Topic: Department Page, input plz :)

Hey:

This is merely a first scratch. Please respond as honest as possible. I am ready for anything
Oh, and please view by IE. I sure will make it compatible for other browsers later, but I want to get the concept right first.
Oh, and also, only Home and Degree Programs are linked at this time.
http://129.2.235.89/hesp/home.htm

Anything you feel that requires attention, please just be honest and burn me. No worry about my feelings.

Not too much to say, and much of it is personal preference anyway, so take what follows as you will...

The first thing I noticed was the jumble on the left, behind the menu. I'm not sure why you have that, but it is very distracting, and I personally don't find it to be too pleasing aesthetically. It also makes it very difficult to read the contact info below the menu. I think you would be better served here by a simpler set up.

Although I suppose it's not a big deal, I generally try not to use my link colors for any other text elements to avoid confusion. The first letters of your paragraphs are the same color as the links--while not many people will mistake those letters for links (but you never know), they do make it harder to scan a page for links, especially when the color stands out like it does. I would drop the colored letters--I don't really think you need them.

Now, two things about the links themselves. I can't believe that we are now in the 21st century and people are still using "click here". Make your link text meaningful in and of itself, like "online application form" or "mail-in application forms". Also, I have a personal pet peeve with links that become harder to read when you hover over them. This may not be doctrine, but I don't think a link should become harder to read when the user moves the mouse over it (and the pink here is harder to read against the white than the red is).

I'm also not sure about Comic Sans for your sub-headers. It seems to be one of the more overused typefaces these days.

Just a few thoughts. Sorry if this was a bit terse, but I'm not feeling too swell today. I've been a bit under the weather. Hopefully my comments will be of some help to you.


___________________________
Suho: www.liminality.org

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The first thing I noticed was the jumble on the left, behind the menu.

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Definitely.
Way too busy.

I don't normally frequent this area, but I'm trying to kill some time. Therefore, I'd like to offer up one of my own pet peeves.

Don't make your contact info an image. It makes it impossible to copy and paste it into a letter, an address book, a map program (for getting directions), etc. I'd have to switch back and forth, reading bits at a time, and type it in manually.

good point

the busy problem already got me into small trouble but I'll solve it.

I'll be back! ( like arnond says)

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Oh, and please view by IE. I sure will make it compatible for other browsers later...

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Nooooo. It's much easier to test in a very standards compliant browser like Mozilla first, and then fix the glitches caused by browsers like IE that don't always render things properly. I suppose this is less relevant since you're using a big bad table layout, but it's good practice.

Not much else to say, other than agreeing with previous comments...

[This message has been edited by quisja (edited 11-23-2003).]