Topic: Ok, I'll have a go :) (Page 1 of 1)

Please take a look at this... It has 2 main sections, one with texts and one with PS stuff. Tell me what you think.
Thanks

crip

Link?

*patiently waits for crip to come back and hastily post a link, mumbling all the while in embarrassment*

looks *great* from what I can see......

God, i'm off these days...
Sorry...
Here it is:
clicky

Only twenty-five hours later and we have a link. You do realize that that's like 50 years in Asylum time, right?

OK, the review. Not a bad idea for the visual design, but it is very graphic-intensive, and it takes forever to load (relatively speaking), even on my cable modem. Maybe the connection was just slow when I was viewing your site, I dunno. (Apparently this was the case, as it seems to be OK now.)

Encoding, check. That's a good start.

The front page bugs me for a number of reasons. First of all, I have no idea where those graphics are going to take me. They remind me of Photoshop icons (this imagery is reinforced by the page background, of course), so I guess that maybe the first one is going to take me to some pen drawings, and the second one is going to take me to some brush drawings. The point is, though, that I had to guess--a user should never have to guess where a link is going to take them, unless that's the whole point of the site (ie, making the user guess). At the very least, you could have added title attributes to the links, giving me a text clue in those browsers that support title (which is most of them).

Secondly, the rollovers on the images themselves touch on a pet peeve of mine. Whether it be simple text links or image rollovers, the hover state should always be more visible (noticeable, outstanding, etc.) than the original state. In other words, if you want to make the original state fuzzy and the rollover state focused, fine--but don't do it the other way around. It is counterintuitive.

I took a look at the #1 section first, and that is where I realized that the pen icon was supposed to symbolize writing, not pen drawings. To me, this means you didn't do your job right with the initial navigation. The whole page is set up to resemble a PS setting, so why would I expect writing? You've got to make it more clear on the front page. I don't think it would be too much to ask for simple, one-word explanations below the pictures ("writings"/"drawings", etc.).

I notice you have only one writing entry so far, and the rest of them are blank. I assume you are going to fill in the rest of them, but when you do pay attention to the width of your containers--the blank entries are wider than the original width.

Also, you should provide a link back to the writing index from each entry. It's no big deal to use the back button, of course, but it's nice to build in navigation for the user.

Moving over to the second section, I see some nice rollovers. That is the direction rollovers should go--nice job on those. I noticed that a lot of your paintings have one point of interest on a background. One thing you might want to try for your thumbnails is focusing on that point of interest, showing a bit more detail in the thumbnail, rather than just shrinking the whole thing down. That's just a suggestion.

The second thumbnail (the one that is titled "2") does not match the picture it leads to (which is "3.jpg").

Codewise, well, it's a nightmarish bog of tables. Personally I would go CSS, but I know that some people are not at that stage yet. Speaking of CSS, I have two suggestions for you: 1) get rid of those <font> tags and define your fonts in your CSS, and 2) use an external stylesheet rather than an inline stylesheet (ie, put your CSS in a separate file and link to it from your HTML). Just taking those two steps will save you a lot of bytes.

Also on the code front, you need a title for your page--right now there are all titled "Untitled-1".

I guess that's about it.




www.liminality.org

Thanks
Well, the site isn't finnished, even though i asked for a review, so I can always modify whatever seems to be wrong.
The first page... I tend to like things very simple, and i tend to like people who get what i had in mind even though i don't explain And sometimes I tend to exagerate into the asumption that they will really get the idea
The rollovers, they are actually css styles, both of them.
The ones on the first page I like them the way they are, sorry, i never thought that the rollover image should alway reveal more, i kinda thought of it as a graphic effect.
As for the tables nightmare, i guess you are right, i plan to find a way to simplify the way I put things where i want, and everybody tells me that css is the way
So , all and all, I'll work on it and present you with a new improved, healthier design
Thanks again


crip

Darn it, I am liking those nested tables. There are so many three column, grey tone, flat, no graphic websites in CSS I am about to go back to Tables and more tables..lol..It is Nice to see some old fashioned Graphics and Color..all the grey and gray with b/w photos or Flash (a cheat for real made-in-photo-shop graphics) boxed up in CSS is boring, or so it seems..If not, post some links for me with graphic/color rich CSS sites. Am I wrong? send link.. as only Doc Ozone seems to still love and use Graphics well in CSS.

Skyetyger: Just because you've seen a bunch of CSS sites with boring colours doesn't mean you need to go back to table hacking to use colours you like. Just err... use the colour you like. Simple really. Besides, I like grey and dislike green and yellow being used togther -- but that's just because green and yellow remind me of things I'd rather not be reminded of.

Crip: The second thumbnails in your images section links to the wrong image.

Yeah, I'd like to say that was a test for you guys, but, no, it wasn't
It was my mistake
Thanks

crip

crip: Chalk it up to artistic differences, then. Hopefully you'll at least take into consideration some of my ideas about usability.

skyetyger: You do realize that your statment makes no sense, right? As Drac pointed out, CSS and tables are tools. One of them does the job better and more efficiently than the other. As for color and graphics, that depends on the artist, not his tools. Picasso made brilliant art using a variety of media--he could have made a masterpiece with tomato sauce if he wanted to. Never assume that you are shackled by your tools, or you will be.

I don't claim to be a genius with color or graphics--indeed, I am far from the genius level--but click on the first link in my sig up there (the one for liminality). That site is built with CSS, and I think it looks rather nice. You may not like it, of course, but it is definitely not your typical boring site (I hope).

Now, if you want to see someone who knows how to handle color and graphics, just wait for Drac to get his site up.

Hmm. I'd have to agree with almost everything said here ;-)

As Suho said, the page takes too long to load (the first time, that is).
Since the images are flat color and relatively simple, could they not be compressed more efficiently?
Your choice of GIFs is good, but perhaps you haven't experimented with the all the compression options available.
(I certainly haven't.)


to skyetyger, lover of the nested tables: While it's true that some CSS sites may not be very flashy, CSS itself is not to blame.
It is the designer's job to be creative. And it doesn't help that people like you (people LIKE you, not you specifically) give up so quickly.
The problem is, people who should be creating great CSS designs are still working with nested tables. Either that, or Flash.
They are reluctant to move to unfamiliar ground, and continue to toil with spacer GIFs, FONT tags, and proprietary tricks in order to get what they want.

Perhaps you (and they) are not familiar with the Zen Garden.

If not, I am proud to present... http://www.csszengarden.com/

Just goes to show you what CAN be done.