Hi All,

I/we have been building sites for a couple of years. I'd like some feedback about design and usability. I know I have some issue with validation concerning xml and plan to address this is the next version. BTW this is the third version of this site. I am using tables with CSS. Please no beatings, I know some of you think that pure CSS is the only way to go <div></div>. But why should I build totaly complient sites when the most widley used browser dos'nt support most of the features? And worse it butchers some of the most common features like show/hide layers for CSS nav. Anyway, thanx in advance. Please keep in mind that we are very small and are always working to imporove the quality of the sites we build and sell.

I'll respond as time allows and I plan to do some reviewing of my own. I have been reading the newsletters for sometime now, glad to be on the boards.

Charles

www.dcvistudios.com

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To me, te site is a bit on the plain side, but yet still manages to be slightly overpowering. The stark black and white don't really jibe with the blues used in the navigation buttons on your portfolio pages, etc.

From a usability standpont, I note that you're not using title attributes on either images or links, and there is a striking lack of text linking.

Just my take, I'm not a usability expert.

I did take a look at your prtfolio, though. There's some pretty nice stuff there.

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Jerry Russell
Cooking by the Seat of my Pants | Please don't feed the writer | The Spun Puppy

same, black and white seems to be just, bland,,,but your portfolio is awsome and I agree with you about the issues surrounding trying to be compli to the so called standards, yet the standards are in constant change and as you stated, for the most part it ends up being a butcher to site design. not to mention totally fricking frustrating as well.

I've seen 100% compli sites and they lack creativity and end up being like most of the square boxed sites found today.

Unless your a techie and your site is a techy site, the issues around total compli outway the final desire of the site design.

One can't please everyone, but making it work to the most common browsers is always a goal.

I also found that at highres over 1024 seemed to show the type being quite large. I had this issue as well, I noticed that if I worked at res's above 1024, the end result somehow left the font size larger then specified. Don't know if this is the case or if intended to be as such, but is my humble opinion.

Regards

IntelCos
www.intelcosmet.com

Although the fancy font is quite sexy, I found it a little annoying that I had to actually concentrate to read it. Of course that maybe just me!

It does seem to have vast areas of black and white which could be broken up with ... other colors or images.

The banner heading is good, not too long (time wise).

I don't like the bold first line treatment ... again this maybe just a personal thing. But I scan the bold, expecting it to be a title, to allow me to quickly find some content of interest.

Your work on other sites (in the portfolio) is great, so I'm sure it won't take you long to get this site looking really good.

Thank all of you for your insight. To comment on a couple of things:

1. The black and white

We were going for a minimilistic thing. We wanted the foucus on our clients work and thus opted for the less is more KISS school of thought.

With that said, and your comments in hand I can see why all of you hit on that. Perhaps a light gray or green bg and some images as you've suggested, three of you in a row can't be wrong.

Question: I am not using large areas of black. Only large areas of white trimed in black. Please explain in more detail. I may have missed something in the css or some place else when I updated the over all look.

2. Text Style

Thanx for pointing that out. After moving from my PC I only viewed my site on my MAC. Err no Berlin Sans on the MAC. I have changed the CSS and posted. Thnax

3. "The stark black and white don't really jibe with the blues used in the navigation buttons on your portfolio pages, etc. "

Umm, the buttons are green.

4. Your right about the alt text. I'm such a looser for not aiding the impaired. Not to mention the potential hit the site takes with Google and others (so much hand wringing in SEO) lol.

Thanx for your input and the props on our portfolio. I'll be checking back

FYI I'm working form an 800mhz Power MAC (Ti Book) G4 with 1024 ram. I use Firefox for my main browser and Fireworks, Dreanweaver and a nifty little tool called Style Master: http://www.westciv.com

__________________
Every journey begins with the fisrt step.

We're not just building websites…
We're building relationships!

Visit us www.dcvistudios.com