Topic: print site MK2

Ok all, here is a bit of a revised version.

With this i've taken in some advice about the overall site being white as alot of printing companies are to keep it clean.

A few things just to point out:
- The menu is not operational atm
- The flash movie will not play until its all loaded, and will ONLY be on the home page not all pages.
- The client is after a slightly hi-tech look.


Mostly after looks and design opinions, all crisicm, comments, and bagging are well welcome, thanks all.

Revised version
The revised version.

quote:

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The flash movie will not play until its all loaded, and will ONLY be on the home page not all pages.

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Actually, it started right away, and it chugged along at a merry 0.5 frames a second whilst it tried to squeeze through my copper phone line.

Why are you using flash in first place?... I doesn't add *anything* to the site asside from bloating the overall bandwith.

Anyways, it's late and I'm tired so this'll be quick...

Other issues of note:

* Light blue, pink and white and great for decorating a new-borns room, not so great for trying to sell print services me thinks.

* Go to www.mozilla.org - Download the browser, look at your site in that browser, fix.

* Go to www.opera.com - Download the browser, look at your site in that browser, fix.

* The bold-first-word thins adds nothing. The white space between the paragraphs is more than enough to communicate a break in the text, using the bold word is over-designing it.

* White Space.... Use it. You have a lot of space, not much content yet the menu and title text is horribly cramped. White space can be used constructivly to give the design a nice spacious feel, right now a lot of the white space is being wasted.

* I don't have time to look at your CSS code, but something is wrong because even at 1024x786 I have an annoying scrollbar acrosss the bottom of my screen.

* I did however have time to look at the the HTML code -- A few errors there. http://validator.w3.org/ is your freind for stuff like this.

* Navagation -- Consider revising how you structure the site. Do you really need an "About Us?" Section? Kinda tacky if you ask me, would be better placed on the home page. Also, when I've recently been designing navagation structures I try and keep to Meirs (sp?) limit; 3-6 options (or groups of options), any more and it takes a lengthy time for us to process all of the data, any less and were wasting our cognitive abilties.

* Overall asthetics could be better IMHO, but for the most part I think the more technical issues should be addressed first.



[This message has been edited by Dracusis (edited 09-01-2003).]

Thanks for that drac, i should have pointed out, bad wording on my part that the things in that list are what it will be, i.e the flash will load first before it plays.

As for using flash, well honestly i agree with you on this, i normally steer clear of flash to keep good loading times, however the client was after something like that so unfortunately it may not be an option there. As i pointed out however it would only be on the Home page, not on the rest - so if i really have to i will do that.. I'm going to try to convince them to get away with an animated gif for the logo instead. Also when you say it doesnt "add" anything from the site, well im a bit partial to that, i guess they were after something that looked hi-techy, and for them a flash movie will probably keep them happy, but no it doesnt add anything to the content of the site i definately agree with you there.

I havnt tested in multiple browsers yet, as i pointed out im mainly overviewing the design of the site.

For the newbord comment, you're right there, i actually had a whole spectrum of colours, i just didnt fit it in correctly so i will fix that up so it doesnt look like a crib :P.

I like your comment on the about us actually, there really is not point to have it there, not sure why i got into that habit. Merging that with the home page will give me something to put on the home page anyhow hehe.

Thanks for your time drac, i'll take another look at it, i know the asthetics arent great, having a little trouble getting a clear idea of what i want to do with it all. I better sit down and have a think about it =/

quote:

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I havnt tested in multiple browsers yet, as i pointed out im mainly overviewing the design of the site.

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Maybe so, but it's still better to get these issues out of the way first.

I'm pretty sure this (Firebird 0.6) isn't the design you had in mind. Or even worse, this (Opera 6).



[This message has been edited by ozphactor (edited 09-15-2003).]

yeh i do see what you mean, but it really depends how you look at it, i mean if i put all this work in to make my general design work in all browsers, then go and change the design then i have to make it work in all the browsers again.. Imo its better to get at least generally set on your design, then work on the compatibility..

I guess thats just how i look at it =/

I agree with what Drac said above.

You should also specify a background color. Right now the background bellowthe flash movie isn't set, so I get my default cyanish tone there, and I have to admit that it doesn't really fit in

Can't really say that much more, since I'm using Firebird and the problems I see might not be there in the IE version...

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

Ahh ok i see what you mean, i must have taken it out, thanks.

Actually, I think it's a better idea to get the layout working in all browsers right from the word go.

Simply because that way you'll be able to see exactly which change you made didn't work in browser x. It's also easier to learn how to code cross-browser CSS when you're designing and testing in multiple browsers all at once. Furthermore, some things that work in IE will break in Moz, some things that work in IE & Moz will break in Opera so at times solving one simple layout problem can see you trying out 10 different methods to fix something, not a good way to go about things if you have a handfull of problems to fix all at once. If you were working on rather complex layouts that have 50+ style rules then the last thing you probably want to do is go digging through all that style code to find the problems.

All round, I think cross-browser testing from the word go saves a lot of time in the long run.