Topic: Your Comments Please

Could I please have people's comments on http://www.pfusion-design.co.uk/

Thanks,

Mark

Mark
http://www.pfusion-design.co.uk/

Just a few comments after a quick glance on the page.

- the spash page is too wide. Gives a horizontal scroller on 600x800
- chromeless... personally I dislike it. And to people that are not savy web users it is probably just confusing.
- what is the function for the two little arrows in the upper right corner? Nothing seems to happen when I click them
- the whole navigation system is a bit confusing to me. You have four different menus going on at the same time (five if you count the print-refresh thing at the bottom right) and I do think there could be a better way to solve it. Also, you have some "mystery meat" navigation on the menu that pops out to the left. I am not one of those people who thinks that this is the most awful thing ever found on a web page, but in this instance it really is unneccary.
- what's the purpose of the "refresh" button? Do you really plan to update the page so often that it is neccessary to have that? Seems more likely to confuse the visitor.
- You write the company name in the text with the same color as the links. Might be a bit confusing.

I like the colours you use. Hard to go wrong with blue and yellow, even though it can be a tad be boring since it is so very common.

The logo looks good too, clean and unobrusive.

So, overall I think it is good work, but with a few details that can be made even better.

pfusion: Welcome to the Aslyum. Another fellow Brit? There seems to be an awful lot of us turning up at the moment. You might want to get yourself on the map:
www.ozoneasylum.com/Forum1/HTML/003377.html

Initial thoughts:

1. Splash screens always make me nervous nice colours and nice look though (you might also want to use body {overflow: auto } to kill the scrollbars).

2. And I was right to be nervous - Opera has a fit 'Address type unknown or unsupported' and 6 'Illegal addresses'. I must assume that this is due to a full screen pop up that I get in IE6. Pop ups are bad fullscreen ones worse. I also don't see any reason for it.

3. While we are discussing IE6 I'd turn off the image toolbar as it doesn't do you any favours.

4. You'll need to preload the images for the mouseover on the left as on a dialup it takes a while to ome through and I was wondering if anything was going to happen. Quite frankly as the links are replicated down below too I don't see why anyone would bother using a strange unintuitive piece of navigation like that (it may be me but the image seems a bit jaggy and the top and sides of the circles look a little flat).

5. In the text on you main page I wouldn't have the pfusion bit in the link colour.

6. On your other pages you have click for menu and the menu revealing is a little 'sudden' and utterly pointless as the links are replicated on the page. Who is going to use that feature when it takes longer to access and is less intuitive?

7. On the company page the ordering subpage is missing its border.

8. On the contact page we no longer have the simpler set of links.

I haven't been able to view your source so I'll return to that tomorrow.

Overall it looks OK - nice colours, simple layout, etc. but I just didn't feel I was using a web page - it struck me more like a simple multimedia CD-ROM interface which in my opinion is a bad thing. Where it really falls down is usability - I just don't see why anyone would use that symbol as navigation there is nothing it adds. As ZOX pointed out there are some mysterious things who's use escapes me (arrows and refresh) and the whole thing seems designed to confuse a novice user who would probably give up in despair. I would suggest a rethink of your whole strategy there - which seems a bit harsh but you do have some things going for you and I think presenting it as a web page with more consistent, simpler navigation would really work for you.

Emps


You're my wife now Dave

I agree on most of what's been said so far so I'll try and avoid sayin anything twice.

The dropdown list on the contact page doesn't fare too well with Mozilla/Netscape 6

I'm not liking the whole simplistic and diagonal lines thing. It's quite easy to throw in some diagonals to break things up a bit but that's really all you've done. The background grid doesn't sit too well with me either.

As for the colour scheme, well... it's just not liking my eyes. Sure, blue and yellow work fine but you need to take the harsh edge off your site. Use more then one tone/shade of blue rather then just one blue with the harsh white contrast. Yes, I really think you should try and re-work your colours and contrasts to see what you can make of it. Mix things up and blend them in a little. Some related monocromatic abstract's as backround imagery might work well in their too.

Actualy I will repeate something:
Popups & Splash pages annoy me. As do cromeless windows in IE. Still, each to their own I guess.

Edit: Not telling :P



[This message has been edited by Dracusis (edited 01-11-2002).]

pfusion: I do hope it doesn't seem like we are being overly critical but if you are trying to let clients know about your web design abilities its probably best not to do it in a format that causes some browsers genuine problems and with confusing navigation. Hopefully in the long run you could benefit from the feedback.

Emps

Right code - I forgot:

Seems fine but on your splash age your metatags are repeated.

And you are using <BR> and non breaking spaces for vertical and horizontal spacing so I'd use CSS instead.

Emps

Let's look at your sheet too:
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT face="Verdana, Arial">code:</font><HR><pre>
a { color: #F8C600}
a { text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold} // ........................these can be combined into one statement

a:hover { color: ffffff; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold}