critique request: work in progress

pontovic

Hi

Im designing a site for a friend who is a mechanic and owns his own garage. He buys and sells a small amount of cars ( usually he has around 10 or so ) and he also carries out car maintenance and repair. Here is the site I have completed to date. It is still a work in process and I would guess it's about 60% complete now (the service/NCT section has not been started yet).

http://www.foleymotors.ie

Any opinions appreciated thanks

DOLEMAN

I like it. Simple and clean (my favorite!)

Good job.

pontovic

cool thanks

Serbian

I notice that you took you map from Google Maps on the About page. Even though it is a blatant breach of the terms of use, the least you could do would be to keep the copyright information in the bottom right-hand corner.

Eoin

Serbian wrote:

I notice that you took you map from Google Maps on the About page. Even though it is a blatant breach of the terms of use, the least you could do would be to keep the copyright information in the bottom right-hand corner.

Or just use the API properly so people can zoom and pan.

A couple of things:

No need for the address in the top left to be an image, and you could probably do the logo in the top right with CSS instead of an image.

The middle scrolly bit is a little unnecessary, but probably just a matter of personal taste. I would just present the text normally.

I would make the navigation bar links a bit more prominent. You should get something that fits the style on this site (scroll down to the horizontal lists section):
http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/index.htm

Not really a design issue but a business one; but are you / your friend planning on a stock list? Could be re-inventing the wheel to use a naff cliche - probably get more traffic by having a dealer page on carzone.ie that you can link to, or include in an iframe or something like that.

pontovic

To serbian: You're right. Ill have to remove that google map. It's there for design purposes only and will not make it into the final site. I know the legal implications of keeping it there. Although I am less likely to get caught using it, Ill still be better off using something else.

To eoin_s: We will be putting in a stocklist. Basically, we will host the cars on carzone.ie and inlay the carlist into our site as well. What scrolly bit are you talking about ? There is no ability to scroll in this site. Do you have your font size set to large ?

GoneShootin

I'd center the site in the page. At my res (1280x1024) it site a bit to the left.
Beef up your meta tags for the site description and keywords.
Remove the "mailto" link to info@foleymotors.ie to help prevent against spambots. You can put the email address as an image if you need to. Or code a "contact us" form.

On the stock inventory, I used a stock system for a local mechanic.

I think the mechanic I did the job for is going to use carzone aswell for a year to see if it's of any benefit to him, so I'm not aware as to how to integrate their stock system onto your site. Could be as simple as a <? php include(); ?> or even a simpler html <iframe>.

Eoin

pontovic wrote:

To eoin_s: We will be putting in a stocklist. Basically, we will host the cars on carzone.ie and inlay the carlist into our site as well. What scrolly bit are you talking about ? There is no ability to scroll in this site. Do you have your font size set to large ?

Sorry, the centre text is scrollable on the about page, not the home page (screen shot attached). Not a big deal, but I don't like scrolling down a page with the mouse centre wheel, and then losing focus to another section.

I know (hope!) that most of the customers won't be visually impaired, but there is no such thing as too large a font size - your site should cater for people who want a large font size, not have them cater for a small font size. However, I am using 1280/1024 resolution with standard text size on the browser.

Eoin

GoneShootin wrote:

Remove the "mailto" link to info@foleymotors.ie to help prevent against spambots. You can put the email address as an image if you need to. Or code a "contact us" form.

If you put the image as a link to the email address, will it prevent the spam? I would be hesitant to not have an email address that can at least be copied and pasted into an email.

If you do code the contact form, you will have to put anti-spam measures there as well - I am plagued by spam that I think is being caused by automated POST methods to my form, will have to code around that now.

cognos

Overall I like the look.

The circle that says 'Deal of the week' in it looks very jagged, it looks like its supposed to be smooth so you might want to smooth it a bit or make it even more jagged (so you can tell its supposed to be like that).

Regarding the email thing I wouldnt worry about it too much - if you are concerned you could try something like

mailto:put address here?body=me@myaddress.com

I've seen that method used in a few places (I'd leave it the way you have it now though).

GoneShootin

eoin_s wrote:

If you put the image as a link to the email address, will it prevent the spam?

No, but I was not advising him to use a mailto at all, as the spambot will just read the html code and strip it from there. The email address is short and easy to type, let them do it manually.

pontovic

Thanks for the replies. Ill make changes based on what you have all said later.

I should strip down the text in 'about us' deffo. it looks scrolled in some browsers and fine in others

rsynnott

pontovic wrote:

To eoin_s: We will be putting in a stocklist. Basically, we will host the cars on carzone.ie and inlay the carlist into our site as well. What scrolly bit are you talking about ? There is no ability to scroll in this site. Do you have your font size set to large ?

Amusing, this, as it illustrates a common problem in web design. What dictates 'too large'? You must assume that your users will be using all sorts of different configurations.

pontovic

rsynnott wrote:

Amusing, this, as it illustrates a common problem in web design. What dictates 'too large'? You must assume that your users will be using all sorts of different configurations.

I didn't mean 'too' large I meant 'to'.

Eoin

pontovic wrote:

I didn't mean 'too' large I meant 'to'.

Oops, I presumed it was a typo - sorry. I had the font size set to Normal on Firefox. It only scrolls on IE using the largest font size. OT, but just realised that the Firefox text size can be increased way more than IE...

pontovic

Im working away on the site and I have taken all your suggestions into account. Changes are being made based on what has been said, so soon I will have something better put up online. Ill keep you all posted. Thanks for all the feedback.

pontovic

Hi

Latest build of website online: www.foleymotors.ie

What do you think now ? Thanks for the feedback

ps: still have to work on that 'deal of the week' and change the address from an image into text'

Eoin

pontovic wrote:

Hi

Latest build of website online: www.foleymotors.ie

What do you think now ? Thanks for the feedback

ps: still have to work on that 'deal of the week' and change the address from an image into text'

Hi there,

I am now getting two scrolly bits on the home page (used cars & services). Screenshot attached.

I like the tabs, though personally I would set them at an equal fixed width each, and make the colours more different from the background of the navigation bar.

Eoin

PS - I didn't actually mention this before, but overall it's a very nice clean design.

pontovic

thanks for the compliment. try it now ? still any scrolling ?

on internet explorer the text is much closer together, whereas in firefox it seems much more spaced apart, so scrolling seems much more likely in that browser. any ideas why this is ? also in firefox there is padding inserted betweeen the top of a div and the text in it. this doesnt happen in internet explorer either

Eoin

pontovic wrote:

thanks for the compliment. try it now ? still any scrolling ?

on internet explorer the text is much closer together, whereas in firefox it seems much more spaced apart, so scrolling seems much more likely in that browser. any ideas why this is ? also in firefox there is padding inserted betweeen the top of a div and the text in it. this doesnt happen in internet explorer either

Scrolling is not there now for normal size text (only for any size larger than that).

Maybe don't specify the height or something. By the way, you have multiple elements with the same ID specified:

<p id="standard_paragraph">

Pretty sure the IDs are supposed to be unique.

Eoin

pontovic

Changes made. The page is now valid XHTML. Sweet

galavanr

nnerrrrrdss


hey matt your missing a full stop

Home Our cars About us Servicing/NCT Servicing your car Servicing your car regularly is very important if you want to keep it in perfect running order. Keeping your car fully serviced is necessary to make sure it is always safe to drive. A car with a good service history will also have better resale potential than a car without.
We can carry out basic servicing on your car. Just call us and we can arrange an appointment for you.
Basic servicing - What's involved Cars should be serviced at least once every year or once every 10000 miles (.) Servicing a car involved carrying out the following tasks:

pontovic

matt ??

You are right though looking at it it does neet to be proofread.