Please review The Gathering 2009

thindenim · #1 (**permalink**) 10-26-2007, 11:14 AM

Hi all,

Just finished the development of a site for a major event taking place in Scotland in 2009, The Gathering. Would be grateful for feedback on the site - all the usual things: - design, navigation etc.

Ignore the splash page btw, I told them numerous times that they went out of fashion in the 80s but they ignored my advice.

Site is at http://www.clangathering.org. More background information on the festival on the BBC at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/...st/7056132.stm

Thanks,
David

**mjtaylor** · #2 (**permalink**) 10-26-2007, 11:46 AM

Very, very attractive site. I like it.

I might prefer a little more width for the main text area ... in fact, the overall width could be increased, I think, but results will vary on different resolutions, as it is perfect in a 800 X 600 screen ... I view the world at 1024 X 768.

And I predict Webnauts will like your accessibility page.

Very nice.

Cheers, MJ

thindenim · #3 (**permalink**) 10-26-2007, 01:44 PM

Thanks MJ, I have been deliberating recently over whether to up the width of my fixed width sites. I did however read a few good articles which suggested it better to keep things at 800px as text is easier to read in narrow columns, i.e. newspapers. I may move up to 1024px as a width shortly though as it does seem to be a waste of screen space.

I'm highly jealous of the links they are getting. Think they must already have picked up over 100 high quality links from clan sites, press etc in under a week. They've also had about 500 people register for their email newsletter already.

If only I could get that sort of response on my retail site!

Paul B · #4 (**permalink**) 10-27-2007, 01:19 PM

The table-less code verifies and the design and colours are quite unusual.

Splash pages. Tell your client they are old-fashioned and add another barrier between the rest of the site for every visitor and ever search engine spider.

The home page background image has a real jagged join at abot 1500 pixles width. This background would be cool if it fitted say the background of the banners. But it doesn't and doesn't realy fit with the banners in the clans and what's on sections.

The menu systen isn't that obvoius or intuitive. (Horizonal is the main and the side vertical the sub menus.) It took me a while to dicover this and could mean some visitors don't view all the site. I suggest labeling them 'Main Menu' or 'Sections' and 'Sub Menu', though this is clumsy. Or putting all the menus in one.

amorphic8 · #5 (**permalink**) 10-27-2007, 05:41 PM

Very well-designed site. Congrats on doing a great job.

I have only two small suggestions (besides removing the splash screen, which you already know you should do):

1. remove the W3C badges from the bottom of the page. They don't add anything to the user experience and people may be confused if they clicked on one of them. Most users don't know about code validation, they don't care about code validation and the people who DO know and care will be able to recognize this as a quality site without the 'help' from the badges.
Admittedly, you're one up on most of the sites that get posted here that include those badges: your site actually DOES validate; Congratulations! but ditch the badges anyway.

2. I would remove the 'interactive' link from the main navigation until there is some content there. 'coming soon' etc... is all quite disappointing to visitors; they went there for the sexy 'interactive' content you promised, and you didn't keep that promise; all you gave them was another indefinite promise ("coming soon"). Bummer.

Get rid of the link for now, and when the podcasts, forum, or whatever else it is that you will put there is ready, re-activate the link.

2a. perhaps even when you do re-activate the link, you might want to consider using a different word; 'Interactive' is so overused that it practically has no meaning anymore; isn't this whole web thing supposed to be interactive? just a thought

great job; good luck

Clicken · #6 (**permalink**) 10-27-2007, 07:43 PM

#4 out of 2,060,000 results in google for the term clan gathering... Way to go!

On this page...

Travel and Accomodation | The Gathering 2009 ... the links for Directions and Map of Holyrook Park do not have the purple background.

Nice work!

ran_dizolph · #7 (**permalink**) 11-08-2007, 01:03 PM

The site seems well thought out, and well put together. My only real beef is that there's too much purple going on.

Even if you just worked a little green or something into the header graphic, i think it would lighten the visual load. The purple just seems to make the site seem heavy to me.

Other than that, good job.