Website Review Please www.yourhobby.co.uk

[grayspam]

Hi,

I have been working on my website for a while now, and I would be very grateful for any thoughts and feedback please. This is my first attempt and the site is basically a site to introduce people to different and new hobbies. Just a taster really, of what is available. I plan to add about two hobbies per week.

Yes the site is still in it's infancy, but I have really enjoyed making the site and it is something I have been able to complete, along with my 13 year old son, which for me is great.

I would appreciate any idea's for improving the site in the future. Thank you very much.

Grayspam...

[blitzen]

First impression - I like it. It's clean and immediately tells me what it's about.
Colors designed for your target. Nice. I like the "Got a minute?" - gets my attention.

[jlewis01]

Very clean looking site. The colors all work very well together. I don’t like how small the lettering is in the menu. You have extra room to make them larger. Also I don’t like all the lines on the first page. Some of the lines doing nothing but separating images. Some of the images are anchor tags and some are not. To me that is a little confusing because they all are formatted exactly the same. I really enjoyed the survey on the latest news page. But again you had links on the page that are not clear. Overall I like it.

[weegillis]

Some hobbies we don't see listed are, programming, web programming, web development, interface design, ..., &c. Seeing as a theme is used on the site one falls to the assumption that none of these are in one's own hobby scope? Just ribbing you.

As your project evolves, the stuff under the hood is going to get dated, and maintenance and upgrade will be required. You're using an outdated theme that utilizes old-world code better suited to old-world browsers. But, fear not. Make any of the above a hobby and you will be able to upgrade the theme yourself. Or, better, while your site is still young, invest in the X6 version, and get all the latest code and markup, likely in HTML5, and very likely cross-browser compatible CSS3, as well as the latest in JavaScript, aka jQuery, et al. THESE are the markup and coding styles to sink your teeth into if you're just starting up in the hobby.

Forget working with the old stuff. It is all but forgotten on most people's radar. Master the new code and be a master of your own site, right down to the last custom feature. Hopefully then somebody will be able to describe this hobby in a way I've never succeeded in describing it. "Sounds like work to me, how can you do it for so many hours at a time?" Or, "Why would anyone pick such a boring hobby?" (Obvious that this person doesn't do Sudoku, either.)

I like your site, and I especially like the fact that it is a father/son joint hobby, and obviously showing results. I think in time you and he will arrive at far different conclusions than at the present to many of the questions and bewilderment you encountered during your build, and will come up with new ways to tackle old 'issues'. (By this I refer to the umpteen compromises along the way toward launching a site. These end up on my 'permanent to do list' until they are tackled, some, years later. Anything but hold up the launch.)

It's off to a good start, and as sites go, they all evolve or are abandoned, one of the two. I see yours evolving. Best wishes!