Website Review and Suggestions

**jrosworld.com** · 08-24-2008, 05:05 PM

This is my website that I built to keep a blog & add photos etc for when I start travelling. If anyone has any opinions of advice it'd be greatly appreciated. I taught myself HTML & this is the first site that I made, so I know the HTML used may be somewhat uncustomary. Any advice on appearance, writing style, or anything at all would be greatly appreciated. However negative it happens to be.

http://www.jrosworld.com

If you could sign the guestbook as well, that would be great. Just so I have some entries on there

.

Thanks to anyone who can help.

**pramser** · 03:12 AM

Listen man, I'll be frank with you. By all means, this site is no good for a practicing, semi-professional designer or scripter. Though, for a beginner like you, this is incredible. Trust me. You are really on your way.

The layout is fantastic for a beginner. Most people just slap information on a page and then proceed to lay it out. You actually put thought into it though based on the link positioning and how the content is displayed. The biggest problem with this is the color-scheme. Most people get carried away with their first layout because of how much they can do and that's fine. When revising though and making a new draft, think about your audience. This may be able to be navigated, but look at how much your people are going to be focusing on when they first get to here. So try and brush up and make a couple new drafts to practice, we'll be here to help you along while you learn.

To start, you may want to make sure you have a solid base of basic HTML, then learn a bit more about CSS and styling and move onto more advanced structures with tables and divs.

May I ask what host you're using and what it supports?

**Mr. B** · 08-25-2008, 03:19 AM

I don't even know where to begin with this one. Design aside, you should probably indicate to your visitors that your 'before i left' page has topless chicks in it, definitely NSFW.... and lets be frank, linking to the Loose Change 'documentary' isn't doing your credibility any favors.

**Jennpact** · 08-25-2008, 04:13 AM

No Idea..

**Sneakyheathen** · 08-25-2008, 06:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pramser

Listen man, I'll be frank with you. By all means, this site is no good for a practicing, semi-professional designer or scripter. Though, for a beginner like you, this is incredible. Trust me. You are really on your way.

The layout is fantastic for a beginner. Most people just slap information on a page and then proceed to lay it out. You actually put thought into it though based on the link positioning and how the content is displayed. The biggest problem with this is the color-scheme. Most people get carried away with their first layout because of how much they can do and that's fine. When revising though and making a new draft, think about your audience. This may be able to be navigated, but look at how much your people are going to be focusing on when they first get to here. So try and brush up and make a couple new drafts to practice, we'll be here to help you along while you learn.

To start, you may want to make sure you have a solid base of basic HTML, then learn a bit more about CSS and styling and move onto more advanced structures with tables and divs.

May I ask what host you're using and what it supports?

I wanna clarify/build on what pramser's saying. The layout - meaning the structure, is good for a beginner. And it is. You can get the 'clearly defined columns' thing going on. Now here's where it goes wrong. (this is gonna be a quick overview)

The colors

At the core, it's all about the structure and the colors. So you're 1/2 way there. This site has no coherent color scheme going on. So what are you going to do? You're going to pick one! Two awesome resources:

http://www.colorschemer.com/schemes/
http://www.colourlovers.com/palettes/new

Now, once you've got colors, remember your color functions.The background should (generally) be the lightest or darkest color in your scheme. Links are usually the opposite. After that, it's all about what area does what.

The images

I'd suggest learning some photoshop skills, or any other high-end image editor. (if you're broke and honest, get The Gimp) Play around with some tutorials and apply some coherent designs to the areas you have going on now. They don't have to be fancy, just try experimenting.

quick note: If you use images for buttons, learn CSS and use background images. (learn CSS anyways. it takes like 3 hours) this will make your buttons much, much easier to work with, and they'll be indexed.

Inspiration

So usually, when designing a layout, you get stuck for inspiration. I usually check out smashing magazine. (you're probably not looking to blog, but if you are, you'll like this one!)

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008...-blog-designs/

I have more info at hand if you'd like it. Good luck with your design!

**pramser** · 08-25-2008, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Inspiration

So usually, when designing a layout, you get stuck for inspiration. I usually check out smashing magazine. (you're probably not looking to blog, but if you are, you'll like this one!)

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008...-blog-designs/

I have more info at hand if you'd like it. Good luck with your design!

Oh man, I love you. That Smashing list of the "50 more excellent blog designs" is absolutely amazing. I saw that when it came out also and so much inspiration came from it.

**EmilyJames** · 08-25-2008, 03:03 PM

I think your site is ok. I like the idea but I think it could be executed a little better. Some of the site does not work.

**jrosworld.com** · 08-26-2008, 08:08 AM

Wow thanks for the advice. I've gained a lot from what you've said & looking through the links you've posted.

Quote:

May I ask what host you're using and what it supports?

I am using InMotion Hosting to host the site. I'm not quite sure what you're asking for when you ask what it supports. http://www.inmotionhosting.com/hostingplans.html is a link to the hosting specifications. Everything that they offer is posted there.

Quote:

Some of the site does not work.

EmilyJames, can you be any more specific about which parts of the site aren't working. That'd really help me out.

Thanks for all your advice everyone, it's been a great help. If anyone else has any opinions however trivial or negative, I'd greatly appreciate them.

**jrosworld.com** · 05-09-2009, 01:17 AM

It's been a fair old while since I started this thread. And since then the look of my site has changed a lot. So I was just hoping to gage some feedback for the look of the website now.

I'm not really asking for advice regarding the HTML used. This is the first site I ever wrote, so I know that the HTML is... well, crap. I'm more concerned with the appearance of the website, particularly the homepage. Any suggestions would be appreciated. And if you like what you see, I've just today added buttons such as "Digg" & "Del.ici.ous" to the homepage, so any help on that front would go down great as well.

Thanks to anyone who can help!

**davemies** · 05-09-2009, 03:22 AM

it's messy - both structurally and visually (layout and colours) and looks like something that was made 10 years ago. i wouldn't be bothered to read it

**Sneakyheathen** · 05-09-2009, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jrosworld.com

It's been a fair old while since I started this thread. And since then the look of my site has changed a lot. So I was just hoping to gage some feedback for the look of the website now.

I'm not really asking for advice regarding the HTML used. This is the first site I ever wrote, so I know that the HTML is... well, crap. I'm more concerned with the appearance of the website, particularly the homepage. Any suggestions would be appreciated. And if you like what you see, I've just today added buttons such as "Digg" & "Del.ici.ous" to the homepage, so any help on that front would go down great as well.

Thanks to anyone who can help!

Well you have a structure going, so that's good. However, you should really focus on just, not using so many images right now. Especially not animated gifs. Learn how to use normal text links and style those with CSS and lose the tables.

Blinking text, iframes, animated gifs, images clearly made in paint, these are the no-nos.

Things you should do:

download a CSS website layout.
get a color scheme.
fool around with making a site look visually appealing WITHOUT images.
slowly add some images for interest.

**scorpionboerne** · 05-09-2009, 02:57 PM

Unique!!! Like the pictures!!!!

Steph

**fdansv** · 05-09-2009, 03:08 PM

Nothing to say when Corey talks. Great advice

**jrosworld.com** · 05-10-2009, 03:24 PM

I appreciate those comments. Have you got any advice on how to make a website look good without using images?

How for example do you create the appearance of different buttons when you aren't using images? Would it be best to use tables or something? And then treat each different cell as a button? Something like that?

Thanks for the help!

Also, just as a side point, if I was to design a website using a web-design program such as Dreamweaver, have you got any advice as to which is the best out there?

**Sneakyheathen** · 05-10-2009, 03:54 PM

never use tables again ever! unless you have tabular data. Go google CSS and pick up an O'Reily CSS phrase book.

I don't use programs, so I'm not the one to ask. Although for Windows the best text editor would be Notepad++ and its free.