Hi Everybody!

This is a new site I set up for my Post (we lost our .org domain). I'm a novice but then, I work for them free. I'd like any opinions or advice I can take back to the Board with me.

Thanks, in advance!

John

Interesting presentation ... but ...

* Too much of the fancy javascripts ... I don't mind sites changing the characteristics of my scroll bar, but a lot of people do not like it. The US flag next to the cursor is distracting for mouse control and slows down performance.
* Background image is nice but makes it hard to read and figure out what is going on. It's non-scrolling nature does not help and actually makes it hard to read the text.
* Presentation is inconsistent - jumps from one design to another from page to page.
* Organization is poor, things all over the screen. You have a nice, but busy background already, then a lot of little things all over the place.
* Content poor, lots of links to different things, but what is YOUR site about?

It's not a bad job for an initial effort. Just needs to be pushed a little more so that you have a more uniform and useful site overall.

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I can see exactly what you are trying to do here. I was the same way when I was new to web design. I would have so much java on my pages that it would make me love it for how it looks but annoy the hell out of visitors. Right now that I look at my past, I can see how much I have improved in my web design.

I know you are a beginner to this, but I would work harder designing a webpage JUST using html first. Start from scratch, add a nice color to the background. Also, I noticed you are using some tables. Try getting rid of the border and adding a background color that is similar to the web page background. See how it looks. Then add a couple of features like dhtml, and very little java that you think would make it look better. There is too much java on these pages...Also when I click on the links, it brings me to other sites. You don't want your visitors leaving your site.

I will return to check upon your work.

Jonathan Kingsbury
www.jonswebdesign.com

Right off the bat, the red for the menu is a horrible color. I went to check some more, but the site went down. This was at 11:47am Eastern. I will check it again later.

I agree that the content was all over the place. There was no clear deliniation between the information that is there. Did not get to check other pages.

edit:
Site is back up so I checked some more of it. You have 37 keywords and not a single one is used in the body of your page. Search engines will not list you because of things like that.

Your title page is really terrible to sit through. It takes too long and serves no real purpose.

In your meta tags, you have yourself listed for author,creator,formatter, generator,and publisher. That is a bit overkill.

I ran it through a validator and it comes back with 130 errors.

I agree that the flag on cursor should go. It is distracting.

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First off, welcome home and thank you for your service to our country.

I have to agree with the other posters as to the overall site.

One thing I have never seen before is I was on your site, and clicked the "Home" button on my browser to leave your site. Very interesting effect there!

Just to let you know, I added your Guest book link to our Vietnam Veterans chat listing page, at:
http://www.chatmag.com/topics/military/vietnamvets.html

Pete

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There are some insightful criticisms here from clearly experienced Web professionals. I want to make sure that I thank you for your time and effort -- Thank you!

I'm sure that I know what you mean by "too much Java Script" and more especially "annoying." There actually wasn't any Java Script in any of the pages. The whole of the effect had been created using .gif's META tags and CSS. I'm surprised you guys haven't seen that before.

I took the affects out, because the site is more about the people it might serve than my individual tastes. What we're left with is a flat, uninspiring page that clearly needs to be rethought.

The links to other veterans organizations and community resources are mandated, for Post web sites, by the The American Legion as noted on legion.com but perhaps I can re-organize them.

I'd like to raise a point myself though, about design and purpose. parades, flags, marching bands and Christmas trees are all unnecessary as well and maybe society is setting those things aside. I think they're desirable even if unnecessary. I think some affects are acceptable, in the interest of pageantry, for site that would seek to entertain or inspire patriotism for instance.

The goal that I seem to have not effected well wasn't to keep people on our sight, though the page is a launchpad that doesn't close itself, but to provide a compendium of resources for those who served the armed forces and might be having trouble with employment or getting the benefits which were promised to them. I think that's important because when I was in that position, I didn't know of anyone who would or could help.

We also wanted to insure that vital information got out to our membership.

The menu was a horrible color and I've removed the borders but what's left seems sad, maybe even morose. It clearly needs to be rethought as well. As Mr Kingsbury astutely noted, the buttons were text in a table with borders, so all but one of the keywords were used in the document. However, that table is in an Iframe so maybe it doesn't show as being "on the page." ...Another thing to rethink?

The errors produced by the W3C validator arise because of the DOCTYPE version 3.2 which I left at 3.2 because if you set it to a 4.0 version, you instantaneously lose the customization of the scrollbar, which some people would rather was grey. Any code beyond 3.2 is reported as an error.

I've gone more with what "doesn't not work" in most of the major browsers, while trying to implement the new standards, rather than limiting the possibilities for the standards sake.

If you look at many pages in Opera and Netscape instead of IE, you'll find they don't work well even it they validate OK. That's true of even some of the W3Schools.com pages.

This morning I was asked to take the resulting page and all these observations back to the Board and members of the Post, next meeting, to vote on whether to keep the site up and try to let it evolve or just take it down and rethink the whole concept.

Thanks again for all your valuable responses!

This is to advise that since the site did not seem to serve the Post and it's members well, in accordance with the rules for a Post Web site, the site has been removed from the Web.

Thanks again for your time!

Don't quit on yourself. Your only a good web designer if you practice web design. I would recommend redesigning the whole thing. Look at other sites on the internet. As you can see yours was different from most of them on the internet. Try your best to design another one.

Jonathan Kingsbury
www.jonswebdesign.com

I agree with RidinHighSpeeds, quitting will only get you one thing, and you don't want that, do you?

I do not like intro pages.

I do not like pages that change look and design from one to the next

I would get rid of the time and weather

You need a logo that tells about your business.

I would not open a new window for every page.

Unless you have worked out some type of link exchange with the other sites I would not have there link on my home page and would not have a button that looks the same as my nav. to take you away from my site.

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Hey Janeth!

Thanks for your input. For those of you wondering what Janeth is talking about, since I took theamericanlegion.com down, she looking at http://john.dodrill.name : my personal Web home.

I use that page as a launch pad to get to what I need real fast, which implies not going to someone else's page first. These services there have agreed to let me link to their site and it's a good thing for me. I didn't frame the resultant pages because it's not fair to those businesses who've put a lot of work into their service (and they're good services). I'm happy to let people know they're there.

The clock thing tells me exactly what time it is within 15 seconds so if I'm someplace where a question of what the EXACT time is, you can set your watch by this guys. It comes from a time-server, not your computer. (By the way, it works continually in every browser unless you have .gifs turned off.)

I had raised the issue of what would a potential employer think if the decided to pop out of my resume, at http://john.dodrill.name/resume.htm, just to see what was there.

This is my home page, Janeth. These are my Web tools! There isn't any business. Ok, http://thebestoftoons.net is mine but it isn't a business. It's fun free cartoons I've found around the Web and I put in one place for anyone and everyone to enjoy. It's free to me and to them with, no advertising and no membership, so it's not a business. (Yeah, I know the logo needs work and it needs to be brought up to W3 standards.) Check out PCWeenies if you go to that site. It's so cool!

The resounding theme I keep hearing is "keep people on your site, keep the site look uniform, minimize load time and Internet traffic."

I'd like to raise the issue again of design and purpose. None of my sites ever close my site out, ever! I may lose a visitor's attention momentarily but they have to close my page manually.

With respect to purpose, not all sites are business sites. Business sites should be business like, personal pages should be useful to the person, entertainment pages should be entertaining.... Am I wrong here? Are these standards so rigid they can't be enterpreted in the context of the site's purpose?

With respect to my sites at http://john.dodrill.name, I like the look, sort of, but it seems to me to be like one of those cars that's just got too much stuff on it and I don't know how to change that and still keep it useful.

Hi John!

I would suggest making it clear what is your header then having a menu, and breaking up that first page into many sub pages. That would make it easier on you, I think, while not hindering functionality.

I agree with you, there should definitely be different looks and feels to each and every website tailored to its specific purpose, it just that several rules seem to increase the viewing experience for your visitors as well as seperating you from all the 'n00bs' of web design.

Hope this helps. I'd say more, but homework beckons me and I've got school tommorrow!