finally launched our new site!

pagetta · #1 (**permalink**) 04-14-2005, 06:43 AM

would love to hear your views on it - http://www.codestone.net

the design was decided before I started as the directors wanted it based on our orbis site, but if you could maybe give some seo tips, have a look around and offer any comments would be very much appreciated.

should probably warn you though not to download anything or you'll get a load of sales calls - unless you're interested in which case go for it!
thank you all!

adbart · #2 (**permalink**) 04-14-2005, 07:17 AM

Looks really great.

Nice, clean, professional design.

adbart · #3 (**permalink**) 04-14-2005, 08:04 AM

Is this just a funny coincidence, or is their software resposible for the "Page One" homepage at WPW?

From http://www.codestone.net:

From http://www.webproworld.com:

Notice the circles around the "1"s. It's quite a cool design idea actually.

pagetta · #4 (**permalink**) 04-14-2005, 08:06 AM

no thats nothing to do with us but I had noticed the similarity! we're changing that logo actually - any good logo design ideas sites?

adbart · #5 (**permalink**) 04-14-2005, 08:10 AM

Lol, fair enough. I'm surprised you're changing it, it looks good!

imported_G_P · #6 (**permalink**) 04-14-2005, 11:32 AM

On a lower quality monitor or one that isn't optimized the light gray text on white is hard to read. You may want to darken it a bit more to contrast.

SEO-wise the site looks in good shape. Different META tags for each page... I would remotely access the javascript you have on each page. I read somewhere that the more stuff in your head tag that push your content down the page the worse off it is.

Otherwise, nice site!

adbart · #7 (**permalink**) 04-14-2005, 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by G_P

the light gray text on white is hard to read. You may want to darken it a bit more to contrast.

I'll second that, it is quite hard to make out.

less1die · #8 (**permalink**) 04-15-2005, 12:16 PM

Definitely get rid of the (1). It was also done by realOne Player www.real.com some time ago. The site looks great though. Good clean lines, slightly complex navigation, small font for a young to middle age tech audience, unified colors. Love the lower case. No questions on the design. Great Job!

adbart · #9 (**permalink**) 04-15-2005, 12:18 PM

pagetta, whereabouts are you based? In London as well?

pagetta · #10 (**permalink**) 04-15-2005, 12:22 PM

thanks for tips - have made the text a shade darker - we arrived at that grey after much deliberation - having 3 directors who are never in at the same time makes work v difficult!

as for the (1) - we are currently in the process of re branding that section of the compnay - it will have its own website and own department soon. It has been pointed out before abut the real one player, but unfortunatley we're stuck with it for the minute!

appreciate the time taken to comment thank you

adbart · #11 (**permalink**) 04-15-2005, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adbart

pagetta, whereabouts are you based? In London as well?

ADAM Web Design · #12 (**permalink**) 04-15-2005, 11:17 PM

I'd have to agree with the others; your font colour is not only too light, the size would likely be a touch too small for the people most likely to sign the paycheques for it.

As far as the SystemOne logo goes, what if you did this?

Take the words SystemOne and leave them as you have them.
Take the digit 1, turn it 90 degrees clockwise, put it underneath the SystemOne, and stretch it so that it looks like it underlines the SystemOne part.

That'd look pretty cool.

One other minor point: where you have point-form lists with - characters, make them unordered lists. It'll indent the list elements themselves and make them easier to read.

Other than that, I think it's very well done. It's simple, it's a quick load, and it uses corporatespeak to bluster, baffle, and BS the user into buying your products (which normally I despise, but I am not your target market, so in this case, I understand completely.)

snowflakegirl · #13 (**permalink**) 04-17-2005, 03:45 PM

ditto on the font size.
I tried to change it to the largest size in my browser but nothing changed.
I see you are using external stylesheeting so I don't see how you are preventing people from resizing the font on their browsers. hmmm...

You've certainly got enough virtual real estate on the page to go a couple of sizes larger on the font to help us with reading glasses and bifocols.

Also I noticed that even though you have an extensive style sheet going you are using tables to encase the code, plus you're using those nasty little invisible images pixals as spacers instead of using the table's natural cellpadding/cellspacing to format.

There are so many examples of tableless design available, you site would be an easy one to adapt I think. Heck, you're halfway to being an accessible site already!

You might take a look at the Netscape print review.
It misses a lot of text.

that's it!

snowflakegirl
http://www.paperchrismons.com

pagetta · #14 (**permalink**) 04-18-2005, 06:26 AM

thanks snowflakegirl, I will have a look at that.

The problem is that this website is only a very small part of my job - I am responsible for all online marketing and optimisation of 2 other sites as well. As a result, I really wanted to learn more css so as to get rid of table design and horrid pixel gifs, but I just didn't get chance, and I don't have the facilities to practice at home.

I tried some experiments at first, but the time schedule was tight and it sort of fell on the back burner - I love the designs and cleanliness that css facilitates, hopefully in my new flat I will get the internet and so can crack on learning more for the next site!

The site fully validates with w3c valida html and css. As for the text, I think it must be bacuase I have it as 10px, not as a relative value, so I will change that asap.

thanks for all your comments,

we have kept the content mostly similar, and the keywords and meta tags the same as the old site, as well as all the urls, so we are hoping that our positions in the serps will stay high!

adbart - I'm based in the south west of the UK not made it up to the big smoke yet!!

webhost1 · #15 (**permalink**) 04-18-2005, 12:45 PM

Good looking site. Don't care for the latest news speed. Might slow it down a little more. Made me look at that more than the rest of the page.

webhost1
www.yourweb.info

Quote:

Originally Posted by pagetta

would love to hear your views on it - http://www.codestone.net

the design was decided before I started as the directors wanted it based on our orbis site, but if you could maybe give some seo tips, have a look around and offer any comments would be very much appreciated.

should probably warn you though not to download anything or you'll get a load of sales calls - unless you're interested in which case go for it!
thank you all!

soho360 · #16 (**permalink**) 04-18-2005, 01:01 PM

I guess I am going to be the one person who says that the fonts are fine. I have no problem reading the text at all, but it's not about you or me but about your target market and therefore it would most likely be best to darken the font some into order to make it as readable as possible.

As for increasing the font itself, I would be careful with and about that because a font's size actually lends itself to the overall balance of the website, therefore making it to big can throw things out of wack.

The only problem I have with the website is the headmass or the image span below your topmost navigation. As a design preference/style I have never been a fan of the style where the image block remains beyond the home page of a corporate style website. As a matter of personal style preference I would have gone another way.
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http://www.soho360.com/
http://weblog.soho360.com/ - Becoming a Part of Your Business Family

snowflakegirl · #17 (**permalink**) 04-19-2005, 04:28 PM

The designer must always allow the user the ability to change a page's font size on the user's browser.
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020819.html

In this case I was not able to change the font size with my browser's controls therefore had a hard time reading the page. If I were looking for information such as what this site has to offer, and was faced with font too small to be read comfortably, I wouldn't hesitate to look elsewhere.

As far as largeer font throwing the site out of whack - you have plenty of room on your site to grow a point or two.

Snowflakegirl

http://www.patrioflakes.com

pete200677 · #18 (**permalink**) 04-28-2005, 01:45 PM

Really nice site Pagetta, i think you have got it bang on.