Website Review and Suggestions

**1quick6** · 03:40 PM

I made this in Dreamweaver using their built in SpryAssets for the menu along with PrettyPhoto for the video lightboxes. With the exception of a few stock photos I bought from istockphoto.com, all graphics were done by me in Photoshop. It isn't supposed to be anything flashy ... the owners are friends and just asked me to whip something up for them.

Can you see anything that needs improvement or things that would be of value to add?

http://www.oxf-usa.com

**davemies** · 01-19-2010, 04:09 PM

i know it's difficult but the cut outs of the trainers could be a bit smoother round the hair - the rought edges stand out a little. a quick play in fireworks with a vector mask set to a feather of 1px and adjusting the points manually with the subselection tool ends up with a smoother edge - it's not a big deal but you do notice russ's hair in particular (unless it's supposed to look mean and edgy lol

not sure how that translates into the photoshop way of doing things. also incorporating the grey background into the image itself means you could save as a relatively high quality jpeg and end up with a slight fuller (more colours) image.
if you need some help with that and want to send the photos and background files i could do that for you - or ask some of the PS gurus for some tips on cutting round hair

Don't underline text that isn't a link

use real headings : h1 for "Welcome to O'Connell Extreme Fitness on the Internet!" and h2s for the other 2 headings.

make the logo a link to home too.

the o'connel text in the logo is hard to read - but i guess you didn't make their logo?

avoid using 'click here' as link text

e.g. where you have
"to learn more about this life changing program, click here."

use something like
"learn more about this life changing program"

the text is way small! i know you seem to be targeting young healthy people with presumably good eyesight but it could easily be a couple of px bigger and with a little more line height too to invite people into the text rather than it feeling small and closed

But, overall you've done a good job and the site has a good feel and energy about it. a few tweaks and i might join

you might also be better incorporating

**1quick6** · 05:33 PM

Thanks, Dave. Everything you have mentioned makes perfect sense. I did not make their logo, so unfortunately I can't do much about that.

I will try your suggestions. I think I went with a GIF on the trainers in case I hadn't decided on a background color yet. Now that I have, I will probably just go the JPG route with the same gray as the table background.

**ForeSceneWeb** · 01-19-2010, 06:12 PM

hey,

I suggest you increase the quality of the images and adding more padding between the text and the edges. Also, you need to clearly illustrate What it is. Perhaps, add a slogan to the to animation. Something like "The Ultimate Training Program!"

**Knight13** · 01-19-2010, 08:59 PM

The only thing i would do is make the borders around the sections smaller, they do not look good being that big.

**1quick6** · 01-20-2010, 02:28 PM

Thanks. I eliminated the borders for now. I kind of like it with no borders, but I might go with a 1px. We'll see.

**Chansen** · 01-20-2010, 07:08 PM

Pictures to the left, important text to the right.
Important reason for this is that the eye tend to wander to the right and down. So in order to reach that focus area with the most important maximized part of the site, then you lay the text there! Unless you think the picures alone tell it all.

**djplaster** · 01-21-2010, 11:46 AM

thanks for this! it really helped me.

**1quick6** · 01-21-2010, 05:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chansen

Pictures to the left, important text to the right.
Important reason for this is that the eye tend to wander to the right and down. So in order to reach that focus area with the most important maximized part of the site, then you lay the text there! Unless you think the picures alone tell it all.

Interesting. I hadn't thought about it like that. That's why I am here. Thanks!

**bluebitehosting** · 01-22-2010, 10:02 PM

I think the site is good overall. But it can be improved a lot.

**gbabula** · 01-26-2010, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bluebitehosting

I think the site is good overall. But it can be improved a lot.

I agree with this, it has lot of potential but you have to work out some little kinks

**paul007** · 01-26-2010, 01:22 PM

one improvement you can make is to swap the location of HOME and ABOUT US on the header as it's located wrong. by the way i like your site looks really nice and clean