http://www.windsorhog.com

ran_dizolph · #1 (**permalink**) 09-22-2005, 09:53 AM

Hi there,

K, this site is now officially posted here, and any comments, concerns, critisicms are greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

CJacobson · #2 (**permalink**) 09-22-2005, 11:54 AM

I just had a moment to give it a quick look...

It's nice that you have a logo, and that you use it as a watermark in various places... but it simply doesn't fit in others. On my screen, on the index page, behind "What you'll find here" and "Why join" the top and bottom of the logo get cut off.

I don't like to see "links" as the leftmost navigation button because it makes me think your first priority is linking visitors away from the site. I'd expect "pictures" would be the first priority of most Harley posers.

ran_dizolph · #3 (**permalink**) 09-22-2005, 12:13 PM

Thanks for the review...as far as the nav. goes, the way i looked at it was that;
a.) each page is equally as important as the other
and
b.) IF there was any page-priortity based on the menu, that it would start in the center and work its way out. That's just me tho :)

Other than that and the background image, how's the site performing??

And, between the time i posted and now, i've written a new image gallery program which is now live, so check taht out too!

Thank you!

CJacobson · #4 (**permalink**) 09-22-2005, 12:44 PM

Each page equally important? I doubt your logs will show them to be equally popular! Also, you repeated the sequence at page-bottom... Most Canadians read left-to-right. People are used to "Home" being at the left. If they migrate through the site, they'll tend to select options from left-to-right.

IMHO, the top navigation bar would look and work better with fewer buttons. Could "About" and "Contact" be combined? How about "News" and "Events"? ("News" would fit the button better than "News Letter", and it'd sound more urgent.) The remaining buttons would be easier to read. Perhaps you could write out the word "Pictures".

dharrison · #5 (**permalink**) 09-22-2005, 03:06 PM

I like your menu buttons, they are very seamless and the drop shadow is very original. I also like the fact that your website is layed out so it fits every size screen (including my 19" screen). Nice to know I'm not the only one who does that! :-)

The logo is also good, but the excessive repetition on the right-hand side is just "overkill" and it cuts off. Scale it down to one watermark and lose it at the bottom.

Also at 800x600 resolution, you get horizontal scroll-bars.

HTH.

ran_dizolph · #6 (**permalink**) 09-22-2005, 03:24 PM

Thanks for the replies! I kinda dig the menu too, so i think that's a keeper!

Anyways, i've gotten rid of the ghosted images from the right hand side of each page...obviously not to popular! Other than that, I'm open to other thoughts!

Thank you.

dharrison · #7 (**permalink**) 09-22-2005, 05:51 PM

Thats better. It opens up the website and the page doesn't look too cramped.

This is all picky stuff now, but it should really be mentioned...

1. You've got a stylesheet, but you also have style attributes in the <body> tag. Although on checking both your HTML and CSS are W3C compliant.

2. Make better use of links. 'Click here' is such a waste of a prime product and won't favour all that well when you come to promote your site to the search engines.

HTH. Though again this is very picky as there is now very little to criticise ;-)

nullvariable · #8 (**permalink**) 09-22-2005, 07:38 PM

hey ran_dizolph,
Great looking site. You can see that some effort was put into it. Another rarity around here is a site that validates the first time I look at it :D The only complaints are the size and speed. The page is just barely too large at 800x600 so it adds scroll bars and clips the side of the logo just a bit. The site would kill anyone on a slow dial-up connection. While it loads great on my connection I shudder to think what it would do to a slower connection :) It looks like it would take almost 40 seconds to load. My suggestion is not to get rid of anything really or change anything so much as to check with your users and see what types of connections they are on. You may decide to try and offer a text only version or something similar with slimmed down graphics for slower connections.

Hope this helps!
NV

ran_dizolph · #9 (**permalink**) 09-23-2005, 10:15 AM

Thank you both for the reviews!

As for the horiz. scroll bar @ 800 x 600, I realized this too late! Since then, everything else i've done has been designed at 780 to accomodate.

nullvariable, I will have a look into what most users are using as far as a connection speed is concerned. I'd hate to make soemone wait 40 seconds for the page !

Any further comments/critisicms are appreciated!

Thanks.

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