I dont know what to do with it, at the moment I dont have anything to put on it, I was going to use it for a newsfeed controlled by PHP but at the moment thats not priority, then I started wondering if I even should have it there or not or if it looks naff.

Please see below images to compare with and without and tell me what you think.

withwithout.jpg
7

www.dmoranda.co.uk/newsite3 <<With

www.dmoranda.co.uk/newsite4 <<Without

Feedback appriciated, thanks all

P.S Sorry if the website looks small at 1080p, I need to sort out the container to re-size.
 
Isn't listing everything do on the front page kinda ruin the part of its sposed to be selling something, people want easy to read information and then if they want to know more go to a more detailed page else.

Otherwise its looking ok, not so keen on the background repetition, it would be good if you could just put them on the sides.
 
Thanks for the input, Is the homepage OTT then or less info? Repeating bg will be sorted, what about the side bar? With or without? If im keeping i need something to put in them
 
I think that your site will be very difficult to find via Google. He will move into position when responding to a request. This is due to the fact that meta tags are properly filled in (see how to properly make HTML Tutorials), undefined keywords. And another site should always be filled with new information - this is great for Google and others.
 
The blank top banner looks quite odd, but I guess you're looking to replace that, as its filename is 'bannertest.jpg'?

Other than that, my main criticism is the paragraph spacing - specifically, because there isn't any. There's no padding between the section headers and the copy text, and none between the text and the next header. It makes things awkward-looking and difficult to read. I wouldn't say there's anything wrong with having lots of content on the front page - but it does need to be attractively laid-out, or people will just switch off.

Also:

* there's too much underlining. It makes the site look like it was done in MS Publisher, and you also run the risk of people wondering why the underlined text isn't a clickable link. (Remember that your target audience isn't very technically-minded!) If you look at a range of popular sites, you'll see that underlining outside of links is used rarely, if at all.

* some of the stock pictures don't fit very well. The one on the front page is especially bad because it's predominantly blue where the colour scheme is turquoise, and it also looks quite boxy.
 
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Thanks for the feedback :) I shall work on these, and yes the banner is just a holding image until I can sort something out in photoshop :)

Ill get rid of the underlining as I agree with you

The pictures will be sorted :)

Any more feedback please let me know
 
Ok this will be a bit random, and probably a little to personal, but it's said with no offence intended.

Nav, centred text isn't working, bar to thin, doesn't stand out. Needs to break away from the heading. Perhaps bolder text. Larger at least. Maybe add a divider, even if it's just a thin right-border.

Main copy: Do something with the headers, there just floating in the middle of the page, styling can be kept minimum, but it's just not working here. Possibly some other elements like a border may help.

Padding/marginfor the main copy is to much on both the left and right. This needs to be reduced.

Drop the 'Welcome!'

Maybe a background gradient, only subtle, would help make it look a little better finished.

Think about adding some more 'elements' to the page. Flickr feed? Twitter feed? anything social you could add? - it is a 'personal base' after all.

Have a look at some grid based CSS systems, 960.gs is a great one. This will help with the balance of your site.

Again, I've been very short, so no offence intended. Give us a shout if you want to go over in any more detail.
 
adam83 said:
Ok this will be a bit random, and probably a little to personal, but it's said with no offence intended.

Nav, centred text isn't working, bar to thin, doesn't stand out. Needs to break away from the heading. Perhaps bolder text. Larger at least. Maybe add a divider, even if it's just a thin right-border.

Main copy: Do something with the headers, there just floating in the middle of the page, styling can be kept minimum, but it's just not working here. Possibly some other elements like a border may help.

Padding/marginfor the main copy is to much on both the left and right. This needs to be reduced.

Drop the 'Welcome!'

Maybe a background gradient, only subtle, would help make it look a little better finished.

Think about adding some more 'elements' to the page. Flickr feed? Twitter feed? anything social you could add? - it is a 'personal base' after all.

Have a look at some grid based CSS systems, 960.gs is a great one. This will help with the balance of your site.

Again, I've been very short, so no offence intended. Give us a shout if you want to go over in any more detail.
Click to expand...

This is exactly the sort of feedback that is welcome :) Thanks, iv been doing little bits this evening but im going to be doing some more tomorrow. So I will certainly have a look at the above.

Thanks :)

If you can think of anymore let me know :) Ill let you know the results.

Just a few questions about your comment:-

Main copy: Do something with the headers, there just floating in the middle of the page, styling can be kept minimum, but it's just not working here. Possibly some other elements like a border may help. - Do you mean the headers on the main page? heading the columns? how could I make this better?

Padding/marginfor the main copy is to much on both the left and right. This needs to be reduced. - Reduced so that the text flows closer to the edge of the container?

Drop the 'Welcome!' - DONE

Maybe a background gradient, only subtle, would help make it look a little better finished. -Gradiant on the body background? or gradiant on the maincopy background?

Think about adding some more 'elements' to the page. Flickr feed? Twitter feed? anything social you could add? - it is a 'personal base' after all. - I will concider this
Click to expand...

Thanks :)
 
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Morning,

Main copy: I mean on this page http://www.dmoranda.co.uk/newsite3/ the sections DM Tech Support, Development, Projects and News. Me personally, I'd perhaps group them into a styled boxed, in almost a widget kind of style, least it would help group sections of the site, and create 'focuses'.

Padding/Margin: Bingo, I know again it's all personal preferences, but that's valuable "real estate" your eating into, I'm all for white space, it can really help with a design, and is something that shouldn't be overlooked, but it's being used wrong here.

Background gradient: I'd keep the main dark background, I love the contrast, works well. I'd look at adding a very subtle grey-to-white background in the main copy, so where all the white space is. Again, personal preferences, but I find when I'm in the final stages of a design, these little tweaks can really bring it together.

You had any luck with the social feeds? - I recently worked on a cool Flickr feed using jQuery. Can point you in a few directions if you want to give it a go.
 
Im looking at a twitter social feed, I need to set up a twitter account then I got to find some space on my site to put the feed. Somewhere on the main page maybe, I will use it as a news/social feed for the site.

Thanks for the clarification :) Back to the grindstone this morning. :)

Currently looking at replacing the bullet points with styled .gif ones rather than the plane dull html rounded one.

Thanks :) Will let you know how I get on with the editing.
 
Hey, I got my Twitter feed working on my site now, although its quite bulky but iv placed it to the left hand side and shifted the columns over. Just a few bugs to fix as you can see the text elements are displaying underneath the twitter feed for some reason. I now know why, the script for some reason has added a div which expands from the end of the right hand side of the twitter feed right across my mainbody div hence why its pushed the other content down.

If you run firebut you can see the code in my HTML page.

Can anyone help with this?

Code: 
<div id="twtr-widget-1" class="twtr-widget twtr-widget-profile twtr-scroll">

Thats the bit causing the issue, it stretches right across my page, I have tried turning scroll off but makes no difference to the black space the div is using.
 
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DJMK4 said:
Hey, I got my Twitter feed working on my site now, although its quite bulky but iv placed it to the left hand side and shifted the columns over. Just a few bugs to fix as you can see the text elements are displaying underneath the twitter feed for some reason. I now know why, the script for some reason has added a div which expands from the end of the right hand side of the twitter feed right across my mainbody div hence why its pushed the other content down.

If you run firebut you can see the code in my HTML page.

Can anyone help with this?

Code: 
<div id="twtr-widget-1" class="twtr-widget twtr-widget-profile twtr-scroll">

Thats the bit causing the issue, it stretches right across my page, I have tried turning scroll off but makes no difference to the black space the div is using.
Click to expand...

My PC is churning over some video encoding, so it's a little difficult to spend any real time looking at this. But it seems to be a float issue. Try adding "float:left;"
 
Better now, but I still think it needs more padding and a greater line height - things still look squashed. As an example, I did this in a minute or two with Firebug:

moranda.png


If you compare it to the current site, it's much more pleasant to read. (I justified the "welcome" text, too.)
 
Hi,

Few updates particulally to the homepage

www.dmoranda.co.uk/newsite3



1) Twitter profile pic now updated fine!
2) Moved around some of the home page, used an image from DM Tech Support page, so i will probably use a different image on the tech support page now.

Also just some minor alterations, padding etc.

Im getting stuck on what I can add to it to make it look better :S
 
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