My friend Dunk is trying to get into web design, and as a portfolio project he's giving my website an overhaul. If you've got some spare time I'd appreciate it if you could compare the current website with this version of a new homepage (with no working links) and let me know in the comments what you think.
I'm also interested in what you think the current website is missing, or what cool new stuff you'd like to see.
Posts
16 comments:
On the whole, I quite like it. Some comments, though:
Contrast: Unclicked link text doesn't contrast very well with the background, especially in the "Forthcoming Events" section.
Buttons: Why do the links under "Keep in Touch" look like buttons? They aren't actual buttons, and it just seems inconsistent.
Copyright notice: Shouldn't there be a date?
"Designed by Expressive Web Design": should really be a link to his web site.
Carpe Astra roll-over: When I roll over the Carpe Astra graphic, it appears to move ever so slightly. Just enough to be annoying.
Brown: I quite like the theme, but speaking as an Ubuntu user, I've heard many complaints about brown themes.
Russ
Be sure to test it on different browsers. The margins and padding and such are all messed up on Firefox 3.6 for Mac (which should render pages just like the latest version of Firefox for Windows).
Once that's fixed, it should look much better than the current website.
Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm aware of the Carpe Astra rollover problem (my fault not his), and the reason there's no link to his website is that he hasn't got one yet :)
Tim: Could you email me a screenshot? It looks fine on my Firefox 3.5.8 in Ubuntu and his Firefox 3.6 in Windows.
jack at reivergames dot co dot uk
Cheers,
Jack
Browsershots is very useful for getting an idea of what a page looks like on different browsers:
browsershots.org
I really like the colour scheme; subtle and professional. That's just a personal taste issue though! Definitely looks better than the bright green.
I think the button style links look fine, and the whole thing looks OK on IE8 and Chrome/Chromium
Only "constructive" feedback (and not sure what can be done about it) is that it looks a little narrow on my widescreen displays - empty grey sidebars don't look so cool when maximized... even if the light biege colour was used instead of grey it would probably help(?)
Russ: Thanks for the link.
Steve: Yeah, I want it to work fine on a 'standard' screen, which makes the widescreen case a bit empty. Not sure what to do about this either. We'll try the beige background.
Cheers,
Jack
For my 2 cents, I think you've got the width spot on. Widescreen users can always use a non-maximised browser window. And besides, the design's pretty much standard width these days.
Also, you don't want to go too wide, as paragraphs have an optimal readability* when they're about the width of the one in your Free Delivery Ends news item. A totally fluid width could adversely affect readability for maximised users.
* I always refer to the final paragraph in the Conclusions section of this paper for guidance. CPL stands for characters per line, btw.
Thanks for your input Mal, and the link to some academic proof of your point :)
Cheers,
Jack
It's good to show of... I mean, share. ;)
Am I the only one to find it funny that an academic paper suggesting the optimum CPL should be 65-75 has itself got a CPL of over a hundred?
Yes, I probably am.
LOL. :) A case of "do as we say, not as we do"?
love to see this discussion! It’s great to see you all working through the issues and also, it’s great to see recommendations for testing. In the end, it’s what your actual users do and prefer hat should be your biggest driver in making these decisions.
Make Big Money All Profit
The new site looks realy nice. More professional if I may say so my self... =)
The onley thing i dont like is the menu on top... I like it on the side as it was in the original...
I dont know why but I have always hated menus on top... Other than that it looks really good.
One smal thing, maby have the sumeria box stick out in the botom aswell as on the top or maby twist it so it dont stick out anny where...
How is it with you by the way, are youre games still selling strong?
Hiya Daniel,
Thanks for the feedback. We're making a few changes at the moment.
Regarding sales, it's a slow time of the year, but I'm not doing too bad at the moment.
Cheers,
Jack
Looks nice!
Hiya Philip,
Thanks!
Cheers,
Jack
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