My Book Review site - Review please (Full Version)

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XooX -> My Book Review site - Review please (12/3/2005 2:00:19)

Hi
Just got started with my http://xooxonline.info . It is a book review site. Not a big collection as of now, but shall get it done over time. The homepage looks a bit clumsy.

But that apart, I would like you to give me a feel of how you, as a visitor feel. Please let me know, which link do you click from the homepage. this is because, I need to know a visitor's navigation pattern. Also, do let me know, if my page is loaded in good time.



Tailslide -> RE: My Book Review site - Review please (12/3/2005 4:12:07)

Hi

I say it looks clumsy - it's simple, but then that's no bad thing! The text increases in size in IE which is very good. I'd personally have the navigation above the Google search thing but that's a minor point. I'd do away with the italic text - it's very hard to read. Stick with normal Sans Serif fonts for optimal readability.

One of the box ads - Amazon I think - is sitting next to the Google Ads and it looks like an error although I don't think it is. It impinges on the page a bit much - I'd try to get it under or over the Google Ads so all the ads are in a single column.

The only problem I see (and don't take this the wrong way) is that because you've got a blog in there using nice simple blogging layouts it does make the rest of the site look a bit amateurish (sorry don't actually mean it that harshly).

I've recently been fiddling with a blog software - Wordpress in fact - and you can set up "static" pages with Wordpress as well as "blog" pages. I don't know if this is possible with eblogger but certainly Wordpress and Textpattern and probably others (and they're free yay!). If this is going to be a long term business thing and you're including a blog anyway then it might well be worth using the blogging software for the whole site - you can fiddle with layouts and colours quite extensively. That will also make it very very easy to update.

Please don't take that last idea as too negative a criticism as it isn't meant as one - your site is neat, clear and quite easy to read already which is the point in the end - I'm just throwing ideas around!



XooX -> RE: My Book Review site - Review please (12/3/2005 9:06:33)

Hi Helena

Thanks really for your comments..well let me tell you; when I started out with making this, I thought this effort was good. But then , checking out with a few of your sites has really made me think back on how clumsy my work has been..So I have started to work back on them..

I shall get back, when it is done..I have really a few pages only as of now, so that should not be a prob as of now..thanks again



Tailslide -> RE: My Book Review site - Review please (12/3/2005 10:07:30)

Xoox - your work doesn't look at all clumsy to me- I think with a couple of minor changes such as the itallics thing and moving the amazon ad your site would be very good - clear, easy to read, easy to navigate. Don't be put off! I design sites for a living and have done so for a couple of years so (hopefully) they look reasonable, far as I'm aware you don't do this for a living- so don't be so hard on yourself!

Frankly, I'd much much rather see a simple, clear site than one with flashing gifs, bright backgrounds and 20 different fonts and I think the others who design stuff for a living on here would agree with me.



XooX -> RE: My Book Review site - Review please (12/3/2005 12:18:17)

Thanks for the remarks Helena..

Yes, I agree that flashing banners put the visitors off. But, I felt that my site lacked the professional touch it requires to keep the visitors there. And I was impressed by another site called mustangevolution.com . So trying to remodel my site to those lines..



Tailslide -> RE: My Book Review site - Review please (12/3/2005 12:33:46)

Good luck with it all then! There are several Wordpress templates that I've seen that are very similar to the Mustang site - you might want to look at going that route - all the groundwork is done for you - you just tweak stuff!



XooX -> RE: My Book Review site - Review please (12/5/2005 10:47:22)

Hi Helena

I have now made my page more organised. As a visitor, does it look fine now.?

My site address is http://xooxonline.info



Tailslide -> RE: My Book Review site - Review please (12/5/2005 13:09:51)

Hi again

It's a neat layout. I'd still dump the different font styles and stick to a single sans serif font - it's generally accepted that serif fonts are much harder to read on screens while oddly they are easier to read in print.

The only other thing is that your site doesn't resize easily down to 800x600 screen resolution - you end up with a scroll bar. Trouble is that the Amazon ads are so wide that even if you made if fluid the central text area would be too narrow to be useful at that screen resolution.

Without wanting to make your life difficult - I'd shift the Google ads below the amazon ones so that you get a wider central text area and a single column of ads - or I guess you could get a horizontal Google ad to go above it all. Then make the site "fluid" by using %s to describe the widths of your tables rather than fixed px widths. That way it will expand and contract much more easily.




dpf -> RE: My Book Review site - Review please (12/5/2005 13:18:22)

the google search is entirely too prominent - it takes up way too much prime real estate



womble -> RE: My Book Review site - Review please (12/5/2005 14:29:41)

I agree, and with Helena on the font style. Much improved now though. [:)]



XooX -> RE: My Book Review site - Review please (12/6/2005 1:16:32)

Thanks everyone.. the reason I had google ads horizontally is because, I felt, as Dan said, it will occupy much more of prime real estate, already some of which is taken by the search box. So, I had no choice than to have it in the side compromising on the scroll to the right. So now, which one shall I take; to minimise the scroll to the right? or to stuff as much of real content into the main area. I 'll have to make a decision here.



XooX -> RE: My Book Review site - Review please (12/12/2005 8:19:03)

Finally after a lot of hiccups, I've now able to put up a revamped stuff of what you can now safely call a website..it is actually a freely downloaded forums..

However, pls do review..
http://xooxonline.info



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