Critique Site If You Please (Full Version)

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urlgurl -> Critique Site If You Please (6/2/2009 6:32:08)

Greetings. I was sure there was a forum for critiques I had posted in before. I have not had my morning cup of tea though. I was wondering if I could please get your advice for changes / fixes / aesthetics of the following:

http://www.northumberlandschoolofthearts.com/default.html

Please bear in mind that it is not finished as image files, text files, additional information has not been completed yet so this is still "in infancy" beyond the first page. But I thought now is the best time to ask for advice as I would prefer building blocks and not sledge hammers.

Many thanks in advance,
Jennifer



caz -> RE: Critique Site If You Please (6/2/2009 9:40:20)

Very pleasing and nice to see that it validates too. One concern however is that on the News and Events page you ask for the photographer of downloaded images to be credited yet there are (as yet) no names to credit.

Also try to give the user a path back to the site from additional files such as the survey on the first page - some people just haven't got the hang of the Back button yet!.

I did notice these characters in your CSS 
body{
and suspect that it is the infamous BOM mark put there by Expression Web. However it does not seem to affect the outcome on Firefox but I haven't checked it in other browsers. A search on here will tell you how to get rid of it if you haven't got EW2, where you can suppress it.

All in all though you have very little to do and certainly no sledgehammers needed!



urlgurl -> RE: Critique Site If You Please (6/2/2009 9:53:14)

Thank you so much for the feedback caz (and nice to hear just a broom and not a sledgehammer is needed!)

Yes, I have not put credits on the images yet. The existing ones are clip are and place holders until the photographers send me their files. I should put a place holder for their names.

I will definatly add a path back to the site from the various pages - very good point and complete oversite on my part - note to self: do not design at 3am. We are in a small town in Canada and a majority of the target market are of an older generation. I guess I need some pointers on any other accessibility rules/pointers/etc for seniors too please if anyone has advice on that.

quote:

ORIGINAL: caz

I did notice these characters in your CSS 
body{
and suspect that it is the infamous BOM mark put there by Expression Web. However it does not seem to affect the outcome on Firefox but I haven't checked it in other browsers. A search on here will tell you how to get rid of it if you haven't got EW2, where you can suppress it.



As for the pesky snipit there, I do have EW2, and will search the forum on on how to supress it for sure. Anything else you can think of, please do not hesitate in posting. And many thanks again. Jennifer



TexasWebDevelopers -> RE: Critique Site If You Please (6/2/2009 9:55:18)

I like it--very nicely done!
You are using breaking spaces instead of CSS to space your address and phone in the footer and you really ought to set background colors in all of the noted CSS elements that do not contain one. You also redefined the color here: .instrright
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?profile=css2&warning=2&uri=http://www.northumberlandschoolofthearts.com/default.html

I like the look and feel and the fact that the user is drawn to the two (soon to be three) text links in the main checkerboard portion of the site...I assume you will change those periodically as events warrant.

You do not have a META description tag--that is VERY important. And your title tag should be different for each page--in the best of worlds, anyway.

As for your page naming conventions, you could take more advantage of keywords if you have done your research (www.wordtracker.com). Why name the page "aboutus.html" if you could give it a keyword-rich name like "Art-school-Ontario.html"



urlgurl -> RE: Critique Site If You Please (6/4/2009 8:04:19)

Alas, there don't seem to be enough hours in the day. I have placed user paths back on the pages more than one click within the site. I am not working on changing all the page names, page titles, meta tags for each page.

In the mean time, I have another question, and I wasn't sure if I should continue in this thread or post a new one and I am hoping you happen to revisit here.

We have been approached by someone who wants to be a part of our project, "take our site to the next level." - his big claim to fame is that he worked with Speilburg on a project - which is very impressive. He is from LA and has moved to our wee little part of Ontario, Canada.

Some notes on the company - 70% of our target market are women looking for information on art and craft classes for them selves, their husbands, their children/grandchildren depending on age. 30% are male and many being artists, actors appreciate the aesthetics of something so feminine. About 40% of our clients are on dial up - and I mean circa 1992 speed of dial up.

We met with him yesterday. Before hand, I had a look at some of his sites. He uses Dreamweaver, designs in tables, hard codes the styles in (Well Dreamweaver does for him.) and his code doesn't validate.

I asked him why he didn't use CSS for his layouts and he said all of his clients want custom sites not templates. (hmm . . . interesting, I had to explain to him what I meant.) I asked him why he didn't used linked stylesheets and he didn't really answer (hmm again. . . ). I asked him if he used w3.org to validate his code and he said it wasn't important.

His design style is very "LA" and I don't know if he can design out of his comfort zone. He wants to change the name from School to Academy, completly change the logo because the one we are working with is too feminine (consider our target market), and he wants to use multi-media presentations, clips of teachers, java, etc in the site (consider the 40% on dial up).

Would you have alarm bells going off at this point? We don't want to miss out on having someone with such wonderful contacts and could bring prestige to the project, but also is our site moving along in a good direction and maybe his corporate branding should stick to letterhead, cards promo items based on our existing (though in infancy) look?

Our site is the one in the critique: http://www.northumberlandschoolofthearts.com/default.html

I am not asking to critique his work, just perhaps comment on whether my concerns are valid and if our site (if meater in throughout the other pages) seems adequate for what we are doing. It is quite a sum he has quoted and some 3rd party input would be MORE than appreciated.



d a v e -> RE: Critique Site If You Please (6/4/2009 9:49:36)

alarm bells!!!



TexasWebDevelopers -> RE: Critique Site If You Please (6/4/2009 10:30:51)

One can take beautiful graphics and convert them to valid CSS designs for the web...we've worked with Chuck Norris and other Hollywood film releases and, trust me, they DON'T CARE how it's coded as long as it works....is that bad? Yes! You have to code it so it reaches the largest audience...that means valid CSS and XHTML.
Anyone can hire graphic designers for pennies on the dollar anywhere but he may have skills in creating visual marketing pieces.... but if it's his connections you want then perhaps he can market you for a percentage of all new buisness he brings in? That way he only gets paid if his marketing is successful. Otherwise, stick with your gut feeling. YOU know your market! My advice is to listen but not spend.



urlgurl -> RE: Critique Site If You Please (6/4/2009 15:18:52)

Dave and TexasWebDevelopers, thank you so much by your replies. I like our little site. And the prestige of who made the site isn't what is going to sell to our market "that's nice dear, but when can I sign up for knitting" [:)] I second guess myself all the time. Much appreciated, truly.



caz -> RE: Critique Site If You Please (6/6/2009 22:12:21)

I agree with Dave, those alarm bells sound really loud. As Texas said, listen but don't spend!



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