Multi Purpose Media Platform - www.mythen.ie

warlikedave

This baby has been my side project for 6 years....starting from a basis few HTML pages we have expanded to main HTML site with 4 topical sites based on WordPress installs, 2 forums (one of which has just been launched after been tested for a month or so) and other features. I work on this alone (although i have had a contributor do an article or two recently for me) so it does require a lot of updating which takes time so i apologies if the flow of articles on the site are slightly behind on been updated.

Also I have no formal training in IT or any sort of design what so ever ( oh oh :P ) :P So the HTML coding and the format of the css might not be perfect....WordPress and php are used quite a bit in the site as well - the new forum has yet to be fully modded but the old forum is and that was done with a few guys years ago - I am considering scrapping the new forum if it cant be modded to the same extent that the old one was. Anyways.......Its a simple and basic site with a few php and WordPress sub-sites - nothing fancy

Please note that this site was built for high res screens in mind but loads OK on mobile devices like the Samsung galaxy series and iPhone 4 and above

The purpose of the sites @ www.mythen.ie is the domain alias and main domain www.irishupandcomingmusicscene.tk is the provision of information via a wide form of media online. Also it is a platform in which users can contribute articles or setup their own sections or sub sites so

- Provision of information in online media formats
-- Gaming
-- Music
-- Provision of Online platforms for people to use for free
-- Topics of Major Interest
-- Online Gaming Arcade featuring a few flash games from a couple of developers

- Provision of a platform which people can contribute or build upon with us

So the questions I pose:

- Does it meet its mandate?
- How does it look?
- how does it feel to use?
- What changes would you make?
- What would you keep?
- Feel free to mention anything else

i want to get the broadest response possible that we can make this project of mine a success - please note that I don't post articles too often since I am busy - this project is important to me ( I do it for the fun factor mainly :P ) but its not my main occupation by any means

Squeeonline

Quite striking initially but lets down on the home page. Needing to click through to the home page is about 10 years out of date.

It's a standard wordpress blog with a nice background, that's honestly about it.

splash page doesnt have any SEO, header tags. The text shouldn't be in the image but rather actual text.

warlikedave

Squeeonline wrote: »

Quite striking initially but lets down on the home page. Needing to click through to the home page is about 10 years out of date.

It's a standard wordpress blog with a nice background, that's honestly about it.

splash page doesnt have any SEO, header tags. The text shouldn't be in the image but rather actual text.

Thank you for your feedback...

Well I wanted to have a start page with just a great background....make a person curious about it. The actual navigation/main page is still not what i want myself. It could do with been more compact and better laid out.

As for the wordpress install I did go the basic route....I found a good reliable theme and applied it...the layout is modded using normal wordpress tools and a custom background. I wanted simplicity

The image text is done like that because that particular text format is not supported in all browsers and on all computers.

I kept the html as simple as possible so I would have to expand it in terns of header tags...I still have a lot to learn

tricky D

warlikedave wrote: »

Well I wanted to have a start page with just a great background....make a person curious about it. The actual navigation/main page is still not what i want myself. It could do with been more compact and better laid out.

Put yourself in your users shoes and think of what works for them and what they want. The Enter link also opens in a new tab which is annoying. I can only see the top of the text on the page and can't scroll to reveal it. The Home link on other pages also goes to it which is even more annoying. Users hate this and splash pages in general so dump it ruthlessly.

I would reprioritise the homepage layout and content as it is unclear what the site is about. You have to scroll down a fair bit and do some figuring out of what's going on. It should be immediately obvious and clear for users without the need to scroll down.

The videos also need some caption info on their subject matter.

warlikedave

tricky D wrote: »

Put yourself in your users shoes and think of what works for them and what they want. The Enter link also opens in a new tab which is annoying. I can only see the top of the text on the page and can't scroll to reveal it. The Home link on other pages also goes to it which is even more annoying. Users hate this and splash pages in general so dump it ruthlessly.

I would reprioritise the homepage layout and content as it is unclear what the site is about. You have to scroll down a fair bit and do some figuring out of what's going on. It should be immediately obvious and clear for users without the need to scroll down.

The videos also need some caption info on their subject matter.

Thank You for your feedback....

Ill change the home link....that was an error on my part

Aye the High Res Splash page could be a problem for lower res - what res are you running at dude - the lowest res i tested this at is 1440x900 which seems to be the min standard these days?

Aye I could expand the info on the home HTML page no problem - i just didnt want the user to be over powered with a big long paragraph plus there is a whole about site for people to check out

I intend to condense and compact the layout of the MAINindex page. Will be creating a new page with just the YouTube channels there instead so that should condense the size of the main page for a start - how would you go about it? how do you find the other HTML pages?

tricky D

The 'standard' width should be 980 or less. 1440 is way too big. I'd be wary of setting a min height which is why it is important to get some text to communicate your site's purpose higher up the homepage (not splash page).

I can't stress entirely dumping the splash page enough. Users f**king hate them.

You're right about the long paragraphs though. It would be better to have around 3 snappy chunks of no more than 25 words or less. For your site I would have something more minimal like: 'learn, share, talk' and 'games, music, technology' and get them much further up the page (along with some article links). You can safely dump 'Welcome' and 'Home' as they have no value for users, and move the search box up towards the top right. I'd move banner2a.jpg up further too.

warlikedave

tricky D wrote: »

The 'standard' width should be 980 or less. 1440 is way too big. I'd be wary of setting a min height which is why it is important to get some text to communicate your site's purpose higher up the homepage (not splash page).

I can't stress entirely dumping the splash page enough. Users f**king hate them.

You're right about the long paragraphs though. It would be better to have around 3 snappy chunks of no more than 25 words or less. For your site I would have something more minimal like: 'learn, share, talk' and 'games, music, technology' and get them much further up the page (along with some article links). You can safely dump 'Welcome' and 'Home' as they have no value for users, and move the search box up towards the top right. I'd move banner2a.jpg up further too.

I have done some basic changes as a starting point - what do you think?

warlikedave

Another question - I am familiar with the concept of SEO but how do I actually apply it successfully to my site?

Also how do I get Google to show the site and its different parts/sub-sites like a proper site map? www.mythen.ie is a domain alias with www.irishupandcomingmusicscene.tk is the original domain

warlikedave

Squeeonline wrote: »

Quite striking initially but lets down on the home page.

Care to elaborate please

Squeeonline

warlikedave wrote: »

Care to elaborate please

Didn't think it would be necessary.

The splash screen lead me to believe that there would be a new type of interface when I clicked through, something using the circles. Then I realised that it was just a background, and a fairly bogstandard blog rectangle appeared.

warlikedave

Squeeonline wrote: »

Didn't think it would be necessary.

The splash screen lead me to believe that there would be a new type of interface when I clicked through, something using the circles. Then I realised that it was just a background, and a fairly bogstandard blog rectangle appeared.

Every bit of understanding is important to me mate - your thoughts and opinions are part of that
I had considered using a flash template to use the circles but it is well above my abilities at the moment

Trojan

If you're using more than one domain for the same site, you should 301 redirect the secondary domain to the primary domain (i.e. don't have two distinct copies of the same site). Action: setup 301 redirect.

Looking at either domain I don't understand what the purpose of the site is. Action: (optional) get a different domain.

Looking at the homepage I don't understand what the purpose of the site is. Action: Read "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug and review your site.

SEO: site has many basic SEO issues, e.g. your title and meta description tags aren't explanatory, branded or keyword focused:

<title>MP&amp;WM Index</title>
<meta name="description" content="MP&amp;WM Index">

Action: read about basic onsite SEO techniques.

There are other issues around the page contents etc but I think you need to address the above points first.

Overall, I think either you don't have a clear high level view of what you want to achieve with the site, or you do have that view but haven't translated it into the browser. Take a step back, write down your goals on paper, have a read of the Krug book and some SEO resources, and get back to us after you've implemented changes.

warlikedave

Trojan wrote: »

If you're using more than one domain for the same site, you should 301 redirect the secondary domain to the primary domain (i.e. don't have two distinct copies of the same site). Action: setup 301 redirect.

Looking at either domain I don't understand what the purpose of the site is. Action: (optional) get a different domain.

Looking at the homepage I don't understand what the purpose of the site is. Action: Read "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug and review your site.

SEO: site has many basic SEO issues, e.g. your title and meta description tags aren't explanatory, branded or keyword focused:

<title>MP&amp;WM Index</title>
<meta name="description" content="MP&amp;WM Index">

Action: read about basic onsite SEO techniques.

There are other issues around the page contents etc but I think you need to address the above points first.

Overall, I think either you don't have a clear high level view of what you want to achieve with the site, or you do have that view but haven't translated it into the browser. Take a step back, write down your goals on paper, have a read of the Krug book and some SEO resources, and get back to us after you've implemented changes.

Thank You for the feedback

The goals are there - problem is my knowledge of coding and design is far behind what i envisage...as for what the sight does - its as simple as this

- free online information in games, tech, music and hot topics
- people can share or use it in many ways

it is not a fancy idea - just a simple one...aye well meta tags I am just beginning to learn about but I don't want to start sticking annoying irrelevant keywords into this site at all

mythen.ie is setup as the domain alias - the parallel helm system i use for such aliases only allowed me to register it as its domain alias i can set the alias or the main domain but neither as primary redirect - so they are inter changeable as you use the site ill look into creating a ht-access file with the redirect coding

warlikedave

I replaced part of the css and restructured it as best i could - any thoughts? It is still quite ordinary in parts and ive yet to fully code meta tags so its a work in process...as for teh social links - I am not sure where to place them as of yet