Topic: All settled, I think!

Ok, the WaySide has been integrated and I need your feedback

Here's a link to the splash page

Any and all comments are welcome!

Allewyn

Had to edit out the f2s shit

[This message has been edited by Allewyn (edited 03-04-2002).]

On the awards page, I can't get the up arrow to work on the far right window. I guess the criteria window. Just thought I'd let you know.

I really like the layout of "Left Along the Wayside"

Later,
C:\


~Binary is best~

Hrmm....
Opening....

First thought....
What's with this lame dolphin graphic that repeats........ And why is there a pixel person coverin up text in the middle of the page?... The title line is visionally unappealing.... I wonder why that is.....?... hrmmm....
So I keep thinkin' as I look...
Not much of a smooth transition between the dolphin graphics and the page..... or those rock graphics and the page.......... actually.... no transition at all. how annoying.
There must be a reason for this only consuming slightly less than half of the window......
*resizes window*
...hrmm.... wierd.... I don't understand that... or the gap at the top...
So I press on..

*click* to way-side main.....

Thinking...
... purty green.
What's with the title lines here as well.....?... they're weak.
I'm not liking the brown..... especially when accompanied by that shadow.

I don't really understand all the empty space on the left........... or the meaning/purpose of that faded image.
It would seem that it would be far easier to slim down all that white space into a thin column.
But hey..... I guess you're trying to break away from "standard" column idea here..... (or something)
While I compliment your efforts, I feel that it's not working all that well.
I see a lot more sites with this sort of "I'll just throw this little nav thing here"..... or.... "a pull-down out here would take up space" type thing.
I don't know. I just don't see the appeal.
I might also add.... the scroll bar for the text area and the scroll bar for the page are right next to each other, which is something else I find un-appealing.
-Nothing loaded under the "sayings" link either

I don't know if you were looking for comments on the other two links... (awards and guild thingy)..... so I'm going to let them be.
My opinion of the awards thing is pretty low.... so I think that'd take some considerable time to push through.


Overall.... I'm just not seeing the "spice" that makes me want to spend more than a minute or two at the site.
Left along the way side comes fairly close.... but it just doesn't keep my attention visually.
You've got some content in there.... but I don't see anything holding it together.

Micheal,

first Hi, I don't remember you but thanks for taking the time to look things over.
next, about the transition: you're right. I don't know how to transition the splash to coordinate three different looks so thought I'd go for something completely different. Looks like I've achieved Monty Python's goal at least (comedic value) Any suggestions on how to transition? Part of each site on the splash?

did you visit the forum?

quote:

---

I see a lot more sites with this sort of "I'll just throw this little nav thing here"..... or.... "a pull-down out here would take up space" type thing.

---

not sure what you mean but I didn't "just throw this in". I don't "just throw" anything. It served it's purpose by leaving you lost (along the wayside) see? Perfect!

Nope don't need comments on the others, especially if you're predisposed toward one. The Guild has been done for some time. Got the thumbs up from people here. Nobody else has seen the awards site. But then you aren't interested anyway.

I really do appreciate your comments about the splash and wayside pages. Thanks!



Allewyn

Sorry, forgot to reply to c:\

Glad you liked the Wayside layout. I spent some time on the color choices I'll check out the "arrow problem" today sometime. Thanks for the heads up!

Did you visit the forum? It could be interesting...

Allewyn

~sigh~

Honestly... I don't know what to tell you to do with the splash page.
I don't find anything appealing here... so it's hard to think of ideas to make something work.
Dump the cheesy dolphins and the rocks for starters. They won't ever work here.
Furthermore.... when I said that there was a pixel person slapped in there..... I MEAN just that.
The pixel person is standing in the middle of all of the text. Where is that supposed to be?
I'd take the damn thing out altogether anyway. I don't see it's place/purpose here.

I didn't visit the forum?
Did I miss something monumental by not going there?


What I mean by "throwing things in" is the 'admiration' links.
All the other text for the left side of the page is justified to the left.... but this is justified right.... and I'm assuming the pupose of that was to fill that white space that was left between where the text WOULD have been, had it been to the left.
Once again... that background picture wreaks havoc because it creates a sort of boundary in there, that is not needed.

Try this.
Take that background pic..... and fade it out towards the right of the pic.
Now take all the 'admiration' links and justify them to the left.
Next..... move the whole rest of the page to the left.... with the text slightly overlapping the faded portion of the background pic.
Now weed through that big explaination of shite that you have there..... and take out whatever is not needed.
Then ditch the scrolling capability for that area and let the text consume the page with all the other webring links and such still at the bottom... as it is, now.
ya dig?

Allewyn: I find myself agreeing with Michael (hint: its taxon) I don't want to repeat what he said but just for the sake of pinpointing what I feel are the problems:

1. The way the column hugs tightly to the left hand side of the screen.

2. Your stortooper just sitting in the middle of the text (obscuring some of your content).

3. The odd clip-art look to the dolphin and rock strips which don't match each other or anything else (or the little spheres you use).

4. The site menu not being aligned.

I'm not sure if you are subverting some conventions but it just gives the odd impression of being slightly broken (I can't really explain better than that). This is esp. so for the stortrooper which has been positioned but I suspect it has been positioned:

quote:

---

#avatar{
position : absolute;
left : 10%;
top : 50%;
}

---

for a different screen resolution than mine (800x600) so that it is in the wrong place. Also the odd width thing of the column - you have manually set it to 100% but set it to 50% in the CSS - you've set the margins to auto:

quote:

---

margin-left : auto;
margin-right : auto;

---

but that just doesn't work in IE/Win so the column isn't centred - set text-align: center on the body as well - see:
http://bluerobot.com/web/css/center1.html

5. I also think the colours need fixing - they just strike me as a little plain. I suspect more of a contrasting colour is need for the main content area.

Anyway enough of the splash page.

the CSCG:

Looking good - I think we've been over most things. You might want to use target top external links to get people out of your frameset. Also the Golden Web Award - I've seen it popping up all over the page but I was wondering if anyone knew how worthwhile it was (there site is poor and they have some pretty shady looking sponsors - online viagra sales and casinos). On the award winners page:
www.goldenwebawards.com/awardwinners.shtml

they say:

quote:

---

The list of websites below are not in any particular order regarding score, achievement, design, content, creativity, prestige, or member favorites. The websites listed below are 100 of the award winners that were randomly chosen from our database to represent the curent month.

---

How many people get that award a month?

Anyway left along the way-side (main):

1. The page looks unbalanced with the green bar down the side (is this also due to the centring problem - see above).

2. In the title you have tried a little drop shadow effect in CSS but the shadow is dropped too far and gets dropped further the lower down we go.

3. Will that IFRAME work in NS4.x?

4. Why does the 'Non-CSS compliant browser menu' show up as just a thing column? That looks 'broken' too.

5. Resizing below 800x600 also really breaks the site.

6. Your sayings link is broken.

7. DL-44's link doesn't work.

The Awards:

1. Again they look broken - they scrolling boxes have their tops above the level of that green bar, the middle one isn't the same length as the others and the 2 brackets look like they are in the worng place. And the footer is too low and not centred (although the text is its box isn't).

2. Navigation: I click on Glossary, FAQs or Criteria and I appear to be on a page with no way to get back other than the back button.

Other than that it appears to look good.

OK I'm going to stop there - its my birthday and I want to get home and go to the pub!! Apart from the splash page the look of the 3 sub-sites is good but I think their is a problem with the way you've done your CSS only designs as there seems to be some issues with screen resolution messing up your designs (which wouldn't happen if things were designed to be more fluid). There are some other problems which would be fixed by testing them in the range of browsers (as things like IE5/Win centring isn't working which probably accounts for most of my concerns).

Overall you've got things looking good but a couple of flaws seem to be throwing the design on a lot of pages and you need to address those problems. Keep tweaking and things will look much better.

Emps

I like the look and feel of this section but it needs a few tweaks as the layout doesn't seem quite right.



A good buttock will always find a bench for itself - Estonian proverb

Hmmm...that's quite a list but I know it's fair and I trust you to be objective. Funny, each site, on its own, seemed to be ok but, when combining them, they don't cooperate so well. Fair enough, I'll work on the things that have been suggested, especially the alignment problems at 800x600.

Thanks for looking it over! ah 'preciate yer time

Allewyn

oh. what did you think of the forum?

[This message has been edited by Allewyn (edited 03-11-2002).]

Hi Micheal!

Ok, you've made some good points and I'll work on them. I'm thinkin I need the scroller because I have content placed there from other links and it's too hard to design frames for that purpose. I didn't want people to have to laod new pages everytime they clicked on a link.

The "gate" (splash) page is obviously in need of help. The dolphin and rocks are reflected in the muted left-side column of latw (the index site) so I thought they would work. I'll try lefy-aligning that column as you suggest

the pixel person can go too, just included it to brand the website but it dowesn't convey much does it.

ok, back to work.

And yeah, you might have missed something in the forum; that's for you to determine

Allewyn