http://www.electricaltestbooks.com
Can I please have some people review this site for me. It's a site of a friend and it's his first site, so if you can review it and give some constructive critisum, that would be much appreciated.

If you would like me to review your site then simply tell post one thing you like about my friends site and I will do a full review of yours.

In return I will review a few sites, on these forums myself.

Thank you.

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I would take away the sound efects. It scared the hell out of me when I first visited the site. The mouse effects I think is a little childish. I found it a bit distracting. Add more pages. The search box is hiding, it look like a unnamed bar. The visa cards ...add some words ..pay here,chose payment etc..

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have to agree , mouse trails do my head in if its a first attempt not that bad , try using some proper software like frontpage - or dreamweaver and lose the template make something from scratch as you learn a lot more , if its any use I think 1and1 internet are giving away dreamweaver with hosting packages , also didnt notice any meta info or alt tag info

good luck with it

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Just woke up the whole family and scared the heck out of the dog with the sound effects... 5:05 a.m. lol....

Hi Blackicicle - like the other reviewers I suggest losing the sound. Sites that load a sound file on initial open can be an embarrasment to people browsing from their office PC who maybe should be doing other things...

Similarly - the mouse trails are just irritating. I get the impression your friend has taken some delight from finding that he can do it - but just because he can do it, doesn't mean he should!

For a site selling relatively expensive speciality technical books and test equipment I'm not sure the jokey approach (with Frankenstein and 'don't mess with high voltage') really works - I think a more staid presentation would be more appropriate.

The standard 2 col + banner layout is a good choice for this site though - makes it clear and easy to navigate - but the site has a horizontal scroll bar at anything below 1024 x 768 resolution - where most try to support down to 800 x 600 without horizontal scroll.

I like the dappled background - it's not too prominent and is easy on the eye - but the grey banner seems a bit dull. A shade of blue seems an obvious choice for an electrical site - maybe with a little red / yellow to add a spark of colour.

The typeface on the banner is heavily pixellated on my display which creates a kind of 'poor quality' impression - I would suggest using text for this - both to display better and for search engine optimisation - but I don't know how much control you have with Sitebuilder - which is what the site appears to be done with.

My main advice to your friend would be first to take it a bit further with Sitebuilder in terms of getting the structure and content sorted, but to plan to move to XHTML / CSS later, which will enable a more professional finish and be more search engine friendly. There is a nice simple 2col layout at http://bluerobot.com/web/layouts/layout1.html

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Thanks guys for all the replies, especially Byzantium, you suggested most of the things I wanted to tell him, expecially the 1024 x 768 resolution point (He's quite adimant about having it full page). I'll point him to your posts. (Just wanted him to hear it from others)

Again big thanks! And if there is anything else good or bad that you see then feel free to post it.

Blackicicle

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