Topic: Review Please

Hey -- I would really appreciate a Site Review for http://hackingzone.org
We have had the site up for a while now, but it would be intresting to get input from people as highly
skilled as your selves, and any input would be greatly appreciated

::Gets popcorn:: This should be fun.

At first glance, it's not that bad. It's actually pretty visually appealing. It does have a few issues which stand out:

- The logo looks busy and disorganized. The words are running into each other in a way that doesn't look good.
- The text is cramped. It needs more space between its borders (padding), and you need more whitespace overall.
- The text lacks any sort of highlight colors, so it looks very bland, and not very inviting. Consider using a different color for headlines, rather than simple bold text.
- The menu bar feels incomplete visually.
- The black-on-dark-green could be improved. It looks like the green should be lighter or the text should be lighter.
- You should consider setting a background color for text inputs, as white is not everyone's default, nor is it necessarily the best color to use for those.

Otherwise, the design is alright, IMO. Wouldn't hurt if it were liquid.

A look at the code doesn't create the same impression. First of all, the code lacks a Doctype tag, so it's definitely not a standards-compliant design. Second, there's heavy usage of tables where CSS would do the trick fine.

So, overall, the visual design is pretty good but could use a little improvement, and the code itself could use a lot of improvement.

I have to disagree.

Fully a third of the available vertical screen space is taken up by an (for all intents and purposes) empty blue void that seperates the logo from the content.

The logo itself is a visual nightmare - words just crammed together with no thought whatsoever.

There seems to be a glitch with the layout of the navigation - the "about" button is laying half on top of the "home" button, and all of the buttons are floating hald on the blue background, half on the white background below.
There is also a grey inset box off to the right, which I am guessing was intended to hold the nav buttons?

Cross-browser checks are essential...

The "quickbar" which mimics a standard navigational feature is sitting way too low to actually serve the purpose it was intended for, and is floating away from the rest of the site.

Black. White. Grey. Blue. Need I say more?

Horizontal scrollbar regardless of the size of the browser window.

.

As far as the code - it's really ugly.

No Doctype, gross misuse of tables, tags compeltely misused all thoughout - <b> tags with inline styles that should be <h> tags, <br>'s to simulate <p>'s, etc.

Could stand a major overhaul with proper use of markup.

.

FWIW.



[This message has been edited by DL-44 (edited 12-07-2003).]

FWIW? For WHat its Worth I assume?

As always the constructive critism is much appreciated
Thanks for your time.

Trigger