Website Review and Suggestions

**gsv2com** · 01-27-2004, 03:37 AM

I just finished redesigning two of my main websites. Any comments or suggestions are welcome. Please have a look.

GrooveSeeker
http://www.gsv2.com
Okinawa (Japan) club and party information. Database driven partyline, forums (english and japanese), dj pages, club buddy finder (hardly used), 4000+ photos, club directions, etc.

JapanUpdate
http://www.japanupdate.com
Okinawa news, cultural info, entertainment, and more. 5000+ stories. I still need to redesign/reprogram the classifieds, forums, autos, and personals. Classifieds are currently #1 in Japan.

Any comments? GrooveSeeker is more-or-less finished for now, but I'm currently working on JapanUpdate.com. If any of you have any ideas for how to improve the website, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks.

**enigmaeNo** · 01-27-2004, 02:29 PM

Text is a little hard on the eyes, too small. Maybe a different font too.

**Troopa** · 01-27-2004, 02:52 PM

I like both sites very much.

Some people say they have a hard time reading white text on a black background, but it's fine for me.

**thevirus** · 01-27-2004, 03:16 PM

Your website looks good to me. Are you a graphic artist? I need help on my website because everyone tells me the design sucks. I did it myself

Took me about 40 hours worth of work but i guess its not good enough. Take a look at it, its the one in my sig

**gsv2com** · 01-28-2004, 01:46 AM

Thanks for all the reviews. Yeah, the font size is rather small, but I chose to keep it that way for fashion sense. To be on the safe-side I could probably bump it up a pixel from 10px to 11px, but I'd rather not. I haven't received any complaints from my visitors yet, but if I do, that'll be the first change to go.

As for a change in font, what do you recommend? The reason I chose arial is because there are very few large paragraphs on my website. Arial is a good clean font for short paragraphs. You'll notice even this message-board sticks with arial--though it's a slightly larger font-size than I'm using.

I'm not a graphic artist. I dished out a couple hundred bucks to a professional designer friend of mine and asked him to create the logo and the robo-dj guy at the bottom right of every page. His art is the best. I'm primarily a programmer, but I have a good sense of color appeal (I think).

Virus, if you need help with any of your projects, I'll be more than happy. I like your idea for an online mall. I've made a few before and will be happy to bring my experience to the table. I'll admit, the design on your site is lacking a bit, but it won't be that hard to clean up and make more professional. You should have seen some of my early work. Yuck!

Anyway, thanks again for the reviews. I'm open to hearing more comments. I'm about to start work on another project for another customer, so I'll post the link up for review when I get the first-draft of the design made in about two weeks or so. I won't be meeting with the client until then.

**greenie** · 01-29-2004, 02:17 PM

Quote:

from and the mainland

Apart from gramatical error, the site functions well and is relatively easy to navigate, it loads quickly and after a short scan looks bug free. However, the design of the website from an appearance point of view needs some changes:

Speaking personaly - I dislike startup pages, however I can see that it is necessary because the site is written in multiple languages.

Quote:

As for a change in font, what do you recommend? The reason I chose arial is because there are very few large paragraphs on my website. Arial is a good clean font for short paragraphs. You'll notice even this message-board sticks with arial--though it's a slightly larger font-size than I'm using.

I suggest that you mix verdana with the arial (like this forum does) and increace the size of the font that you are using. If you want to be a bit more original then perhaps another sans-serif such as franklin gothic medium (make sure that if you use this font then specify a second just in case).

Im not fond of the logo either, it would be better if you got rid of the man altogether because it detracts from the site.

I would suggest that you change your colour scheme - the blue, black and red dont suit each other. I would suggest:

Background: 285577
Main Body: 6CAAD9
Link Bar: 0066B2
Drop Down Menu: B1D3EC

Lastly - I would suggest that you extend the link bar right to the end of the main body table. This will make the site look right and easiar on the eye.

At the moment i would give the site 6-7/10 but after the changes you would be looking at 8-9/10

I hope that I have been useful...

**Montero** · 01-29-2004, 04:13 PM

looks clean, but in my opinion logo doesnt mach the design

**gsv2com** · 02-03-2004, 03:03 AM

I'm about to do away with the logo. I don't like it much either. It's better than it was a month ago before I made the current one, but I'm going to get my friend who is a professional graphics designer to make a better one. The boss said he'd pay up, so...... yay!