Right, so, basically the URL I posted above--linking to a directory will by default take you to index.html if the page exists.
OK, then, so it is as I had suspected. In that case, I would like to preface this review with these words: what I say here might seem a bit harsh, but I post it in a spirit of helpfulness. I hope it will be constructive criticism, not destructive criticism. We do have a tendency to be painfully honest here, though, so you might want to buckle your seat belt...
Often I will do a "stream of consciousness" review, simply writing down my thoughts as I go through a web site. I have a feeling, though, that this approach would be counter-productive here. Most likely it would end up being overwhelming. So I'm going to try to extract a few key points and concentrate on those first.
My first impression upon seeing the page is to step back into my time machine and desperately try to flee the world of mid 1990s web design. The page literally looks like it is five or six years old, never once having been updated. Then again, this is common for beginners to the web. I built my first web site in Mongolia in 1997. Ironically enough, we didn't have Internet access at the time, so the web site was built in complete isolation. Then I returned to Korea and discovered that all the things I thought were so nifty about my site (big, beveled buttons, repeating background images, animated GIFs) had already been done to death. I was devastated. Then I did a little research and started designing again.
OK, I said I was going to concentrate on a few points, so here they are:
Page structure: Simply put, you have none right now. You do have a title at the top, which is a good start, but then things start to get a bit fruity. There are four buttons, but they are not arranged in a traditionally recognizable manner (either as a vertical or horizontal menu), and with the text in between they take up the whole of my browser. The large graphic smack dab in the middle also helps to break things up (that's not a good thing here). There is just no cohesion. I don't know where to look, and I don't know where to start.
Gimmicks: I have a general rule that I try to following when designing a web site: if it doesn't serve a purpose, trash it. "Looking neat," at least in my mind, is not a valid purpose (this may have something to do with my minimalist tendencies). And looking at your site, I see quite a few things that I would consider superfluous. The repeating graphic on the left and the jewel-shaped graphic in the middle are aesthetic choices, and although I may not enjoy them as much as you do, that's your call to make. There are, however, three things on the page that I believe cross the line:
- The spinning GIF in the upper right. It's not a link, and it serves no other purpose than to say "Magic is Afoot" (which is odd, because I've always thought of it as more of an elbow <-- my attempt at lame humor). And even that is hard to determine because the thing keeps spinning. Animated GIFs have not yet gone the way of the dodo, but I sure hope they will soon.
- The cursor-chasing text. This has got to be one of my bigger pet peeves. It serves absolutely no purpose other than to annoy the user. It may have been cool the first time it was used, but I think it stopped being cool approximately thirty seconds after that. As an added bonus, it interferes with the animated GIF.
- The time and date on the bottom. I've said it before and I'll say it again: "If people have to go to your site to find the current time and date, they have much bigger problems than (insert subject of your website here)."
Consistency: This is a comment on the consistency of your site as a whole, rather than the consistency of individual pages (although the big square graphic on the front page that leads to your pet pics page is inconsistent with the buttons that denote every other link on the page). Very simply put, you have no site-wide consistency. Each of the pages has a completely different design, and there are no design elements that link the pages together. There's nothing that says to me: these pages are all part of the same site.
Miscellaneous:
The "Home" links on your second-level pages link to the non-existent page you linked to in your first post (the same page that is in your sig--you might want to change that).
The repeating background on your "About Me" page makes is very difficult to read the "Mystic's favorties" (sic--you might want to fix that too).
I hope I haven't overstepped myself here. Like I said above, these comments were made in a spirit of helpfulness, and not in a spirit of harm. I hope you'll take them as such, and that you will be able to benefit from them in some way.
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Suho: www.liminality.org
posted 11-21-2003 05:21
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