Brutal review request please- www.seditionband.com

BoltCutter · #1 (**permalink**) 07-18-2004, 07:33 PM

A new heavy metal band website is "live". Please take a look at it and tell us what you think. BE BRUTAL! Thanks in advance.

skyrocket · #2 (**permalink**) 07-18-2004, 09:29 PM

Ahhh - there's nothing like a good heavy metal band website review to start the day! Excellent stuff with the graphical look & feel - like it. Took me a while to work out that the hand was an image map nav tool. Clever but some folk won't get it. The home page took ages to download (and I'm on broadband ADSL). There was a black section for about 20-30 seconds then finally the dictionary definition of "Sedition" appeared. On the bad side you have frames and FrontPage - yeuch (or should I say: bogus dude!)

jomariet · #3 (**permalink**) 07-19-2004, 12:35 AM

Overall the site has a great design and dramatic concept. It loaded very quickly (for me). The hand menu grabbed me (maybe because I read a previous post) and I was able to get around the site easily.

I did have to use the bottom nav bar to be really clear. "Troops" and "Props" as nav titles didn't really tell me what I'd get on those pages. The other assumption is that I'm local enough to know where Whiskey Bills is. You have a street address under Gigs but not a city.

Media usually implies press release and media kit. You might want to retitle the page or change the content to match industry standards.

Tech stuff: Putting the frame includes can make the site harder for the search engines to do a complete index. Is there a reason you can't put the content in a static page? (News page?)

If you don't want to add mp3 downloads (even 30 sec bits) you should link to a site that has them available. purevolume or ubl.artistdirect.com is a good place to put music downloads. But the site isn't launchable without music. Art sites need art, widget sites need widgets, band sites need music.

Otherwise. I liked the energy, I like the opening page, I like the colors and drama. This is really, really close.

JM

www.crucibledesigns.com
www.akalt.net

BoltCutter · #4 (**permalink**) 07-25-2004, 06:47 PM

Sorry about the excessive homepage load time, maybe a load status bar as seen on "Flash" sites? How was the load time on the rest of the pages? What do you suggest instead of an inline frame? A separate page? Am saving for Dreamweaver, FrontPage was required in the course I took,(read that;govm't paid for it.) Thanks for the review.It helps. BOLT

BoltCutter · #5 (**permalink**) 07-25-2004, 06:59 PM

The "Troops" and "Props" titles came from the band, (thats the way they talk) tho not altogether clear, I guess thats "cool". Excellent point about the address,will correct that,both on the website and the posters in the future. Thanks for your review of the "Media" section. We weren't sure about that grouping/content. We will consider getting rid of the inline frames. Thanks. I agree w/ you about not having music. The band has been working on some clips for the site, both audio and video, for about 6 mos now. "Its in the pipe" is what I've been hearing.Artists! Thanks for the review, it helps.
Bolt

Tim · #6 (**permalink**) 07-25-2004, 08:35 PM

Check your site at http://www.sitereportcard.com, a few problems but most importantly you missed out the DOCTYPE. Why is this happening so much?

The site looks good at 1028x1024 on Firefox and IE. I like the colours and graphics, especially the hand navigation.

Check http://www.seditionband.com/media.html which does strange things with the central table which is about 300px off-set to the left, off the black background. It's the same on IE and Firefox.

I would prefer it if the enlarged band photos appeared (centered) within the site background instead of aligned left on a white background but they will still look like a bunch of wonkers!

On http://www.seditionband.com/news.html and http://www.seditionband.com/gigs.html try to get rid of the horizontal scroll by reducing the text size.

Get nasty with the scroll bars using CSS but stay user-friendly.

Thank you for not using Flash like the wonkers at Trip Cage. Good luck.

BoltCutter · #7 (**permalink**) 07-27-2004, 11:25 PM

EXCELLENT REVIEW! Extremely helpfull. We appreciate it. We dont have access to Firefox so werent sure how the site responded. Thanks. They do look like a bunch of wonkers, I cant help that(you should see them in person). The horizontal scrolls are as good as gone on both the pages mentioned and on the personal pages.(Which are being redesigned, even as we type). Were the CSS scroll bars not user friendly? We approached TRIPCAGE about a site redesign (We know thier Bass player) but one of the band members designed thier site, and they are unwilling to mess w that. Good people tho', if you get a chance see 'em "live", they kick. Thanks again for being "brutal". Bolt