Topic: A home improvement site... (Page 1 of 1)

http://www.jwstechnologiesinc.com

Still have yet to finish some sections and add a Flash detect (they wanted a high impact ad area for driving visitors to the online application for a free estimate). Aside from the tables...a quick critique is requested. The site is primarily for gathering requests for a free estimate, and more product images will follow as they are furnished.

You should give the menu some more styling. Right now the menu is 'simple' text, but the banners bellow are 'fancy graphics' so they get all the attention. Something that might work, while still keeping the menu clean and simple is to increase the font-size a little bit and change the background color of the links. Maybe use the background color that you have during the hover and give a 1px 'same-color-but-darker' border?

I think the flash at the first page is a bit too attetion grabbing, but the clients are probably stuck on that one...

The menu should also have the effect that the page leading to the current page is formated differenly and is no longer a link. Reason for this is that it is no longer a link considering that it doesn't take the user anywhere, and it should look different so the user easily can see which part of the page (s)he is on.

Code wise you should use CSS even if you use a table layout. All the styling you've put into the tags should be moved to a separate CSS file. If you wan't the site to validate you've got some work left... You should ensure that the page validates, since the chances that it will be rendered correctly in most browser increases and it usually results in cleaner coder as well.

Wouldn't hurt to "liquify" the width of the page either (specify width using %). That way it would fit better in more resolutions, since it is now looking cramped at 800x600 and starting to look small at 1200x900. But that might cause some problems with the banner...

I like the colors you've used, nice and light colors. And enough contrast to be easy to read

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[This message has been edited by Veneficuz (edited 09-18-2003).]

based on your criteria for judging: quite nice.

The logo, I'd tell you to give it a place of prominence but it's bad so maybe de-emphasis is a good thing. I assume that the truck is a familar site around town, that'll work... sell em a new logo =

Thanks guys...your critiques are most appreciated. I see what you mean about the menu not getting the attention it requires Veneficuz, as well as the link issue. And I will consider more usage of CSS for the layout as well.

And JK, thanks for the heads-up on the domain name. It has been purchased!

I agree with everything already said. My suggestion would be that the banners should not be on the same same column than the list, probably best seen in a line at the bottom, like this site does with affiliate banners.

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