site critique please...

DJB

Howdy all,

Like most of the sites I do, I like to get the opinion of the ol' boards users. This time I've finally got my own website up advertising my services. It's only taken me 2 years to finally put it live. Just looking for any feedback, comments, critisicms, suggestions, etc. you might have about it. Before someone mentions it... I know I need more blog entries but give me a day or two (it is a bank holiday weekend)

http://www.davidbehan.com

Couple of things I like on the site:

- section colour changes
- portfolio
- contact form (form validation especially)

Anywho... thx in advance. Rgds,

Dave

Adam

Nice site David, to the point, easy to browse, easy to look at. If I had any criticisms I would say this:

-As of the first page I was expecting more pastel colours in the section colour changes, perhaps the colours you went with are a *tad* sharp?

-I would left align the postral address details on the contact

In saying that, those points are really just personal preference and if nobody else agrees then forget I said anything

Goodshape

First impressions :

Looks nice. Well layed out, clean, didn't take me long to figure out what was going on.

Couple of small niggles : the light grey background of the inactive menu tabs looks a bit washed-out, particularly with the colours on the frontpage. Make that a bit darker maybe? The rest of the colours (and the section colour changes) I like.

Not mad about the picture (of yourself I assume?) on the frontpage either. It's a grand picture, and works well on the contact page, but on the front it gives the impression of a one-man-show a little too much.


Aside from that it's very nice. Good work

steve-hosting36

Very slick looking Dave - nice job

axer

Looks really well.

Like Goodshape said, the grey behind the menu options on the front page make the other menu options a little hard to read.

DJB

Hi all. Thx for replies so far.

Mirror - I tried the left align initially and it didn't suit for some reason. I just tried it again and wasn't happy so I think I'll stick with the align centre.

Goodshape - I decided to take image off home page. Didn't like it twice on the site, the contact us page will do fine. I don't mind users thinking I'm a small business, cause that's what I am... don't need to make myself bigger than I am. Can I ask what type monitor you are viewing the site on, e.g. crt, lcd, laptop, etc. The grey looks fine on both my laptop, desktop and other machines I've tried out. Although, I can understand that it may look a little washed out but when you mouse over, it should be ok to read?

Steve - short and sweet, thx. You know, I based my pic on your style of promotional pics... i.e. yes, I am taking over the world (or Ireland at least), one hosting customer at a time!!!

Axer - same question as goodshape.

Thanks again for feedback. Can I ask what you think of the feedback from on contact page? Try submitting form without entering anything in the required fields.

Rgds,

Dave

mneylon

Some of your colour choices make it very hard to read...

http://www.davidbehan.com/v1/services.asp

The white text on the light background is almost impossible to see

The domains and hosting section on the main page is almost completely hidden in the footer.

FYI I'm using Firefox 1.5

DJB

blacknight wrote:

Some of your colour choices make it very hard to read...

http://www.davidbehan.com/v1/services.asp

The white text on the light background is almost impossible to see

The domains and hosting section on the main page is almost completely hidden in the footer.

FYI I'm using Firefox 1.5

Thx michele,

Colour choices... do you mean the more information links or something else?

Domains and Hosting Section... Any chance you can send/post me a screenshot of that? I've tested primarily on the FF 1.5 browser and it looks fine on mine.

mneylon

Two screenshots for you:
http://mneylon.com/images/Screenshot1.png
http://mneylon.com/images/Screenshot2.png

Thomas_S_Hunterson

It's a nice site, the only criticism that I would have would be that the entries under services look almost like Google Ads on first glance.

vito

Nice site. Nice use of lightbox and scriptaculous effects.

Homepage about text block is quite hard to read - needs to be broken up in some way or perhaps bold up the critical points/words.

Color scheme used on inner pages is bright and inviting but I think brightening up the homepage would be better - a bit cold with the grey-blues IMO. Not cirticism just comparison.

Great site - good clear navigation. Homepage a little subtle.

Any reason why no use of <h1>?

Goodshape

DJB wrote:

Can I ask what type monitor you are viewing the site on, e.g. crt, lcd, laptop, etc. The grey looks fine on both my laptop, desktop and other machines I've tried out.

Lap-top monitor. It's the white text on the grey that is a bit hard to read.

mneylon

Goodshape wrote:

Lap-top monitor. It's the white text on the grey that is a bit hard to read.

Same problem as me...

Serbian

DJB wrote:

Thanks again for feedback. Can I ask what you think of the feedback from on contact page? Try submitting form without entering anything in the required fields.

The contact form is nice, but if I disable JavaScript I can submit the form without entering anything in at all. Client-side validation shouldn't be used as a replacement for Server-side, it should just be used to compliment it.

dangerman

On the homepage: See the way you space out the About David Behan & Co: David Behan is a professional web specialist with... text? You also space out the Services blocks nicely too.

Then suddenly, you cram as many recent blog entries links - it's far too tight. Consider dropping an entry link off and using the space left over to space apart the remaining 5 a bit. And also on the blog entries bit:

Date: Saturday, October 28, 2006

Should really just be

Saturday, October 28, 2006

We're not that stupid that we need to be told it's a date.

Top nav bar:
It's funny having the roll-over colour for the links changing to reflect the colour of each section. The roll-over should reflect the colour you are going to not coming from. So when I hover over 'Services' on any of the pages, it should be that nice green. It's a little odd to have the visual queues for each section change with the section theme colours I think.

Apart from that, well played etc.

Laslo

I'm going to play Devil's advocate here and say that I'm not too fond of it. It's very bland and generic. Having said this, it's clean and fairly easy to digest.

Strengths:
Clean and easy to find your way around.
Markup, although it could be improved, is off to a good start.
Colour switching between sections is nice.

Weaknesses:
White text on grey background is hard to read.
Main navigation text is too small.
Fonts should be measured in em's and not pixels.
The way the form works, particularly the inline 'required field' labels, is very strange.
The form should use server-side validation.
Get rid of the picture of yourself on the contact page - if you want to have your photo up there, put it in the about us -> management section or whatever. Random photos of staff members on a professional company site look tacky and amateur.
The portfolio left-hand navigation links need an 'active' state to show what page your are currently on (this is a particular bugbear of mine)

DJB

Hi,

Thanks all for your feedback. I've taken it in and gone back to clean up some bits and pieces. Here's some changes I've made:

- Changed main nav "off" links to different colours (darker) so white text stands out more. Is it easier to read?
- Added server side validation on contact form
- Active state on current page in portfolio pages
- line height on home page standarised throughout
- Date label on blog entries (home page) removed
- Added h1 tags to all pages
- Home Page overflow fix... shouldn't hide text in the footer anymore
- site is full xhtml, css, section 508, wcag priority 1,2&3 compliant

If anyone has any more feedback that want to throw, please do! Otherwise, I'm off to work on the SEO and my blog entries.

Rgds,

Dave

Serbian

Great to see you're willing to put the effort in to clean the niggly things up. Looks good to me, can't see any issues.

DJB

Cheers! I do try!

PixelTrawler

Nice job there. Very clean. I like the choice of font. Small and clean which is good.
The worst thing on it is the golden spiders nominee icon!

Just a note you are missing a privacy policy which is very important on websites, especially where data is collected e.g. your form.
This should be linked on all pages...

PM me if you want a standard one I use on sites you can change easily.