HFD Posted May 20, 2009 Share Posted May 20, 2009 Hi, I'm currently creating a new design for my website, Designers Vault and I'm wondering what people think so. Here's the link: http://designersvault.net/new/ It's not finished yet, but what do you guys thinks so far? Is there anything you'd add/remove/change? Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axeia Posted May 20, 2009 Share Posted May 20, 2009 I'd use another menu as this one is seriously annoying to use. People don't naturally move their mouse first to the bottom and than to the side, they move it diagonally.. which changes the menu option. a <h1> is supossed to be used ONCE on a page, decide on which is the most important make that the h1 and the rest a <h2> (you can style them to look the same if you want). CSS should be in an external stylesheet (allowing caching/a faster loading page) Images should always have an alt tag, even if it's left blank it should still be there. In the case of "Designers Vault" logo you do want alt="Designers Vault", this should probably be your <h1> on the frontpage. Font used for the menu looks a bit odd on my screen, (the N in DesigNers Vault looks too fat). (Using openSUSE 11.2 milestone 1 (linux) and do have the Trebuchet MS font installed) The poll should use <labels> for the radiobuttons. I'd use some kind of mouseover for the menu choices as a visual feedback on which link you're hovering over. [attachment deleted by admin] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HFD Posted May 20, 2009 Author Share Posted May 20, 2009 Thanks for your reply I've got the bad habit of using internal stylesheets then moving to an external one later, so that'll be changed soon. Ah yes upon testing in other browsers I've noticed the problem with the Designers Vault text too, I think it's because I was messing around with the letter spacing . I'll use your advice to help improve it, thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcombs_31 Posted May 20, 2009 Share Posted May 20, 2009 I agree on the menu. It gets annoying if you intend to go to the submenu, but hover over another menu item first. A possible solution is to align the submenu directly below the top item so the user moves the mouse down right away. I also don't like how sub menu covers content. When I hover the red headers looks like they are flashing making me think something went wrong. What is the site for? There should be some kind of summary available when I visit the site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axeia Posted May 20, 2009 Share Posted May 20, 2009 I'd use some kind of mouseover for the menu choices as a visual feedback on which link you're hovering over. Not sure if you added that one since then or if the monitor I was using earlier was too poor to display it, but you might want to use something a little higher contrast. white/light grey are quite hard to tell apart on flatscreens (especially the cheap ones) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrg_alpha Posted May 20, 2009 Share Posted May 20, 2009 I agree with the comments so far.. For me, the biggest issue (aside from the awkwardness of the top menu) is the amount of red.. Perhaps altering the background to have a tiling pattern that has 'red-ish' elements in it, but is not completely red. Hard on the eyes before long as it is IMO (perhaps it's the contrast between that and the light grey body). This new version doesn't validate , nor does your css validate. If you want to improve on your SEO, I would consider adding a 'description' meta tag, as this is relevant (but not the keywords one). For the 'News' panel, I would add some padding to that orange area so that text doesn't go right up to the edge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HFD Posted May 21, 2009 Author Share Posted May 21, 2009 Thanks for all your replies I've changed a few things around, and I've now implemented the layout properly with my PHP/MySQL code. There's still lots of changes to be made (although I consider the homepage pretty much complete), but I'm pretty close to completion. Any more advice from you guys? Thanks Note: the site is now at http://www.designersvault.net rather than http://www.designersvault.net/new Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrg_alpha Posted May 21, 2009 Share Posted May 21, 2009 The content definitely looks more organized now (nice grid like structure with margin/padding to give text room to breath. -In the footer: Keywords to help ad targetting: money, make money, internet, developers, web 2.0, web2.0... huh? - You have a vertical line between the 'Newest Content' and 'Stats' column... perhaps this line isn't needed due to those panels already containing borders? With that line gone, you can reposition the 'Newest Content' so that each column is equidistant from each other. Looking better for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcombs_31 Posted May 21, 2009 Share Posted May 21, 2009 I think another improvement would be to make the background patterns repeat instead of fade out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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