I've updated my website - Feedback please

[Tom™]

UPDATE - Credit Crunch beating Web Design!

http://www.digitalshadow.co.uk

I have changed alot now, looking much better.

I'm looking for feedback from outside my friends and family. So please, let me know what you think

http://www.digitalshadow.co.uk

Thankyou

Thomas Broad

[amh01]

looks pretty good mate nice and simple to navigate about wich is the big thing for me!!!

looking Swish!!

[Tom™]

Thankyou, I've tried hard to make the website as simple to use as possible.

[das_Chaos]

[empsburna]

Font Type/Size needs to be more structured, but apart from that it looks good.

[Tom™]

Font Type/Size needs to be more structured, but apart from that it looks good.

go on.... what you mean?

[empsburna]

Font Type/Size needs to be more structured, but apart from that it looks good.

go on.... what you mean?

No need for underlined links, change of colour is enough.

The text size of the services part is different to the text under the welcome section, it looks out of place.

Portfolio doesn't need to be capitalised and there seems to be comma's everywhere.

Apart from my picky points it looks excellent!

[Tom™]

Font Type/Size needs to be more structured, but apart from that it looks good.

go on.... what you mean?

No need for underlined links, change of colour is enough.

The text size of the services part is different to the text under the welcome section, it looks out of place.

Portfolio doesn't need to be capitalised and there seems to be comma's everywhere.

Apart from my picky points it looks excellent!

I will go through the site with a fine tooth comb and sort it out, thankyou

[Tom™]

ok changed some things, now got a live help system.

[Beaker]

I am just not sure - there is something about it that as a prospective customer would want me to stay clear as it doesn't look professional enough.

(I am trying to be honest here so sorry if I offend you it isn't my intention).

[Tom™]

i presume your ISP is freedom2surf.

I've tried to make the site appeal to people who dont know much about hosting or the internet in general. Local shops run by families that want to start to start selling or advertising on the internet.

I could make the site look like all the other hosting sites, or i could make it look like all the other web design sites, i've tried to strike up a happy medium.

I admit that the site isn't like alot of the other hosting sites, but I'm hoping that if someone sees my advert, or receives a flyer, then when they visit the website, they will be able to navigate it with ease.

[Tom™]

someone who is with bt just looked at my portfolio

[Beaker]

i presume your ISP is freedom2surf.

It was once upon a time. I think tiscali own them at the moment.

[Ritchie]

Looks quite good,

Few picky points (but i guess that’s what your after)

I'm not keen on the dark blue text in the light blue menu bar (but that’s a personal preference)

The homepage with the packages on looks a little confusing, you say your after a simple hassle free approach but when i first look at the site, i see all these acronyms and codes, which mean nothing to me and put me off. When you click on the web hosing like, you get your speal which is ok, but i'd try and put an overview, or an intro to each of the packages, so i could find the one i want quicker

DS 100 - perfect for uploading pictures and having a e-mail addy or what ever

Then let people link to more details pricing etc

I personally like to know a little about a company i'm going to use, i would look for a little history, something about who runs it, that sort of thing, i'm also a bit picky about not having a phone number i can ring, but then thats me with my money again.

Looking good tho, but as others have said, i personally wouldn't be comfortable parting with my money on it yet.

Trying to be helpful rather than annoying

Ritchie

[Tom™]

all valid points, will go through it and work on it some more

thankyou

[Craig]

Visually, at a glance, it's not bad at all.

I do however have some feedback and suggestions for you.

I'm not keen on the dark blue text in the light blue menu bar (but that’s a personal preference)

Actually, that more than personal preference. Not only is it good practice to ensure sufficient contrast exists (typically between foreground and background elements) it is also necessary for accessibility purposes.

Tom, I advise you to read up on accessibility issues. Start here:
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

2.0 has been finalised, but is rather more involved than 1.0!

As regards feedback, a quick look using Firefox 3 resulted in the following:

Main content container area: insufficient contrast between background image and left-hand menu. I recommend losing the background image altogether, or at least putting a border around the container.

Content header: Unstyled 'Live support' link text looks ugly in comparison to the rest of the page.

Main navigation: Text looks 'fuzzy'. I recommend using a darker blue if you are going to address this.

Banner area: background images are unnecessarily weighty. Consider optimising them - they should not really need to be much larger than 50kb.

Left-hand navigation: insufficient contrast between background and text. It's rather painful here.

Main content area: headings "web hosting", "web design" and "domain names" look odd centred, in relation to the text that follows. (Also, using different font colours beneath those headings detracts from a professional image and, in the case of the green, contrasts poorly with the background)

Footer area: font sizes are too small. Contrast is also an issue here.

General
In addition to the above, I would recommend looking at your use and application of headings. You should use <h1><h2><h3> etc and style them, rather than <span> tags and associated rules. (Accessibility issues!). The first word of a heading should begin with a capital letter. If you are going to break that rule, do it consistently - don't have some headings beginning capitalised, others not.

The overall navigation is a little bit confusing, to be honest. The switching between sites really exacerbates this. I started to think about what I might recommend to improve matters, but my head began to hurt ... (No, it's not that bad - I'm just a bit too tired to seriously think about the whole information architecture side of things)

Oh ... one more thing. Don't ever have a prominent link (such as one from a main/secondary menu) that leads to a 'Coming soon' page. Don't link to pages at all, until they are ready.

You're getting better all the time. The trouble is, the more we learn, we begin to realise just how much more we have to learn!

[Tom™]

thankyou for that post, it is amazing how you let things stay as they are even though you know you should do something about them, thankyou for making me realise that I should be changing these things.

Will post another reply once I have adjusted everything

[Tom™]

Visually, at a glance, it's not bad at all.

I do however have some feedback and suggestions for you.

I'm not keen on the dark blue text in the light blue menu bar (but that’s a personal preference)

Actually, that more than personal preference.

Changed

Tom, I advise you to read up on accessibility issues. Start here:
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

2.0 has been finalised, but is rather more involved than 1.0!

Was looking at that the other week actually, shame on me

Main content container area: insufficient contrast between background image and left-hand menu. I recommend losing the background image altogether, or at least putting a border around the container.

done

Content header: Unstyled 'Live support' link text looks ugly in comparison to the rest of the page.

working on that

Main navigation: Text looks 'fuzzy'. I recommend using a darker blue if you are going to address this.

changed

Banner area: background images are unnecessarily weighty. Consider optimising them - they should not really need to be much larger than 50kb.

ran the site through a load speed test, it came out within the limits even for 56k modems, however, I will look into further compression of the images, Just deperately dont want there to be too much image quality degredation.

Left-hand navigation: insufficient contrast between background and text. It's rather painful here.

changed

Main content area: headings "web hosting", "web design" and "domain names" look odd centred, in relation to the text that follows. (Also, using different font colours beneath those headings detracts from a professional image and, in the case of the green, contrasts poorly with the background)

changed and sorted

Footer area: font sizes are too small. Contrast is also an issue here.

changed and sorted

The first word of a heading should begin with a capital letter. If you are going to break that rule, do it consistently - don't have some headings beginning capitalised, others not.

changed

The overall navigation is a little bit confusing, to be honest. The switching between sites really exacerbates this.

understood, will look into this

[Tom™]

footer didn't update properly, that is changing now.

[xuk]

I knot diddly about all this but, i've just been watching your banner where it starts with the base jumper then the orange bit sort of pushes him out of the way and i was waiting for the 'hand' to get pushed out the way but it just stops and reloads (don't know if that's right word), which seems odd

My tuppence worth

[Tom™]

i agree.

I am trying to figure out how to code flash so that onmouseover the slider will slide over, then on mouse off after 5 seconds it will go back

[Tom™]

The overall navigation is a little bit confusing, to be honest. The switching between sites really exacerbates this.

right i've worked on this, i'm just updating the sites to reflect the changes, there are still individual sites, but the way they are integrated is less intrusive

[Beaker]

I have just been viewing the site on a different set-up (smaller screen size) and a lot of the text overlaps on top of each other.

Also as a recommendation I suggest you make the site standards compliant (to xhtml) if you are advertising web design.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http% ... ne&group=0

[Tom™]

I was waiting for that, what size screen did you view it on?

[Beaker]

14.1" with 1024x768 resolution.

[Tom™]

hmmm

i've viewed the site on a eee 900, 1024*600 and the site displays fine in firefox3 ie 7 and ie 8

maybe your text size is set to high in the browser, i will have to look into this

[Tom™]

ie seems to display it fine, even if you adjust font size

however, if you zoom in firefox it makes things overlap

[Beaker]

Yes I am using firefox 3 on ubuntu.

[Tom™]

Yes I am using firefox 3 on ubuntu.

right back to the drawing board

or you could just press

ctrl and 0

[Tom™]

I have just been viewing the site on a different set-up (smaller screen size) and a lot of the text overlaps on top of each other.

I've changed some things, it shouldn't be as much of a problem now.

[Tom™]

i'm working on changing the menu system slightly to make it easier, further more... all month

Free webdesign!

[Tom™]

I've been sorting all my local files for my websites, and i've found all the press images and general images I have of the Rover MG brand.

I will get them up on rover2mg.com asap

There are litterally thousands of images

[Tom™]

I've worked on the website more over the weekend, and I've managed to improve on a few of the prior issues raised with the site.

The website feels more connected than before.

The footer is clearer.

The menu system makes more sense.

The text responds to firefox and ie zoom function better

Updated live contact link to fit in with site design

Updated RSS feed

Craig, any more feedback?

[Tom™]

Changed alot more now, would appreciate feedback again if possible.

thankyou