Website Review and Suggestions

**tonya** · 01-13-2007, 06:37 PM

This is probably the first site I have created without using tables for layout

TEST SITE : http://www.gryffindor.me.uk/www.fantiski/index.html

still needs tweeking - page references, graphic optimisation, some links, keywords & proof reading etc.

comments at this stage before I go live would be great thanks

**MattCoops** · 01-13-2007, 08:49 PM

I don't really care for the mt image in upper left corner
could be a little better
like how things are transparent

be better if images were clickable, and load in that bigger screen to right of them

nice colors

**webdexed** · 01-13-2007, 11:44 PM

Not to sound like a broken record, but I agree with Matt. Good luck with the site.

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**vatu** · 01-14-2007, 12:34 AM

Good one

**tonya** · 01-14-2007, 06:34 AM

Thanks

- mountain graphic - better how ? We wanted something totally abstract & different as a new logo type graphic as the company at the moment have no logo at all apart from company name. Our designer is a snow & surf boarder himself & tells me he was inspired by surf & board type logo's that he knows of to go for something very different but also symblematic of a mountain - you obviously realised it was supposed to be mountains. What sort of logo or graphic would you have instead?

- glad you like the transparent effect.

- clickable graphics. We thought about it but wondered where we would link them to? Internal pages like an extra menu? would that not be defunct? how would someone know where teh link would take them other than alt text - possibly an image swap with the page name underneath? We just wanted pictures from around the resort - perhaps we should display them differently ! Any suggestions appreciated.

- more graphics - pictures. would the pages start to look too cluttered? Or should we have some extra pictures in the spacxe under the menu - make the pages longer just for pictures ?? We wanted most of the pages if possible to fit the screen - apart from ones with lots of text of course. Maybe its the way the graphics are done with a border - does it make them looka s if they should be buttons? In the original design they were used as a menu but we decided that one thing people always say about websites is to make navigation easy. It is great having an award winning site that designers all think is wow but we need your average user to be able to navigate easily and be able to find their way about and hopefully book a chalet not be put off by a flash site that they can't navigate - the customer was the one who actually asked us to ditch the graphic menu and go instead for a simple text based one - I have to be honest and say I agreed with him.

What do you all think ??

**LadynRed** · 01-14-2007, 11:42 AM

I think it looks darn good ! I like the abstract mountain image, I dont' think a photo is needed there at all, it's unique ! It's nice and clean, nice color palette, and easily navigated.

Clickable images ?? For what purpose ?? It is better to use REAL TEXT links for many reasons.

For your first (mostly) tabless site, you've done a pretty good job, but I can see where you've got a few problems and I assume this is the layout you've asked about elsewhere and you want centered ?

You've got some div-itis going on and there is a more effective way to do your menu. The div.menu is ok, but make it into an unordered list, use the orange square as a background to the <li> items (set to no-repeat).

The centering will work if you use the 'wrapper' method I mentioned in the other forum.

**aldor** · 01-14-2007, 12:24 PM

I couldn't agree more with LadynRed, a great looking site.
You have captured the feel of the mountains with your colour scheme and use of background images.
Can't really fault your design.
Well done.

**3rdShiftStudios** · 01-14-2007, 02:07 PM

i love the layout! I really think you did a great job placing things. i do think you have some relationship issues with the scale of some things.

I'm going to guess that the scribble in the top left if just for placement and that the company logo will go there?

I think the orange is too bright, mebbe dull it back just so that it relates more with the mute tones of the blues/purples.

I think the big orange blocks on the left navigation need to be about 50% that size, and the navigation leading can be adjusted so that it spreads out more; the bold lettering and tight navigation makes it look bunched up.

Good luck, beautiful layout!

**tonya** · 03:47 PM

Thankyou all for your great comments.

LadynRed once again thankyou. I worked hard on the layout as although I have long used CSS for design elements like formatting etc I have never before used it for layout.

Actually I like the mountain scribble graphic too as I think it a bit different. 3rdShiftStudio's - there is no company logo as I am sure I mentioned earlier so we had to come up with something other than just having the company name as the header. The company did not want to spend a fortune getting a logo designed and have always simply used the company name (8 years now). We thought about pictures etc but then I decided to ask a young graphic design student (who is a also a champion surfer & ski boarder) who was doing some work with me to help me out trying to design some sort of graphic to use as a logo. We tested a few different ideas but actually the mountain scribble was favourite of everyone here at work so we went with it. I guess this will become for purposes of the site anyway the logo. Thanks LadynRed I also think a simple picture would not be right and as logo's go it is not bad is it?

I agree about the menu & will look at the code as suggested by ladynRed possibly reducing size of orange box. We picked orange as a contrast colour so that the site did not become too blue & muted and still had some zing. The companies colours have always been black and yellow so we have moved away from that but still wanted some colour and actually on a colour wheel - which I am always advocating designers use, orange is a great colour with blue and often comes up as a complimentary colour for blue (along with yellow). We tried yellow but felt it did not stand out enough. Purple did not look right, red was wrong & too like danger, white did not always show up and blue well ... too blue. Maybe green ???

Something strange has happened to the menu though which will probably be sorted out by putting it into a list. The menu was more spaced out so that box's had gaps between them and the text was not so bunched up. I need to look at the CSS again but since I am going to rewrite the menu will do all this at the same time.

Yes LadynRed the questions I have asked do relate to trying to center the layout. I ended up on this site with some annoying bits of CSS code in different files while I tried to solve the problem but eventually had to have the positioning declared in a different CSS file. I will try the wrapper idea out on my own personal site which I often use as a testing ground & then implement it here.

Thanks for comments - I will go back and change the menu code - look at wrapper for central layout and come back for an updated review. Cheers guys.

**Bling** · 01-14-2007, 03:54 PM

sweet website, im loving the design good job with the content i feel as if you can go big with this one.

**tonya** · 01-14-2007, 04:04 PM

Cheers Bling for very sweet message

**tonya** · 07:30 PM

I have re-written the code & have a few layout & technical CSS problems. If you feel like helping check this post

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/css-fo...tml#post336646

p.s the new code example is here http://www.gryffindor.me.uk/www.fant...late-test.html - just needs some tweeking to the other post. Gosh I wish I wasn't such a perfectionist but I am determined to get this CSS layout stuff sorted out & have a happy client at the same time!

BTW - he loves the site & loves the mountain scribble !!!