Topic: Would appreciate a Site Review pls.

Hi Guys,

Been a long time since I have been around!

Wondering if anyone would mind letting me know any thoughts on the following site from design and usability stance. It's my own company and I built the site, but am only a hobbiest web developer :-)

Any comments much appreciated! Sybase Jobs

It was in fact this forum (and the Docs early DHTML examples) that got me hooked on web development, so thanks to you guys I guess!

Cheers

Ben

Pretty.

Some interesting code. You might want body { overflow-x: hidden; }, I get a horizontal scrollbar in Firefox 3.5.
html { overflow-y: scroll; } will avoid the site jumping horizontally between pages that overflow and those that don't.

The speed of the job listing scroll (and the "bump") both rub me the way of annoying animated GIFs. I'd slow it down a lot and lose the bump.

I don't know about the sliding icons with expanding/shrinking text. I think if you didn't let the text wrap it would be better... white-space: pre; overflow: hidden;, and again, the bumping leaves me with a "jerky" feeling.

The docs lightbox creates a situation you never want: a scrolling area that overflows inside another scrolling area (at least at my res). It'd be nicer if you made the doc area span from the top of the current viewport to the bottom without overflowing, possibly temporarily disabling overflow on the rest of the site simultaneously (that could get tricky ).

Why use /#2 & /#3, etc., when you can use /#services & /#engage ?

The rounded corners are easily done with background images, if you want IE support (and/or don't want to use proprietary, non-standard CSS). The translucent white doesn't seem to need to move in releation to the cloudy background, so you don't actually need translucent images at all ? you can just flatten one on the other, then it wouldn't look gray in IE6.

reisio's got some good comments up there. I have to agree completely with the job listing scroll, both in terms of speed and bump. They rub me the wrong way as well.

The side scrolling from page to page is also a bit herky-jerky for me--it's an interesting effect, but if it's not completely smooth it's just going to draw attention to itself. I'm not sure why a simple page switch wouldn't suffice here. Especially when the Sybase jobs page doesn't use it (navigating to or from that page just uses a simple switch).

Also, why is the main docs page a pop-up? This and the side-scrolling issue make the site feel a little "scattered" to me, as if it is lacking design cohesion. You've got one effect here, another effect there, and then another effect over there. The end result for me is "hodge-podge-edness."

That being said, it does look nice.

(Hmm. After playing around with the navigation a little more, I notice that the pop-up box only pops up if you click on "docs" from the "Sybase jobs" page--clicking on it from any other page does nothing. This is also very bad in terms of cohesion and consistency.)

Oh, and a final pet peeve of mine: recursive links--that is, having a link to the page that you are already on. On the home page, the home link should be deactivated, etc.

(Oh, another consistency issue: at first, the navigation menu items remain "depressed" to indicate the current page, but this doesn't work for the Sybase jobs page. Also, after clicking on the Sybase jobs page, clicking on the Services page does not leave the Services menu item depressed--it pops back up again. Clicking on either Home or Engage (which makes me think of Patrick Stewart, by the way) restores the behavior. The more I play with this, the more I'm finding that the various behaviors are very inconsistent.)

I'm using FF 3.5.7 on Windows Vista, by the way--but all of the behavior issues I mentioned above (jerky scrolling, navigation inconsistencies, etc.) are identical in IE7.

[Edit: Heh, apologies if this all seems overly harsh and nit-picky. I do like the look overall, and think it could be top-notch if some of these issues were addressed.]


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(Edited by Suho1004 on 01-14-2010 03:26)

reisio, Suho1004,

Thanks so much for the feedback, (and being diplomatic about the code :-) and for the compliments - means a lot. I totally agree with all the comments and greatly appreciate the tips.

Much of the inconsistency is due to a mixture of bad planning, putting SEO and a bunch of nice looking jQurey scripts before usability! - It's a learning curve I guess.

I need to get rid of the slider effect as it also breaks back button functionality... not good. It will also allow to easily change the navigation to state current page. Such a nice effect tho

have implemented;

- removed the bounce effect
- added reisio's overflow fixes (hopefully fixed now??)
- fixed the pop up navigation issue for docs on the main jobs page.
- hopefully made the page slide effect a little less jerky

The Modal Window pop up is proving more difficult...

Rounded Corners: It pains me to use images rather than 2 lines of CSS to achieve the translucent effect in only IE... esp. when i have so many images eating loadtime already... but i guess the object is to produce a site that looks nice to all...

Will post back when done...

Thanks again

Ben

(Edited by FatRod on 01-15-2010 20:38)

I'm sorry i can not even open your link successfully.
Please have a check.

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(Edited by Jestah on 12-31-2010 01:34)