Topic: Your thoughts?

on : http://www.endingchaos.com


im interested in you thoughts on layout, and code. I am going to be working on another layout and will have it up in about a day. Which ever one ya'll think does the best in overall usability, i will use.


Cell 650

I'd like to see more content. It's pretty barren. If it's going to be for a heavy metal band, I personally would make it a little darker. I sing in a heavy metal band, and for some reason the world associates metal with dark things. I would go darker.

OK, going on the knowledge I have of past incarnations of this site, here's what I think:

1) I can see you're moving toward a more clean and simple design as you go along. I think this is a good thing. The less clutter, the more the visitor can focus on your content.

2) I would prefer more space in the left margin. You've got a whole lot of space on the right--you could easily move some of that over to the left. Not to much, of course, maybe ten more pixels or another em (depending on your unit of measurement--although I would recommend something liquid).

3) Your links are going the "wrong way." What I mean by that is that they are going from more contrasted to less contrasted. The links shouldn't become harder to read when you hover over them. Also, they are the same color as the text itself. Granted, they may be distinguished by being in bold face, but then they run the risk of getting confused with headings. You don't have any links within your content yet, so it's tough to say, but it might get confusing later on.

There are two ways you could go with this: the first way would be to make the menu links and the contextual links behave differently. I'm a bit of a purist, and so I believe that all links should be the same for the sake of consistency. However, if you really wanted to go this route, I would recommend making the menu links a light gray in their inactive state, and pure white in their hover state. The second way would to make all links behave the same. This might be difficult, considering the difference in the menu background and main content background. You could try a mix of the blue and gray, just lightened, or you could experiment with other hover effects (like under- or overlining).

Which ever way you decide to go, a good rule of thumb to remember is "more contrast on hover." You want the links to stand out even more when the user hovers over them, and this generally means figuring out how to make them stand out slightly less when the user is not hovering over them.

4) Code-wise, look into making your menu an unordered list. ALA has a good article on this that you might want to look at.

5) Also code-wise, I wouldn't use a table for your Asylum ring links. You could make a simple container div and then have the links inside of that. Also, the links are currently too big for the table, and the last link is running onto the second line. Doesn't look too pretty.

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I do like the general direction your designs are taking, though. You've still got a little work to do in taking full advantage of CSS, but you're getting there. mob68 made some comments about the color scheme--I'm not into heavy metal, so I wouldn't know, but it sounds reasonable. Ultimately, though, the color scheme needs to express what you want the site to be about, and that can only be decided by you.





www.liminality.org

Nothing's really lining up the way I see it. I can't figure out where to look or rest my eyes. I suppose having a reasonable ammount of content will help this, but it could do with a bit more structure/layout IMHO.

I agree with what has been said so far.

Just thought I would mention that IE might have some problems displaying the page correctly when you have the <?xml ...> tag on the first line. The way you have it is the correct way of doing it, but IE seem to have some problems reading the DTD when it isn't on the first line.

_________________________
"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"

OK! I finally got a design I like, now, I need your opinion to help improve on it.

Anything you got, give it to me. Insults, critiques, whatever... as long as it is about the site and not me


Cell 650

The black webbing over the header lettering looks artistic, but the smeary lettering on Tag Board and Patrick spoil the effect, get out the eraser and paintbrush, resize very large and clean up the tag board and patrick..I like the design, especially the right menu being on the right..but the Left menu looks very unfinished by contrast. I would suggest that the menus not be exactly alike, but you could design a small graphic behind the left menu in the same colors and style as the right..but not Exactly alike as some assymetry is charming if well done. I like the page generally, the scrollbar is "flat"...there needs more colors to make it three dimensional. The page is a rigid in coding and design but workable. I only have IE browsers and it looks good, loads fast..

You need to put a bottommargin=0 in your body tag so when you click the links you don't get that small gap at the bottom.

:::11oh1:::

some content would help

but the design is ok i think

quote:

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You need to put a bottommargin=0 in your body tag...

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Ouch!

No, please don't do that. "bottommargin", "topmargin", "leftmargin", and "rightmargin" are all IE hacks. "marginwidth" and "marginheight" are Netscape hacks.

Instead of using all those hideous attributes, why not go for this *good* CSS:

body { margin: 0 }


...and it works in all browsers.
...except Opera, that is.

body { margin: 0; padding: 0 }


THAT works is all browsers. Heh.