Topic: Opinion asked (Page 1 of 1)

http://www.viol.com/temp/sample.htm

This is a very simple and basic design. I am not a graphics expert neither a web designer.

It's simple. I want to know if it pleases someone's eyes and, if not, what can be done to make it a little better (to make it much better I'd have to start it over from scratch ) .

Some pieces of it, like the menu and the background, were borrowed.

And it uses a table to structure the layout. Despite all the fuss about DIVs, I am not a fan of them yet. Sorry.

TIA

(Edited by viol on 01-26-2005 03:20)

I'm not gonna go into code, because I am no expert..but I will answer what you asked.

It looks nice. Simple yet usable. Pleasing colors..etc.

The scrollin menu is kinda neat..although I think some people not not be big fans of it (because it's a little slow keeping up with the scrolling).

Nice IMO though =D

I did glance at the code, for a table layout it sure seems to be nicely done. Then again, what do I know =D

A quickie.
The visual base is pretty good to build on.
Some things that would make it easier on the eyes and easier to read.

- The content, can you place some smaller images or perhaps small styled quotes (a div with top and bottom border and a differently tinted bg) from important parts of the paragraps in relation to the paragraps. Float them right and/or left of the content so the text fows around them. That would make the content more interesting and flowing instead of one big block, it would also spice up the page a bit.

- Colors.
- The bright blue around the presenation area is imho to contrasting, dull that a bit.
- Try a dark grey color for the content, pure black on white is sometimes a bit too harsh on the eyes.
/Dan

{cell 260} {Blog}
-{ ?Computer games don?t affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we?d all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.? (Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989.) }-

Thanks, both, I will try and follow DmS tips and show it here when ready.

This isn't even a two column, because your menu is absolute positioned. This should not be coded using tables for the layout. It should be very easy to do this using proper coding practices. You will cut down on a ton of unnessecary code and make things easier on yourself in the long run.

Dan @ Code Town

The menu looks great, but it doesnt suit the rest. I got some quick negatives right here: The drop shadow and colour of the title makes it look dull, boring and cheap. The background looks like pinstripe or cordroy pants and the pastel green doesnt suit the dark navy. The lines that go up and across hap hazardly are too bright a blue and dont make sense to me as being a good layout. None of the layout suits the nice colourful graphics about the place like in the menu and "retorna" and "segue".
What I would suggest:
Replace the bright blue border with an actual rectangle border using the same colour grey as you have around your menu. Pick a nicer blue for the logo, possibly the same as the menu bg with a border, definatly no drop shadow, it doesnt suit and wont sit on your background properly.
For the background, I'd leave it as a plain colour or lower the contrast, or if you really want the liney texture, make it crosses.
But of course all this only my opinion , I could be way off. But one thing I would do is pick a few colours and stick with them, you've got at least 4 blues, 3 greens two greys and some orange, try reduce this to 2blues and one green, excluding the content. stay away from dull pastel colours where you can.

Not trying to be mean or rude its just I saw all this stuff I didnt like as soon as I saw the site, which is odd for me. It looks like it was designed by three or so people who werent allowed to see each other's work. The content on its own is nicely laid out as is the menu, they just dont fit together. Colourwise mostly.

Well, here's a slightly modified new version of it:

http://www.viol.com/st510_v2/index.htm

I made some modifications based only on DmS opinion because this was the one I had read. I will read carefully WarMage's and Hugh's opinions and try to see what I can follow.

To Hugh, this new version brings one more dull pastel colour... But, as I said, I will try to rethink colours.

Now, the code is W3C compliant. This is a tough thing to do. Yet, there are some differences in the way the browsers I test with render the page.

The two links at the bottom are not working.

WarMage, you are right, the menu is absolute positioned but I don't know how to draw the crossing lines that make the core of the layout without using a table. Working with DIVs is a pain. I spent the whole free time of today just to make the yellow stuff work with that lines that cross, using DIVs.

And let me reinforce: the menu I think it's great but I just took it from the maker's site (it's free for personal use as long as there is a link back to the maker's site, link that I have not provided yet). So, there is not one code of line there that is mine (actually, I managed to change the code to make it scroll a little below the top of the window).

Anyways, thanks to all and new opinions are always welcome, no matter if it's to say good or bad things.

EDIT: the nice icons inside the menu will most probably all be removed and replaced with something more related to the subject. By now, they are there only to remember me that there can be icons there.

(Edited by viol on 01-28-2005 00:47)

You would need 4 images for the site's main layout.

1. The top image which would be a transparent gif/png which starts at the top line of the content.
2. The body image which would be a 1px high cross section of you body content and the blue strip.
3. The footer section from the line below the checkmarn down.

http://flrba.com/index.php
http://flrba.com/s.css

The above link is the main code you are looking for. You would need to change a bit of the CSS. You might also have to tweek the menu code but I am not sure on that. You can do your whole site with 4 divs, being the header, the body, the menu and the footer. The rest of it is in the CSS.

The CSS is a little bit old, if I still owned the site I would make some improvements to the code. I am sure if you spend a bit of time with it you could optimise it a good deal.

Hope this helps, if you have any questions ask away.

Dan @ Code Town

WarMage, now I understand your point.

Indeed, it would be easier and use less code but I'd be stuck to the colors used in the graphics, for the borders. I's be stuck also to the width, to the dimensions in general, etc.

I really prefer having the table because it gives me free control over all these aspects. And, about the amount of code, we'd have to calculate how much the new images would take and compare it to the amount of bytes added by the extra HTML code for the table. I would say that the code would use less bytes than the images, but, anyway, nowadays, worrying about 10k less or 10k more is not worth.

I'm working in a "new version" of the sample page, following some of Hugh's advices, and I will post it here when ready.

Well, there it goes again, now trying to make a theme out of the blue color only.

http://www.viol.com/st510_v2.1/index.htm

I like that last one a lot better than the first one.
It feels a lot more "together" at this point.

Now look into yourself, what do you think?
you probably have points you dislike or similar,
note them down as if you were reviewing someone elses site.

Chances are you might spot things you didn't think of
/Dan

{cell 260} {Blog}
-{ ?Computer games don?t affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we?d all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.? (Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989.) }-

<edited: double post...>
/Dan


{cell 260} {Blog}
-{ ?Computer games don?t affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we?d all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.? (Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989.) }-

(Edited by DmS on 01-30-2005 16:53)

Ok, thanks all.

DmS, there are one or two things that I wish I had a better idea on how to implement it, but I have not. So, I'll stick with the current layout. But they are noted down...

That looks a lot better !