Tell me what you think

northmendo.com · #1 December 13th, 2004, 10:54 PM

check out my site and give me sugestions.

symphonix · #2 December 14th, 2004, 12:01 AM

Nice style. As an end user though, I'd have to point out:
- You can't really tell at first glance what the site is about. I assume it's your own personal site / blog / photo gallery / offer to do web design and so on. Try and get an idea in mind of who you're pitching to and then let the front page tell them what they want to know ... "Welcome to my personal website. Here I share my thoughts through my weblog (Blog), my galleries of photography ... etc ..."

- The links at left are big and cumbersome. You could easily fit all of these in one column, that can be viewed without needing to scroll.

- There are two links at the top of the screen "See my eBay items" and "See where we are". Why are these seperate? Can they go into the left column along with everything else? I'd assume by reading these two that you are probably a business, so why doesn't the main page tell me what business you're in?

- Try and get a consistent look throughout your site. Keep the links at the left the same style for all pages. The Blog page goes to a very different site, with different colours and fonts, for instance.

- Try and choose colours and fonts that are easier to read. Blue-ish on Blueish in times new roman is just plain ugly. Go for black text on bright backgrounds for preference, and use a contrasting scheme for your links bar at the left (White text on a dark background) so that its easy to see what's what. Splashes of pink here, red there and green somewhere else really make the site look awful.

northmendo.com · #3 December 15th, 2004, 09:27 PM

[B]hello again I took some of your advice. Please check it out and let me know what yoou think now.

http://www.northmendo.com

symphonix · #4 December 17th, 2004, 06:29 PM

Wow, thats much better already! And so quick to get to it, too.

The colours are good. I like the font used on the Blog page (which I blieve is Arial Bold), do you think you can try and use this font on the main page as well?

I've never heard of a "moblog" before ... a blog gallery of mobile-phone pictures, eh? Makes sense I guess. :-)

OK, I guess all that remains now is to go over the tiny little problems, such as punctuation, grammar and spelling, just to make it all look really smart. So here's the nitpicker list (brace yourself) ...

- Instead of "Built by an [Apple]" which is grammatically incorrect, please use one of the official "made on a Mac" web badges from here: http://www.apple.com/about/webbadges/

- "Want a free iPod" needs a question mark.

- If I were you, I'd get into PhotoShop or whatever and put "Northmendo.com" and your opening paragraph onto that beautiful photograph you have for your title page. Since you obviously want to have that image there anyway, you might as well use some of the "dead space" in that image in a constructive way.

- Tighten up the left hand menu (you'll need to use BR tags instead of P tags)

- Get rid of ALL of the table borders you have on the homepage. Trust me, less is more. At the very least, if you must have borders, keep them all of the same width.

Finally, to correct your opening paragraph:
Hello, welcome to my site. It is compiled of random things that intrest me such as computers and photography. Please trip around, and have fun with some of the many games, or learn a thing or two by checking out my messageboards.

**fryke** · #5 December 17th, 2004, 10:50 PM

Had to move this. "Opinion" is not just for anything you want opinion on. That'd make every thread an opinion thread, I guess.

(Please do read the forum descriptions...)

northmendo.com · #6 December 18th, 2004, 12:01 PM

ok and now what do you think about the links they seem too close to me.

mseydel · #7 January 4th, 2005, 04:39 AM

Hmm. You wouldn't ask for an opinion if you didn't want it. And no, my site is not going to be used as a comparison...

Overall design: organized and concise, yet very dated. The randomness of the included elements takes away from this. Arpanet had more dynamic interfaces, and all they had was text.
Interest level: almost none. I wouldn't even post this review, which is less interesting than your site, if I wasn't an insomniac with a horrible temper.
Font usage: not so great. I feel bad about my above comments, so I'm grading on a curve.
Color:terrible, unless you're actually colorblind; in that case, kudos for keeping it simple.
Photos:aren't bad, but too few of them and very little worth looking at.
You: please tell me that you're the giraffe, in which case the rest of this was altogether too brutal, and I'm hereby nominating you for the Nobel Science Prize.
Spelling and punctuation: look into those GED courses. You can do it online these days, and chicks dig smart guys.

Symphonix raises good points above, but he is altogether too nice. My design teachers believed in a solid ass-whooping to bring change to our chaotic, poorly designed world. Blame them, and our information wasteland, not me.

quiksan · #8 January 4th, 2005, 09:49 AM

lighten up mseydel. (it's not our fault you can't sleep.)

Constructive criticism is all well and good, but holy crap. everyone starts someplace. what did your early work look like? (hmmm, what's it look like now since you won't share...?)

while you make some valid critiques (tho every point of view differs) the additional commentary has no function but to be a prick.

go take a nap and come back when you're in a more social mood.