Website Review and Suggestions

**thehuskybear** · 08-24-2008, 12:09 PM

Well after some frustration with MySpace, Tagworld, and Face book, I decided to say screw it and made my own personal site. Right now, all I have is a blog and a gallery. This is gonna be my first site made entirely from Word Press and WP plugins (I usually code everything from scratch).

So, tell me what you think:

Bipolar Kid

Have any suggestions for what a good personal site should have? I want to add a portfolio, a tutorial section, and a few other things...

What WP Plugins are you using?

Thanks

Sam

**Mr. B** · 08-24-2008, 01:22 PM

This looks decent with some small things I think could be improved. For starters, it's not really a good idea to misspell the name of your site in the header. I also don't think it's really necessary for your content text size to be that small, although I know it's tempting since my website was like that for five years.

Oh, and you should style the search box. You can remove "Search for:" and replace that with some starter text in the box. You cal also replace the search button with a small image that says "go." ...all on the same line.

**thehuskybear** · 08-24-2008, 01:37 PM

Thanks for your review... I didn't even catch that misspelling! lol

I will definitely give the search box a little style..

Thanks

Sam

**thehuskybear** · 08-24-2008, 02:34 PM

Ok... made the changes... let me know what you think.

**Sneakyheathen** · 08-24-2008, 02:41 PM

I would lose the blue background. It doesn't really fit with the color scheme you're using, and it makes the page details hard to see. I would actually make the ripped pages look cleaner, too, because right now it's just making the background look fuzzy.

Overall it's an okay concept, but it feels half done. I can't really critique too much at the current state.

**Valiant** · 08-24-2008, 02:48 PM

Firstly, the black pattern thing in the header I can hardly see, there is not enough contrast between the navy blue and black.

Also, where it says home, why not put a bread crumb trail there???

The search box isn't very tasteful XD with a blue border???? it would look better with some default value such as "Search here..." using value="Search here..." in the input element.

Overall its looking very nice. Well done.

**thehuskybear** · 08-24-2008, 03:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sneakyheathen

I would lose the blue background. It doesn't really fit with the color scheme you're using, and it makes the page details hard to see. I would actually make the ripped pages look cleaner, too, because right now it's just making the background look fuzzy.

Not sure I would agree with the blue not fitting into the color scheme... what color would you suggest? I do agree, however, that the rips could be a little cleaner... I will take care of that latter.

Thanks for the review

Sam

**thehuskybear** · 08-24-2008, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vivid Lust

Firstly, the black pattern thing in the header I can hardly see, there is not enough contrast between the navy blue and black.

I see what you mean. Im not fond of the way it is now, but I wanted to make the top of the page stand out a little... Im gonna play with some other ideas.. this was just the first idea that came to mind.

Quote:

Also, where it says home, why not put a bread crumb trail there???

That might work, but at the moment, I am thinking I will be putting some other links up there.. not sure though since I have the side nav.

Quote:

Overall its looking very nice. Well done.

Thanks for taking the time to review.

Sam

**Sneakyheathen** · 08-24-2008, 07:31 PM

I would go with a different shade of your highlighter green for the background. It would make the header thingy stand out more. Use blue more for accents as opposed to giant spaces.

**andrei155** · 08-24-2008, 10:16 PM

I would not change a thing! It looks great, everything matches, very well done! The visitors attention is directly attracted to the content, so the background is quite effective, contrary to other reviews!

The rips are perfect as they are. Your website would not be characterized as "clean" and "spiffy". The category titles to the right of the content is an exact example of this! So, there is no need to really make the rips much cleaner. It would fall inconsistent with the rest of the website.

The only thing I currently see that is out of place would be the "Pages" title written in plain text, on the right hand side. It doesn't fit in with the other scribbled titles I mentioned earlier.

Other than that, I have nothing but praise for you!
Very great work!

**The-Pixel** · 08-24-2008, 10:57 PM

Hello, I really like your website. Great job!

**thehuskybear** · 08-25-2008, 12:53 AM

Thanks andrei and pixel for the reviews!

The pages title is that way because it is a WP Link Categories title... Im sure there is a way to change this to an image, but I haven't figured it out yet. I could probably just add the links manually to the template, but Id like to avoid that in case I decided to add other link categories...

**pramser** · 08-25-2008, 02:51 AM

It's pretty nice, I must say. I actually like the color scheme. It looks like you were going for a negated color style or some type of wolverine thing and I think it works real well. The background and the header clash pretty nicely and overall everything in the outside fits together really nice.

The problems I think lie on the inside. The font really is too small. Small may look really great, but when it comes to readers, people aren't going to respond as quickly to a small-font. If at all. Because we all know some people just have poor eyesight.

Also, I notice most of the page has a lot of great personality for the blog and than I look at the right side-bar. It just seems much more plain, compared to everything else. Like no thought was put into it. Try and infuse some color or some imagery into it.