Please Critique Site Re-design : http://www.picnicplaza.com

algreer · #1 (**permalink**) 12-15-2003, 02:56 PM

I previously request a critique of my site and received valuable feedback from several people. I spent the last two weeks re-designing my site based on that feedback and think I have a better design. I welcome any comments offered. I'd like to give thanks publicly here in the forum to Melissa French of Netcastles - http://www.NetCastles.com or her logo design. She created a very nice logo for my site.

tikanet · #2 (**permalink**) 12-15-2003, 04:01 PM

There are many good things about your site, but it is not often that someone solicits the opinion of others around here with the sole expectation of receiving only adulation. My comments are intended to be constructive, and I will keep them brief.

The green that dominates the look of the site is not particularly appetizing. I have been ill and have discharged sputum and other substances of a similar color. Seeing that green surround your very attractive baskets does nothing to induce me to buy.

Your masthead, that area above your name that looks like a vehicle speeding through a tunnel at the left and someone walking toward a T, fails to convey anything about picnic baskets. It smacks of "template;" unrefined, unaltered, and uninspired "template."

I'm going to skip ahead to your Contact Us page, because a site's interactive functionality is so crucial to success on the Web. Your form makes a call to mysite.apolloservers.com (port 8080). I don't know how much you were involved with setting this up and customizing it, but their handling of the data being sent you by potential customers needs to be reworked so that at least some error trapping is incorporated. As it is, total nonsense or nothing at all can be entered and submitted quite without notifying the sender that anything is wrong. While it's not true with all, when I encounter this slipshod sort of programming, I lose all confidence in the vendor. Your credibility is jeopardized by allowing this to exist.

Well, I said brief, so that's it from this peanut gallery.

netcastles · #3 (**permalink**) 12-19-2003, 06:35 PM

The background color should match the background image, I got green before the image loaded and it was jarring.
It looks unfinished.
I like the background, but why "H"?
I've got a grey square on the top left.
The gold line is ok with the background, but the green lines don't match (the ones between the buttons/links on the left). Maybe make those the same gold color.
Some of the images on the top are a little rough around the edges, and they don't click to anywhere. I'm not sure what some of them are. At the least use your alt tags to describe your site.
I was looking for the top graphics to tell me your site's name and what it is about. Then I tried the left buttons. Then I tried the first line of text.
Try something like this on top:

info202 · #4 (**permalink**) 12-19-2003, 07:14 PM

In addition to the previous comments, I will say that there seems to be no consistency to your site...your title does not appear on any page but your home page...
your services page has a completely different background as do the pages for the individual pages... each page in your site should have the same background and your title.
Also, I noticed that you are not consistent with your fonts... the font used for the links is different from the body font.. try for consistency.
Also, the title banner that netcastles made is perfect... you should use it.

algreer · #5 (**permalink**) 12-20-2003, 02:54 AM

Believe it or not Netcastles, I am a nitpicker as well, just ask my wife. Every since I left Yayhoo, oops, sorry Yahoo I have been very critical of my new site. I have changed the look twice and am still totally unsatisfied, (contrary to my original posting of how much I liked it, I actually reviewed it the next day and thought...what was I thinking?). Point is, is that site improvement continues and this is definitely a work in progress. I definitely like the logo/title image Netcastles. I may use it. Thanks.

inevitable1 · #6 (**permalink**) 12-20-2003, 05:20 AM

On review or your site, the main thing that jumps out at me is that I found my eyes straining to read the copy. Even though the text is bold, it's still on a very busy background. I suggest that you create a simple table cells that have a solid colored background (possibly a lighter shade of the lightest color of your busy (and very beautiful) background), and then insert your body text inside the table. I've been to sites that have done what you've done and guess what? CLICK, I was outta there. I'm a newbie too, and I have a similar "pre-background color loading" problem on my site as well. It seems that FrontPage 2000 included the non-vivid color template underneath my vivid color selection, but it's a pleasant yellow. Your pre-background seems to have "hidden" text on it. If that's the case be careful, search engines will ban you if this happens to be a disguise for loading up on keywords.

All the best, hope my 2 cents amount to somethin' for ya!

algreer · #7 (**permalink**) 12-20-2003, 02:52 PM

I thank everyone for their opinion and they do not go unheeded. Though not necessary, I prefer to point out that I do not have hidden keywords but I agree, Inevitable1, it could be construed as such but I pray that I have fallen victim to pre-templates. Lesson learned here is stay away from templates if at all possible. I am re-designing my website with "raw" html. Netcasle if you're out there, thanks for the title banner. I owe you a link from my site when its redone. More advertising never hurts right?

zeroflux · #8 (**permalink**) 12-20-2003, 07:28 PM

I love the background texture. A few suggestions:

1. I would change the bg color to either white, or a color better matching the background image (beige, cream...etc.).

2. I would use shadowed transparent gifs for the basket images at the top of the page so they sit directly on the background canvas.

3. I would place most of the body text in filled tables (either a regular white background, or in tables with bgimage background perhaps with the same texture as the page, but set to very high transparency on a solid light beige or white.)

Hope this helps. The navigation and layout is pretty clean.

algreer · #9 (**permalink**) 12-28-2003, 09:08 PM

I previously request a critique of my site and received valuable feedback from several people. I spent the last two weeks re-designing my site based on that feedback and think I have a better design. I welcome any comments offered. I'd like to give thanks publicly here in the forum to Melissa French of Netcastles - http://www.NetCastles.com or her logo design. She created a very nice logo for my site.

paulhiles · #10 (**permalink**) 12-29-2003, 08:39 AM

Hi Anthony,

I liked your site's consistent navigation and color scheme, however I found quite a few problems.. mostly with the use of un-optimised images. The logo size is 650 x 100 pixels, however the homepage displays the image at 590 x 90, resulting in distorted text, etc. Also, at 36.45kb the image file size is quite large.. I'm sure you can optimise still further! ;-)

I admire your clean code and the way you've used layers.. however you need to check for cross-browser compatibility. In Mozilla Firebird the <ilayer> used is squashed to the extreme right hand side.. and in IE when a visitor resizes their browser this same layer overlaps the logo! Also the baskets-for-2 image is a stonking 1336.83kb!! This has suffered from an even bigger shrinkage than the poor logo.. as the original width is 932px, and it's currently displayed at 350px! An additional thought... when you get this layer sorted out... it would be good to link this rotating gif image (basket-for-2) to your store section.

I think you need to address these issues fairly urgently.. let me know if you need any help with optimising your site's images.

Paul

PS. I also wouldn't use such a decorative font on your menu buttons.. this could be difficult to read for many users.. best to keep it simple and emphasise readability!

paulhiles · #11 (**permalink**) 12-29-2003, 09:37 PM

A quick way to fix your rogue layer intruding into the text on resize would be to set the distance from the left of the browser window (rather than the right). So you would adjust the associated div style as shown below:

Code:

#featuring {
   position: absolute;
   top: 100px;
   left: 510px;
   width: 360px;
   height: 160px;   
 }

Personally though, I think you may have to re-jig your layout. Try creating a test page and use colored borders and different background colors with your div layers in order to make them visible... and then see how they work at different resolutions, and with various monitors. Hope that helps.

Paul

voodooboy · #12 (**permalink**) 12-30-2003, 05:31 PM

A big ditto on Paul's comment regarding your links. The scrolly text is cool in print, but not of screen resolution and not for those that have eye problems. I have pretty good vision and found it very hard to read.

My only other comment would be to finish up your Miva cart. Change the graphic links to more closely resemble your color scheme and get your logo up there in the header so people don't think they where pushed to another site. I know Miva is a costly app. but with the right tweaks it can look really good.

Keep it up. Good work.

GSO · #13 (**permalink**) 12-30-2003, 05:49 PM

Hello Al Greer,
This is my first visit to your site. My first impression is; this is a good site. I only have two gripes. I use 1024x768 screen resolution and it is rare for me to have to use my vertical scroll. Personally, I believe that you have too much content on your first page. Reduce your horizonal scrolling with a clean simple design and get them inside your site. Good luck.

netcastles · #14 (**permalink**) 01-05-2004, 09:05 AM

I have text running all over. The first paragraph ("Stylish picnic baskets...") is on top of the logo image. The paragraph under Picnic Baskets is over the red box on the right. I am using IE 6.0 with a 1280x1024 display.
That logo was just something I whipped up to illustrate my point, if you have something specific in mind I could help you work on that. I'm glad you liked it.
I like the Featuring box, that draws attention.

woodgifts · #15 (**permalink**) 01-05-2004, 09:36 AM

Viewed your site using Netscape 7
At first the header looked like a mistake what with all the img tags then the graphics come into play.
Something about the pink color just dosn't strike me as being associated with a picnic.
Went to the FAQ page--all the text is in one colum so to read one needs to page down to eternity.
The bold lettering "Frequently askes questions" covers the faded lettering.
I like the header graphics but it needs more definitve color?
Doug in the Woods of Idaho
www.wood-gifts.net

inevitable1 · #16 (**permalink**) 01-05-2004, 10:31 AM

Wow. What a readable site now ;o) I stayed much longer than before. Nice job. I noticed an overlap of text on your sitemap near the bottom. When I think picnic I think green as in grass. Have you given any thought about adding something like Hunter Green to your color scheme. I like the shade of pink you've chosen, it reminds me of a shade you'd see in a sunset or in rainbow sherbert (yum!).

algreer · #17 (**permalink**) 01-05-2004, 03:49 PM

To all who gave much appreciated input/opinion, I reciprocate with the a thank you. As everyone should know a website in my opinion is a living document prone to change and movement within...blah blah blah. The point is many of the boo boo's witnessed earlier have been alleviated to some degree. Did someone say hunter green?. I am kinda tossing that one around. Oh can somebody please tell me how or where to get a script that assists different readers with different browsers. I have seen it in source code on other sites but I don't think the code would work for me. Any ideas?

inevitable1 · #18 (**permalink**) 01-05-2004, 04:56 PM

You might want to check out (in my order of preference) http://www.dynamicdrive.com and http://javascript.internet.com.

RicInACloak · #19 (**permalink**) 01-06-2004, 05:35 AM

well previous comments said green,
then a pattern, and now its pink,
all i can say is try again.

there is a lot of code being downloaded, is it all required? There are also heaps of apparently extraneous and comments and programmer instructions, im guessing you use an html editor, thats adding this stuff.

In opera the fonts get smaller, im fairly sure it has to do with the calls on the style sheet (specifically H5), go to
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator-uri.html
to validate your style sheet, it may help you to track the problem.

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