Preserved Topic: a new year, a new site (Page 1 of 1)

Since I got a real job, my business site has been foundering. It being the new milenium and all, I thought I would do something about it. I know it's simple, but since I cam up with the overall look and feel in about 15 mins. I don't think it's too bad. What's the verdict?

simple, nice, overly cautious with the disclaimer though.
one site i was involved in the creation of, an insurance one, which had a legal department checkign and cross checking, so you can be sure its all ok, is http://www.royalsun.com.au , where it just has a link to a disclaimer on every page except the home page (so you'll have to go down a level to view it).
i like this line:

quote:

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If you got a problem with that go to some other part of the site. There are pretty pictures in the Bryce4 Gallery.

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some nice pictures in there too.
as far as the site goes, its nice, it seems to really be a container for your online content, which it does well. (does that make sense? what i mean by that is when one goes to the site, the focus seems to be on what is in the site, not the site itself.)
another thing i dont like is when a "contact me" link goes straight to mailto:...., especially when youve hijacked the status bar. some people dont have a mail client set up properly in their browser, so it would be a little hard to contact you.
my suggestion would be to either let the status bar show your email address, or when you click on the link, jsut have a page saying
email me at name@domain.com, and they can click on your email addy for a mailto:... link.
that's enough ranting from me, all in all, nice.
i dont like your style of navigation (having to go back home before anywhere else), although its quick loading, and the fact that it doesnt have too much content compensate for this.
<edit> oh yeah, one more thing - interesting colors for the mouseovers. not too sure 'bout that. but its no big deal.</edit>

[This message has been edited by bunchapixels (edited 01-07-2001).]

To be honest, the disclaimer got so big because I was procrastinatin', and it seemed like a brainless thing to work on. I will probably just replace it with a small copyright message at some point.

Good point about the "mailto" issue (for lack of a better word). I am kind of partial, to my status bar messages, so I will probably have the link go to a form that is forwarded to my email or something. Did that make sense?

Thanks for the comments...

Definitely like the speed loading. The issues I had were exactly the same as Buncha's, mailto, navigation and pink

Site loads fast and with the nav graphics you've chosen I don't think it would add much loading time if you put all links on the navigation bar instead of home only, in fact, use the same bar throughout, the one that loads on the home page and you're set.

Pretty simple 'container' as Bunch calls it, I like, now you just need to fill er up.

Just wanted to say, for being new to Bryce, you are doing pretty good, I especially like the eroded edges of your lakes/puddles. I think I'll have to break open bryce again

-D

This site is a usability nightmare. But that is not hard to fix.

When designing your site keep asking yourself, "Would my neighbors brain-dead dog be able to navigate this site." If you don't think that the dog would be able to navigate the site then make the navigation a bit easier, if the brain-dead dog couldn't how do you expect the average American to browse the site?

The main thing to work on is labeling, and consistancy. Keep the main navigational elements present on every page. I also like to put links to all of the pages in text format at the bottom of the page.

main

I have a background in journalism, so I tend to automatically look for errors whenever I read something. As such, your site has enough errors that I would advise that you run your text through a spell checker.
Example on the bio page:
"and the experience of my bisiness into" bisiness is wrong.
Example on the about fuzzy page:
"Everyone who saw my work said I should do it for a living, but because all I had was a high school diploma and no real experience except the personal sites I had made no one would hire me." Long, hard to read sentence. Had to read it three times to make sense of it.
Example on the fuzzy page:
"no web sites of their own trying to get there business, " There should be their.

I know this may sound nit-picky, especially since this is no longer a business site, but I just want to advise that you keep an eye out for such things if you ever do another site for pay. Even if the site looks great, you could wind up giving the visitor an unprofessional impression of yourself if your site is littered with bad grammar.

I also agree about the mailto suggestion. Not too long ago I was one of those people who had no mail program on my computer and so it was frustrating to not know who to email to.