Topic: a first time site...

Okay, this is my first attempt at website design. It is an e-business site for my dad's Go-Kart Parts business...please check it out and tell me what you think:
www.drisson.com

-mike

First attempt? I'm impressed.

The images and the layout or so-so. Do I see Dreamweaver code? All this is fine. What I find impressive about your site is the ease of navigation. You have pictures and you have discriptions. IMO, thats the most important aspects of a corporate website. If you look at large corporations, they spend so much money designing a beautiful website, they forget to add there products.

I think it's a very good design. The design can be improved, but it suits its purpose nicely.

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cheers.jay

Thanks. I have actually been not liking the nav bar and the side background graphic, but somewhat unable to come up with a new one...and yep, Dreamweaver...heh. I think that the "Drisson" logo is sort of in need of help, at very least color-wise...Oh, and when someone clicks on a "order now" button near a product, how would I go about passing the info on that part on to the order page? Would I use a cookie? php or asp?

Anyways, nice..

-mike
grats42@yahoo.com

I re-did the nav bar and sidebar now...I have to think about re-doing other graphics too, mix them up with the form selects some....otherwise...here is it now...
www.drisson.com




[This message has been edited by grats42 (edited 02-04-2002).]

grats42: As Jestah said that is a good first crack and you've managed to avoid the pitfalls that can afflict first time designers (esp. the 'that looks cool I'll use it' mentality - check out Homer Simpson's first web page for a good example!!). Some thoughts:

1. It looks like some of those transparent gifs look a little jappgy - I might be tempted to go for a jpeg of those compnents on a white background.

2. You page needs a little more defined structure and I might be tempted to have borders around the 3 columns.

3. You'll want to make more use of CSS.

4. You could probably do away with most of those tables - you have 3 nested tables and that can reduced. You also have a lot of empty table tags and empty/unused tags and thi <p>&nbsp;</p> - is this for vertical spacing? If so then use CSS.

5. Have you been fiddling with your tables a lot? There are an awful lot of colspans (including one with colspan="10") and so you might want to have a look at that too.

6. I'd get rid of that grey background and go for something brighter and cleaner - white or an off white like ivory. It'll make your colours and graphics stand out better.

Overall its certainly a good start and if you have a look at the code and a fiddle with the graphics and layout it will start really looking good. Keep up the good work there.

Emps

I've closed the other thread reviewing this site:
www.ozoneasylum.com/Forum6/HTML/000787.html

but check out that thread for other comments.

Emps

>1. It looks like some of those transparent gifs look a little jappgy - I might be tempted to go for a jpeg of those >compnents on a white background.

I've heard that same comment a few times now. Will do.

>2. You page needs a little more defined structure and I might be tempted to have borders around the 3 columns.

More defined how? And you mean a border around the three columns on the front page?

>3. You'll want to make more use of CSS.

I actually have NO idea how to do this. I'm sure it would make my life easier. What is it really? How would I apply it to my page?

>4. You could probably do away with most of those tables - you have 3 nested tables and that can reduced. You >also have a lot of empty table tags and empty/unused tags and thi <p> </p> - is this for vertical spacing? If so >then use CSS.

I designed the front page using dreamweaver layout view...I guess that uses tables..Do nested tables slow down or mess up the design? Should I just use a code cleaner for all this extra crap?

>5. Have you been fiddling with your tables a lot? There are an awful lot of colspans (including one with >colspan="10") and so you might want to have a look at that too.

I have. And thanks for noticing that colspan, I have been wondering what was up with that table. This page was taken over by me...someone else had done it and did a REAL hack job...

>6. I'd get rid of that grey background and go for something brighter and cleaner - white or an off white like ivory. >It'll make your colours and graphics stand out better.

Before, it was making the page seem very very empty...I'll try that out now..

Thanks.

grats42: I'll just deal with the ones that need answering (makes sense I suppose):

2. I'm not sure - pos. borders - it currently just looks like elements floating around without any structure or grouping (and those centre ones group together) so I'd try a few borders and see how that looks.

3. CSS from a tutorial just about to go live:
www.gurusnetwork.com/tutorials/approval/cssintro/cssintro1.html

4. Tables will slow down the downloading (more code) and displaying (won't display until the whole table has downloaded) of your page so trim out the ones you don't need. Even if you were going for crossbrowser columns all you'd really need is one table for the header and nav and one for the 3 columns below on the main page - you can use DIVs for most of the rest.

5. You might want to consider redoing the tables as there seem to be an awful lot more colspans than are required.

6. You've got quite a bit of content in there so something off-white (#fffff0) or very light grey (#e0e0e0/#f0f0f0) might work.

Have a play with the colours and see how you feel.

Emps


A good buttock will always find a bench for itself - Estonian proverb

>4. Tables will slow down the downloading (more code) and displaying (won't display until the whole table has >downloaded) of your page so trim out the ones you don't need. Even if you were going for crossbrowser columns >all you'd really need is one table for the header and nav and one for the 3 columns below on the main page - you >can use DIVs for most of the rest.
>
>5. You might want to consider redoing the tables as there seem to be an awful lot more colspans than are >required.
>
>6. You've got quite a bit of content in there so something off-white (#fffff0) or very light grey (#e0e0e0/#f0f0f0) >might work.

Okay, the tables is a product of Dreamweaver inserting Fireworks html...any ideas on that? They are also how Dreamweaver does layout. I'm not really sure I understand the DIV tag, I'll have to look into it more...

The color change was a great idea. I also pulled the site together a lot more by using a more uniform color/text scheme...

Check it out again all, if you wouldn't mind...

grats42: Hmmm well if you must use DW!! I'm a Code Nazi (as I've said before) and so I gave up on DW pretty quickly. You will get greater control over your code by actually getting to grips with your HTML (perhaps one of the DW experts could throw some advice in on the transition).

Anyway be that as it may that new background colour looks much better (although have a play with the other off-whites and see how they look - #fofofo for example) and the little tweaks look good. I'm still not convinced about the pirctures of the parts on the left. One of the graphics experts might want to give you more advice but the text doesn't look as crisp as it does elsewhere on your page. I'm still leaning towards thinking a jpeg might be better but I'm unsure (you don't use transparency on other pages so this might be the best approach).

On your support page but the link around the image and button and make them both rollover (or put the button on the lower part of the picture and do the rollover). You have a mouseover on the pictures on your products page so keep things consistent (and the more things to click on and the bigger the target the better).

Set up a way for people to fax you their orders. If you have a fax then add the number - I've checked the coverage and you aren't in an area that can get free faxes in (I think):
www.tpc.int/fax_cover_auto.html

but there are services which will allow people to fax to your email which might be more convenient for them.

You'll need to have a link back to your main page on your forum - I'd also try and customise it to make it match your site.

Emps

The graphics on the main page are just not good quality....shrunk down, etc...I just need to go back and snip them from the original and re-work them

As for the fax deal, I'm working on integrating UPS tables and a shopping cart at the moment, but I don't quite know who to do that yet...

Umm, here's something. How do I change the color of the side scroll bar? And how do I make a transparent layer?

Oh, for those graphics peeps out there, what's good? Is photoshop just the way to go? I'm using Fireworks, I know, I know, Macromedia everything....but...yeah..

grats42: It might be a god idea to rework the graphics they just aren't very crisp.

You'll need some kind of server side scripting - it depends on what you are familiar with, what is available from your host, etc. We can give some advice when we know that.

Scrollbar colours - see the Asylum source its all there!! Why do you want a transparent layer?

On the graphics software it depends on your budget and what you are going to do with the software. PS is the best but PSP and PI are good for people on a budget and are getting better and better.

Emps

Emps wrote...
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grats42: It might be a god idea to rework the graphics they just aren't very crisp.

You'll need some kind of server side scripting - it depends on what you are familiar with, what is available from your host, etc. We can give some advice when we know that.

Scrollbar colours - see the Asylum source its all there!! Why do you want a transparent layer?

On the graphics software it depends on your budget and what you are going to do with the software. PS is the best but PSP and PI are good for people on a budget and are getting better and better.
<------------------------------------------------------
I say....

Yeah, re-working the graphics is high on my list of things to do...I just have to do it.

As for Server Side Scripting. I'm not very familiar with it really. I've been delving lightly into php, which really seems sort of lightweight and easy enough to use for the lighter stuff. I know my server supports it, I already tested that out. I'm not sure, as for the UPS Shipping tables, if I need to use the xml or the html interface. My main problem is, unless I can convince my father (I'm doing the site for him) to just get a e-business account on his server, I need to use PayPal for the money exchange. Now, PayPal doesn't really offer accurate shipping costs...you can add a certain price to each over one part, but that's not very accurate. I have all the parts weighed out, packaging included, so I need to plug all that in when the user presses the "Order Now!" button into the UPS system. Then, I need to get the costs from that, and pass that on the the paypal payment. The PayPal part is really quite easy. Its just getting there that isn't.

Ya know, I really forget to just look at the source of pages. Wow. That could be a lot easier than searching books and code archives sometimes! Thanks for the reminder..hehe.

As for the graphics programs, what are the last two? PSP and PI? I have, to chose from on my computer, Macromedia Fireworks, Adobe Illustrator 9, and Corel Draw 9....I think I have Photoshop 6.0 sitting on a CD somewhere too....

Muchas gracias for the advice...

OK I'm shutting down this thread as it is coninued here:
www.ozoneasylum.com/Forum6/HTML/000808.html

On the PHP front check out the tutorials over at the GN (link at the bottom of page) and over at places like www.devshed.com and get back to us if you have any questions.

It looks like you have the tools to get the graphics looking sharp (use PS so if you are having real trouble we can look at the PSD - the others are PhotoImpact and PaintShop Pro - but as you have PS..).

Emps