Review of my site please

lindsay · #1 (**permalink**) 03-23-2006, 10:13 PM

I would love it if you could review my site www.graceannouncements.com

I have done as much cleanup that I can do and would love your advice and comments.

Thanks

Just4YouDesigns · #2 (**permalink**) 03-23-2006, 10:46 PM

I like it. It looks sweet, simply yet classy. It does a great job of describe what you have to offer, and I personally will keep you in mind for my bridal shower invitations (I'm engaged - I'll be getting married within the next two years)

The only thing I don't like about the site is that the top part links to the home page, but doens't "look" like a link.

Good Luck!

#3 (**permalink**) 03-24-2006, 01:16 AM

Lindsay,

I went to your site and really liked what I saw. The design of it is nice to look at and isn't cluttered. As Just4YouDesigns mentioned, it's simple yet classy.

The first thing I noticed when I went to your site was that it seemed like it took an awlfully long time to load.

I think on the birth announcements page, for Firefox (what I first viewed it in) you should have a feature to enlarge the images. I viewed the page again in IE and it seemed to work fine - enlarged the pictures as soon as it loaded. I would also add a back button, or some other option to navigate back instead of limiting the viewer to their back button on their browser.

The only other thing I would consider adding is on your contact information is maybe a telephone number. People like to be reassured that it is legitimate, and this would be a good way of doing so. A telephone number would allow your potential buyers to know that you're there for them to talk by phone and not just through a computer.

Overall I really like the design of the site! Keep up the good work!

MarcieZoob · #4 (**permalink**) 03-24-2006, 07:45 AM

The site is really pretty - very clean, nice colors and tasteful graphics.

From a user standpoint, consider adding mouseover effects to your menu.

When viewing samples (nice presentation, by the way), there's no way to navigate to the next sample area besides using the "Back" button in the browser and starting over again. Add some kind of navigation to every page, especially a more prominent Home page link (or add a link to your header / logo).

Put some focus on your copywriting. Right now your keywords are as follows:

Word - # Used - Density %
you - 17 - 6.39%
announcements - 7 - 2.63%
your - 7 - 2.63%
special - 6 - 2.26%
have - 6 - 2.26%

Many of your images are missing ALT attributes, especially your main header graphic.

Overall, it's a very nice site and I hope you do well online!

Faglork · #5 (**permalink**) 03-24-2006, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lindsay

I have done as much cleanup that I can do and would love your advice and comments.

Nice, clean look! Good "theming".

But "under the hood" you could cleanup some other issues as well:

- the ID "designs" is assigned twice

- you should mask your ampersands: & --> &

- your handling of IMG looks rather spammy:

Code:

[img]Images/styles.jpg[/img]

Additionally, this is not how the ALT tag is supposed to be used: It is meant to give functional information for text-only-browsers or UAs with graphics turned off.

- the "pre-order envelopes" graphic has no link. I guess it should have one.

- "birth announcements" leads to a flash page without prior warning. I would at least add a link title "Flash required".
(this could be done in pure CSS, btw)

- it is confusing that what looks like a horizontal menu bar is just a tag line. The font style is the same as the text links in the left nav bar. Try to make it look a bit different, at least add a rollover (preferably CSS) as Marcie said.

- mix of CSS and unneccesary inline formatting:

<td align="left" valign="middle" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="regular">
etc. etc.
Better put all formatting in your external CSS - site maintainance will be much easier. And the page will render faster.

- you really do not need constructs like

Code:

            <p align="center">
            </p>
            <p align="center">
            </p>
            <p align="center">
            </p>
            <p align="center">
            </p>
            <p align="center">
            </p>
            <p align="center">
            </p>
            <p align="center">
            </p>
            <p align="center">
            </p>
            <p align="center">
            </p>
            <p align="center">
            </p>
            <p align="center">
            </p>
            <p align="center">
            </p>
            <p align="center">

or

Code:

        <tr>
          <td align="center" valign="middle" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"></td>
        </tr>

This only bloats your code. Apply whitspace using CSS. Better put all formatting in your external CSS - site maintainance will be much easier (do I sound repetitive?).

In general, taking out all direct formatting and putting it in external CSS, you can reduce your code by (estimated) 50%. Did I say that it will be easier to maintain?

Also, you could do a bit about the 100k overall file size which makes the page load slow on low bandwidth connections.

From a typographical point of view: Don't center the main body text.

hth,
faglork

PS: I bet it was done in Dreamweaver ;-)

janeth · #6 (**permalink**) 03-24-2006, 01:56 PM

I'm not sure about the background color.

The header does not tell me anything about your business. Maybe if you added a tag line under the name that told a little about the business in the header.

I would try and work the name of the business into some type of logo and put a tag line under that.

I wouldn’t order from a business online that didn’t have a phone number and store address.

About all I saw, very nice looking and clean site.

lindsay · #7 (**permalink**) 03-24-2006, 03:59 PM

Thanks everyone for your great feedback. I am going to try to put those suggestions in place over the weekend. I just hope that I can understand some of the more detailed advice ;)

Oh and yes it was done in Dreamweaver ;) that noticeable!

Paul B · #8 (**permalink**) 03-24-2006, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lindsay

Oh and yes it was done in Dreamweaver ;) that noticeable!

Why are people knocking DW all of a sudden? You can't blame DW for this:


























I doesn't put this in automatically!

Paul B · #9 (**permalink**) 03-25-2006, 03:42 AM

....and. The menu is confusing. The text is black, centered and not underlined, nor does it change on mouseover. I don't think it's a good idea to use CSS to make menus not look like menus.

Also what distiguishes the side menu from the top list which looks like a menu, but isn't? Infact, as part of the top image this is linked to your index page...

Faglork · #10 (**permalink**) 03-27-2006, 03:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul B

Why are people knocking DW all of a sudden? You can't blame DW for this:




[...]

I don't. If at all, I blame it for the very . DW spills out a strange mix of direct formatting, inline CSS and external CSS which just makes just no sense and in many cases unnecessarily bloats the code. Additionally, it makes the pages hard to maintain with anything else than DW.

I do not know if there is an option in DW "put all formatting into an external CSS", but if this option exists, no one seems to know it.

faglork