Help with adding some neat effects and additions to spice up my website

[ChaosKnight]

Hi, this is my first corporate website, and I'm really no graphic designer, nor am I a web designer, I'm more of a back-end developer. But I was thrown in completely alone in this project and I must say I did a fairly good job. I want someone's honest critique on this project, and some things that you really like about this website, and some things you don't, I would also like to know what you would have done differently to make it better.

 

The website is located at: www.hotels-tours-safaris.com

 

Thanks!

[xcandiottix]

First impression: It's not bad.

 

After 2 seconds: Yellow, red, and gray do not blend. Always have a female review your color scheme... why? because women are able to sense more colors then males and will give you feedback on whether your colors work.

 

A white gradient on the buttons behind white text is hard to read.

 

If i click on your name (bottom right) i should be able to email you about the site or new business.

 

I clicked botswana... the africa image is terribly pixelated. Either that picture is way bigger normally and you constrained its image size or its way small and you blew it up.

 

The botsawana top banner is not bad.. same for the rest of the locations.... i might redo them and take more time tho. Get better images and color schemes.

 

I clicked on a city and the pictures for the hotels don't show up.

 

The about us section reads very clunky... have someone good in English revise it.

 

In your car rental section... why are the backgrounds pink and blue? Where did those colors even come from? Stay consistent. Should be yellow and red.

 

Theres no maps.

 

Don't make a Booking tab if all its going to tell me is to go click some other tab!!

 

Your page title is Hotels, Tours & Safaris but your page name is Hotels Tours Safaris in Africa

 

 

Overall this site is okay... with another day on it you could probably get it up and online. But, I think you're working in too small a page format... is your template less then 800x600? I'd make the whole thing bigger as there is too much white space. It feels kind of cheesey overall.... but I think if you work on your color scheme and other things above it will be a little better. I would use this site for information but I wouldn't trust booking / buying from it because it doesn't convey a level of "Yes this is really a successful business!"

 

[RopeADope]

For the most part, I second xcandiottix's summary.  My first suggestion would be if you're going to have a small site footprint, add a background image(that follows the theme) to break up all of the white space.  The only other note I have is on the car rental section.  I'm not sure I'd agree with red and yellow as that may somewhat painful to read.  I'd suggest either a light gray/darker gray color alternation, or as xcandiottix suggested but using a light yellow/darker yellow alternation.

[xcandiottix]

using a light yellow/darker yellow alternation.

 

You're right on with that. I forgot to mention put an alpha channel on the red and yellow to wash out the color.

[ChaosKnight]

Thank you very much, it all makes sense, something that bothers me is on some of the pages like the car rentals where the countries are listed there is also way to much white-space, can you please tell me what you think will fit in nicely there? And about the bookings page, I'm currently working on a multi-accommodation-rental kind of thing that uses jquery with some neat sliding effects to show the forms, as I said, I'm really no web designer, but I'll try my best, thanks

[RopeADope]

on some of the pages like the car rentals where the countries are listed there is also way to much white-space

 

For the countries, my suggestions would be to put clickable images of the countries that have some minor change on mouseover.  Or if you're feeling froggy, put in an image map of Africa, and have the clickable countries change on mouseover.  IMO, I'd go with the image map.  Slightly more work but the affect will be much stronger.

[ChaosKnight]

That sounds super, I'll check it out, thank you very much