Need Some Constructive Critism

WebRuss

Folks
Great coder I am, web designer, I am not. I've built a site: www.webruss.net

Now what I'm looking for is ways to make the site look better. How do I

Thanks in advance
Russ

ednark

look into Zope.org

i would suggest using that for content management in the first place...

however, since you already have your own, it has a good interface style, so you could maybe play with it and pick up a few functional tidbits.

_SuperString

Try looking at style sheets, you dont need to be a designer to use them. You site will look much better if you format you text etc with CSS. Also try and stay away from Clipart, its cheap and nasty. A quick overhall and your all-set, no worries.

run2web

Overall it isn't bad. I think I would move the navagation element across the top. To me (imho) is looks awkward, when I scrolled down the page, I almost expected it to float down with me (not that that is a good thing).

WebRuss

Thanks for all your input! 😃

I'm considering all of your suggestions. I'll post here again after I make some changes.

Regards
Russ

Tekron-X

If you want to see a nice web page done in php you can go here it is real nice it uses a system called Unified created by one of the guys who run the site named Tricord. You can see the features that unified has by finding and clicking the link Unified 🙂

the site is www.levels4you.com

WebRuss

Nice site. Thanks for the tip. That is quite similar to what I am attempting to do.

Regards
Russ

Tekron-X

Yea it is a nice site I am staff on it and have admin menue access it is a great site but the Unified thing is copywrited so don't try to immitate it or you will get a law suit lol 🙂

WebRuss

Guess I better turn off the vampire program and delete all of the source I just download from your site....😃 (kidding!)

Regards
Russ

Tekron-X

LOL 🙂 not my site though it is Garner and Tricords at the moment if they can still aford all the money for the dedciated server 🙂 but it is working for them so far.

Elizabeth

I've been in webdesign for 5 years, and only recently started really getting into PHP so I think we're on opposite ends of the spectrum! 🙂

Here are some easy suggestions that will enhance your site for the better imho:

Get rid of the default font. It's way overused on the net and I think it can actually make your site look more amateurish. You don't see Times New Roman, size 2 on Microsoft or EBay 🙂
Create a bigger contrast in the navigation box. Either choose a darker background or use black or navy print.
Personally, I don't mind the clip art if it maintains a consistent look and feel across the site (and if it doesn't look to "pixelly" or unprofessional). In fact, the more graphics you have, the better. People are impatient - they won't read. But they also wont' wait longer than 8 seconds (on average) for a page to load. If you want to increase your clip art or photo library, I highly recommend www.arttoday.com. There are many photos and high quality clip art there that you can use.
Remember that a promotional website should be designed more like a billboard than an informational booklet. The informational links should definitely be there, but you want to grab someone's attention and force them to see the one or two most important things right away. Don't bury the benefits and features way down in the site, make sure they are the first things that are seen. Then if there is an interest, people will spend the time reading about your product and what it can do for them.

I think you have a great start, and with a few "tweaks" here and there, it will be even better.

Good luck to you - hope this helps!

-Elizabeth

WebRuss

Elizabeth

Thanks for your input. I appreciate all of your suggestions. I'm working on some changes right now and I will post a reply once I make the changes.

Russ

DwarV

delete some of the BR tags in the first 'textblock' of your page.. try highlighting important words with a 'B' tag...
words like 'easy' and 'powerful' ..
it just draws attention..

WebRuss

Okay all

I've Tweaked the site a bit....

Let me know what you think!

Regards
Russ

ednark

you right oriented pictures... make the backgrounds the same as the containers background...

the text... it looks like someone with photoshop skillz and not a lot of ideas did it...

warning pure opinion:

i would go for a more integrated with a picture look than just ... a bunch of filters on some neat text look...

WebRuss

Originally posted by ednark
you right oriented pictures... make the backgrounds the same as the containers background...

Backgrounds of photos same as article background. -- Okay I can do that

Originally posted by ednark

the text... it looks like someone with photoshop skillz and not a lot of ideas did it...

You are speaking of the large image at the top? Yeah I made that using Gimp. I wanted simple... but I'm not sure what else to do there.. Any Ideas?

Originally posted by ednark

warning pure opinion:

i would go for a more integrated with a picture look than just ... a bunch of filters on some neat text look...

Can you explain?? I'm not sure what you mean..

Regards
Russ

Elizabeth

Nice changes- looking great!

Another suggestion I might offer is to have a page that explains how to order your services, the price... you know that kind of thing. Your link then from the home page could read, "Click here to order" yada yada yada.

If you have more than one person using your program, you might offer testimonials from them on how great your product is and how much it helped them.

You might also give more about your background, i.e., how many years of programming experience you have, etc. etc.

I think you're doing a good job- good luck to you!

Elizabeth

ednark

...integrated with a picture look...

first off let me tell you that with my level of design skillz I wouldn't even be accepted to kindegarden with good references... that having been said, i will tell you how you should design your logo

looks like you took a neat font... bevel/embossed it, maybe with a satin overlay and some lighting effect.... but still just some text...

it looks neat but not professional... i would suggest something with plain colors to make your name easier to digest on the eyes... and maybe have some picture of some sort or do something like invert half the image... something thats creative but not detailed... does that make sense?

kinda like how the ford logo is simple colors complex font...

clintonium

I took a peek at your code and you're missing the opening <html> and <body> tags (though you close them at the end). IE forgives, lesser gods do not.

If it's important to the look of your page to maintain a white background make sure that you specify bgcolor="#ffffff" in the body tag. I set my default window background color to a middle gray to reduce eye strain when I'm coding and some browsers will carry this setting over as a default background for the browser window. Looks fine on Yahoo where they have always intended the bgcolor to be customizable, but looks slightly less good on sites that haven't allowed for it intentionally.

I noticed that you're embedding your CSS in the header of each page. While you're probably plopping this in from a template with PHP, you should still consider moving it out to a separate file and just targeting it with a link tag: <link rel="stylesheet" href="/styles.css" type="text/css">. This will make your pages more accessible to users who, for some reason (physical or equipment disability), need to define their own stylesheet controls and override yours.

Hope this helps, and good luck with the site.