Topic: Techworthy.com - Site for Laptop Magazine

Okay, here's one for y'all. I'm actually working an internship with Bedford Magazines, publisher of Laptop Magazine, PC Upgrade and TECH Edge....I'm trying to get a job as their Web guy, a general Web Developer/Designer/Content guy, and trying to quickly redesign their site to get the job. I want to show that I can make it look better, which I don't this is hard.

The site is: http://www.TechWorthy.com

Any suggestions? I see a lot of problems, with quick fixes even, but I wanted to get your opinions because you've helped so much before...

Thanks a bunch...

grats42: Now this is an interesting one. I know its easier to review something where there are clear problems but your design isn't terrible it is just lacking........ something. Some thoughts that might help add the undefinable quality that I can't really name:

1. I'd make the design liquid to take advantage of wider screen resolutions - things will always feel a little cramped and so grab all the space you can.

2. That menu bar looks cramped so (as wellas point 1) I'd also think about trimming it down to a few essentials and then put some at the bottom of the page (faqs, contact, advertising).

3. The colours are a little flat. That mustardy yellow is OK (where's Michael when you need an opinion on a yellow? ) and I presume they are company colours but things look a little murky and that might be partly due to aliasing on you graphic's text. It probably needs another colour to pick things up and add a little extra highlighting. Try running those colours through ZOX's Colour Wizard.

4. Make more use of the righthand column for extra features and extra navigation (possibly to things you've removed fom the point 1 or put that survey there).

5. The structure seems to get a little flabby in the middle. Get a few boxes or dividing lines to help get some division and structure back into the centre area.

6. Get that JavaScript inside the HEAD tags and try and make as much of that JavaScript external as possible.

7. Add a DOCTYPE and the encoding metatag.

8. I feel that there is too much use of CAPS.

9. Make the links to the external JavaScript and CSS relative ones so they cache.

Overall it is OK but it should grab me and its not. I suspect a play with the colours and a restructuring should work nicely but you should also look at the competition to see what they are doing and see if you can get any ideas from them

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Ok, good deal. See, that's actually the current site, thats the thing. I agree with everything you said there. I think there's a lot of wasted space, too much of everything in caps, etc. What do you think of the fact that links are black, and so is text? Not for me....

Well, the links are bold, which might be counted as differentiation, but I agree, it's probably not enough. Also, we have a caption link in plain text that underlines itself when highlighted, and some of the maroon text is linkage and some is not. I also don't like the fact that the hover link color is yellow (on white!)--a link should be easier to see when you hover over it, not harder. Definitely needs some work in the link department.

I've also got to agree with pretty much most of what Emps said. The site definitely does not rock my horse as it is.




Cell 270

Emps, you said..>

6. Get that JavaScript inside the HEAD tags and try and make as much of that JavaScript external as possible.

7. Add a DOCTYPE and the encoding metatag.

9. Make the links to the external JavaScript and CSS relative ones so they cache.

----->

My question is, will these points help to speed up the site, which is slow at the moment? Also, what is the purpose of the DOCTYPE declaration exactly? What does it achieve other than identifying the document as html? Does it increase speed or search engine identification?

grats42: Points 6 and 9 should indeed speed up the site.

Point 9 is trickier and won't speed things up but it should help your pages to display properly in up-to-date browsers. You might want to dig out the relevant FAQ for links to more info.

[edit: The FAQ is here:

http://faq.ozoneasylum.com/460/ ]
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Emps

FAQs: Emperor