Hi,

I would appreciate some honest feedback about my new site at http://www.BookAFloridaVilla.com

Many Thanks

I can see where you are going - a nice carribean color style and you provide what appears to be good information but you need some design help. Here are my suggestions:

The color scheme could use some work - specifically the blue backgound is too intense a color. The page has too many blue elements. I know a lot of people use the light blue color you did for text and table backgrounds but I think it looks awful in every case. The magenta text - doesn't work with these particular colors. I personally am an advocate of ditching the web-safe color palette. There is almost no one how has only 256 colors on their monitor these days and quite frankly if they do - too bad, it'll default to the closest anyway. My guess is that people who are renting villas for vaction are not the people who have these crappy computers. I say design for the 97% not the 3%.


The palm trees and site title at the top are too big. The trees look like standard clip art. I would use a nice small photo instead.

Your layout is too vertical. You have too little information in to many large blocks. All of this would fit into a small well-organized block at the top which would invite people in. The gaps between text and the bottom of the tables and betweent the tables is too large.

I took a stab at a quick re-design, I tried to stay within your original concept but I altered the color scheme to what I think is a more sophisticated look which is still summery, added what would be a navigation bar (the purple stripe near the top which of course you should customize and even out in size and make buttons with rollovers, I would do these in Photoshop) the last two items at the bottom would be links to information lower in the page or on another page. Just some suggestions. You can find my 20 minute re-design at this url. Feel free to use the pictures if you want but don't distribute it. I have limited license that will let you use it.

http://216.26.163.42/florida.htm

Technical stuff -
You need a link to your home page on every page at the top in addition to the bottom.

Use the actual copywright symbol instead of (c).

On the text descriptions of the properties. Use left justified text. Centered text should be reserved for headlines and captions not body text.

You have inconsistent border useage on your tables some are blue some are yellow.

The border width of your top logo-type bar is too big.

I wish I could rent a villa, I need a vacation. I'd appreciate any comments you have on my site as well. I'll remove the temp page I did for you in a few days.