Review www.emilitary.org please site for military families

cpeabody · #1 (**permalink**) 01-08-2004, 03:45 PM

We are a new website for military families. Please review for content and design. All comments are appreciated.

www.emilitary.org

cpeabody · #2 (**permalink**) 01-09-2004, 11:43 PM

We are a start up business for military families, a community website. I would appreciate reviews of this website. Thank you so much for your time and efforts!

Caroline

Weedy Lady · #3 (**permalink**) 01-10-2004, 12:04 AM

I think your site is a great idea. My hubby is retired career USMC, so I thought the least I could do was review your site.

The layout is a bit different from most sites, but seems to work. Usually there is a list of links, whereas you use the logos of each service. Since this is specifically for military people it should work.

The one change I would suggest is to remove the background graphic -- or use one that is so light that it is just a very soft "touch" of texture. Understand that this comes from a person who is comitted to backgrounds! It's just that your grey mottled graphic makes the page look messy, and grey is rather depressing also.

I did not check your source code for meta tags, etc. Sorry for the omission. I wish you the best of luck with the site.

BTW, I have several military appreciation cards on my web site which you might want to look at in case you would want to link to any of them. They are on the general contents page, click on "military".
http://www.happydaycards.com/contentsall.htm
If you want, I can make a special "home" page for these cards so you would need just one link.....I probably should do that anyway.

(My apologies to the moderators if this sounds like a commercial.....it is meant sincerely to provide another source for this web master.)

Sincerely, The Weedy Lady

Weedy Lady · #4 (**permalink**) 01-10-2004, 12:09 AM

I think your site is a great idea. My hubby is retired career USMC, so I thought the least I could do was review your site.

The layout is a bit different from most sites, but seems to work. Usually there is a list of links, whereas you use the logos of each service. Since this is specifically for military people it should work.

The one change I would suggest is to remove the background graphic -- or use one that is so light that it is just a very soft "touch" of texture. Understand that this comes from a person who is comitted to backgrounds! It's just that your grey mottled graphic makes the page look messy, and grey is rather depressing also.

I did not check your source code for meta tags, etc. Sorry for the omission. I wish you the best of luck with the site.

BTW, I have several military appreciation cards on my web site which you might want to look at in case you would want to link to any of them. They are on the general contents page, click on "military".
http://www.happydaycards.com/contentsall.htm
If you want, I can make a special "home" page for these cards so you would need just one link.....I probably should do that anyway.

(My apologies to the moderators if this sounds like a commercial.....it is meant sincerely to provide another source for this web master.)

Sincerely, The Weedy Lady

Mack88 · #5 (**permalink**) 01-10-2004, 03:16 AM

Excellent site! It provides lot of information which can be used! One thing I would change would be on the sponsor's page. There are not any links that takes you to the other pages. I had to hit my back browser button, then proceed to the other pages! I wish you the best!

cpeabody · #6 (**permalink**) 01-10-2004, 03:51 PM

Thank you so much for the reviews. We are in the process of updating the pages to increase the ease of navigation. Our sales are launching in February, so yes---making sure the sponsor page has return navigation is vital.

I would love to have some more comments about navigation through the site- if anyone is interested, it is right now one of our ongoing issues since the site is content heavy- providing easy navigation back and forth and forward through is important. I am also newish to the design side of the house (a veteran user) and it is a struggle trying to look with fresh eyes when you are so neck deep in the code/design- content soup.

IF there are any more suggestions on this I would be ever so grateful.

--also, thanks to the comments on the background. It is the first time we have heard a "no confidence" on our mottled gray. Color is a problem with me. I -for the most part- do not like backgrounds, but I detest plain white even more (dont even get me started on black backgrounds, we will be here forever...my apologies to those who prefer black- I am just not in that club.). The one we have going seems to be the winner thus far, but I would be open to suggestion if anyone has a sample to review.

Weedy Lady · #7 (**permalink**) 01-10-2004, 08:07 PM

I can make a very light grey background for you if you wish. In fact, I would do that and include it here if I knew how to include it. I notice that other people have inserted graphics into their messages, but I can't figure how to do it other than post it to my web site and link to it that way. I'd just as soon do one for you and send it to you directly, though.

You can send me a private message if you want me to work on this for you, and I'll send a graphic or two
to your e mail that is on your site.

Sincerely, The Weedy Lady

cpeabody · #8 (**permalink**) 01-13-2004, 09:32 PM

Weedy Lady, Thanks so much for the offer, I talked it over with my partner and we decided to stay with our background for now. We are going to wait a few months and revisit.

Others, we are working on navigation issues right now. Any tips on how I could increase my user navigation from our forums (Invision Power Board Ware) to our main pages? IS this a common problem? Are there better forum programs out there that work with SQL? Any suggestions on this would be appreciated. http://www.emilitary.org/forums

Sorry, but we have it so you must register to look at forums because of the military thing.

Thanks a bunch.