Website Review and Suggestions

**Lanc1988** · 11-15-2006, 12:42 AM

I have been designing the website for my high school over the past few days along with a small group of some other people and I was wanting to see how people would rate it and what they don't like or like.

We were trying to go for a professional look but also a personal look. Any feedback would be very helpful. Thanks.

The website is:
www.centraliahs.org

I'm not sure why my high school registered a .org instead of a .com or .edu, I guess they weren't available.

**crush123** · 11-15-2006, 08:42 AM

the black space at the middle seem to be too bigger
it is occupying a lot of space
better to to add some information about the school on the main page.
adding some photos may improve the appearance

**wkdown** · 11-15-2006, 01:05 PM

If this is really for a high school, as in not a pet project, you need to look at accessibility. The pictures changing on the index page are nice, but the fact they are done in Flash isnt good. You can get that same effect using JavaScript or a server-side language. I'm sure there's a free script on it somewhere. http://jjc.edu does it with JavaScript.

The liquid design (fitting to browser width) is a great idea. The pictures took awhile to download on a cable connection, which isn't good. If you have access to Photoshop (or can download GIMP) you should tweak the pictures so they have as low a file size as possible (try to get them into GIF format, etc)

The menu also expands when the page is loading. It does set where you want it after the page is loaded, but doesn't look good in the meantime (fixing the picture problem will cut down load time and may fix this itself).

Check the W3C's WAI information for how to make it all accessible. The content is very good. Lots of information.

6 / 10 for now

**Lanc1988** · 11-15-2006, 05:40 PM

Thanks for all the feedback so far. I agree, I think if it is done in javascript it will be much better for load times. I really like the one at jjc.edu, maybe we will try to make it like that if possible.

When you say that the pictures took a while to load, which pictures are you referring to? The banner on the top and the black bars on the right are the only images except on the front page which has the image slideshow.

Yes, I have noticed that the drop down menu starts out wide until the page is loaded which I don't like but I don't really understand why it does that. I have the height of the cell that the drop down is in set to 25 pixels. This problem also makes me have to put some <br>'s on pages that aren't longer than the right menu (with the address, visit counter, weather, etc) to make the drop down go to the right size.

**myworksweb** · 11-15-2006, 11:51 PM

Hey LAnc1988,
In my opinion your website is pretty professional looking....Love that Flash slideshow...pictures are pretty decent and suit your website...However I wasn't really impress with the Fonts!!!!!! Try another font like Arial and also some Headings in Smooth GIFs..

Thanks!
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