Any chance of some constructive criticism?

J

John

I've used this group occasionally with questions on CSS, HTML etc. I've
just finished re-doing a site in what I think is a standards compliant
and presentable fashion. If you could have a look and provide a bit of
feedback it would be much appreciated.

http://www.enterprisesystems.co.uk

Cheers,

John
 
N

nice.guy.nige

While the city slept, John (no@email) feverishly typed...
I've used this group occasionally with questions on CSS, HTML etc.
I've just finished re-doing a site in what I think is a standards
compliant and presentable fashion. If you could have a look and
provide a bit of feedback it would be much appreciated.

http://www.enterprisesystems.co.uk

From the WAI Guidelines, Checkpoint 13.1;
"Link text should be meaningful enough to make sense when read out of
context"
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/wai-pageauth.html#tech-meaningful-links

From your "Welcome" page;

please email us <a href="[...]">here</a>

How about

<a href="[...]">please email us</a>

instead?

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Nige
 
S

Steve Pugh

John said:
I've used this group occasionally with questions on CSS, HTML etc. I've
just finished re-doing a site in what I think is a standards compliant
and presentable fashion. If you could have a look and provide a bit of
feedback it would be much appreciated.

http://www.enterprisesystems.co.uk

Some of you alt attributes could do with amending. alt="image" on a
lot of the pages is simply useless. If the image is decorative then
use alt="", if it is functional then replicate the function in the
alt.

Steve
 
P

Philip Ronan

John said:
I've used this group occasionally with questions on CSS, HTML etc. I've
just finished re-doing a site in what I think is a standards compliant
and presentable fashion. If you could have a look and provide a bit of
feedback it would be much appreciated.

http://www.enterprisesystems.co.uk

<rant>
XHTML 1.1 is a pointless waste of time unless you're using stuff like
Japanese ruby text or MathML. You should be serving it with a content type
of "application/xhtml+xml", not "text/html". Take a look at
<http://www.webstandards.org/learn/askw3c/sep2003.html>, for example.
</rant>

But in any case, your site is broken in IE5/Mac -- here's a screen shot:
<http://vzone.virgin.net/phil.ronan/junk/enterprise-systems.jpg>

What's wrong with HTML 4.01?
 
J

jake

John said:
I've used this group occasionally with questions on CSS, HTML etc. I've
just finished re-doing a site in what I think is a standards compliant
and presentable fashion. If you could have a look and provide a bit of
feedback it would be much appreciated.

http://www.enterprisesystems.co.uk

Cheers,

John

Just a few initial comments/personal preferences:

(a) A fluid design would be better (i.e. the ability of the user to
adjust the width of the page as viewed).
(b) Right-ragged body text would be easier to read than right-justified
text
(c) Inconsistent use of <acronym>: definition on one page -- none on
other pages. (BTW. Shouldn't the <acronym>s be <abbr>s ?)
(d) A link to bypass the menu and get to the content might be
appreciated by AT users.
(e) Disable the link in the menu on each page that points to itself.
(f) Ensure that the <title></title> contents reflects the contents of
the page, not the site.
(g) Warn users (especially AT users) that a link will open a new window.
(h) Ensure that any image used as a link has suitable alternative text
to describe it
(i) Lastly, put all your text through a grammar/spell-checker to lose
the spelling and punctuation errors.

......... otherwise -- looks OK (including old Netscapes)

regards
 
J

John

nice.guy.nige said:
While the city slept, John (no@email) feverishly typed...

I've used this group occasionally with questions on CSS, HTML etc.
I've just finished re-doing a site in what I think is a standards
compliant and presentable fashion. If you could have a look and
provide a bit of feedback it would be much appreciated.

http://www.enterprisesystems.co.uk


From the WAI Guidelines, Checkpoint 13.1;
"Link text should be meaningful enough to make sense when read out of
context"
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/wai-pageauth.html#tech-meaningful-links

From your "Welcome" page;

please email us <a href="[...]">here</a>

How about

<a href="[...]">please email us</a>

instead?

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Nige

Thanks. Fixed now.
 
J

John

Steve said:
Some of you alt attributes could do with amending. alt="image" on a
lot of the pages is simply useless. If the image is decorative then
use alt="", if it is functional then replicate the function in the
alt.

Steve

Thanks for pointing that out. I've changed them now. I realised that one
of the pages wasn't validating in the process.

John
 
J

John

Philip said:
John wrote:




<rant>
XHTML 1.1 is a pointless waste of time unless you're using stuff like
Japanese ruby text or MathML. You should be serving it with a content type
of "application/xhtml+xml", not "text/html". Take a look at
<http://www.webstandards.org/learn/askw3c/sep2003.html>, for example.
</rant>

Thanks. I've had a read of the link and may put in "content
negotiation". I'm reluctant to do so though, since it seems a bit messy
conceptually.
But in any case, your site is broken in IE5/Mac -- here's a screen shot:
<http://vzone.virgin.net/phil.ronan/junk/enterprise-systems.jpg>

Yes, that does seem to have broken quite nastily. Did you check in any
other Mac browsers? I reckon it'll work for 90% of users; perhaps I
should do a different / non-existent style sheet for the rest.
What's wrong with HTML 4.01?

Nothing at all. I like the concept of XHTML, and I use it a lot in
applications for reports etc that can be easily created and read
automatically.

Cheers for your help with this.

John
 
P

Philip Ronan

John said:
Thanks. I've had a read of the link and may put in "content
negotiation". I'm reluctant to do so though, since it seems a bit messy
conceptually.

So use HTML 4.01. It's compatible with more UAs than XHTML.
Yes, that does seem to have broken quite nastily. Did you check in any
other Mac browsers? I reckon it'll work for 90% of users; perhaps I
should do a different / non-existent style sheet for the rest.

Looked OK in Opera. I seem to remember reading somewhere that XHTML 1.1
tends to put IE into quirks mode, so this might be difficult to fix.
Nothing at all. I like the concept of XHTML, and I use it a lot in
applications for reports etc that can be easily created and read
automatically.

Well I like the concept of delivering content via a network of telepathic
hamsters, but for the time being I'm sticking with things that actually
work...
Cheers for your help with this.

You're welcome. Good luck with the site :-D
 
A

Andy Dingley

Nothing at all. I like the concept of XHTML

Why XHTML 1.1 though ?

Personally I use XHTML 1.0 It has the advantages (such as they are)
of XHTML, but it can still reasonably be served as text/html. IMHO,
going to 1.1 is just a step farther than is viable at present and I
can see _no_ benefit over 1.0.
 
T

Travis Newbury

John said:
I've used this group occasionally with questions on CSS, HTML etc. I've
just finished re-doing a site in what I think is a standards compliant
and presentable fashion. If you could have a look and provide a bit of
feedback it would be much appreciated.

http://www.enterprisesystems.co.uk

It looks like every other validating site in the world. Bland. You
can be creative and still validate if you really want to.
 
B

Brendan Taylor

Thanks. I've had a read of the link and may put in "content
negotiation". I'm reluctant to do so though, since it seems a bit messy
conceptually.

According to the W3C, XHTML 1.1 should not be served as text/html.
<http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types/xhtml-media-types.xhtml#summary>

If you're going the XHTML route (which I personally have no problem with,
though some circles seem to be quite averse to it) and need to support
Internet Explorer, you should be using XHTML 1.0 and content negotiation.
All you would need to change is your doctype, your pages will still
validate just fine.
 
F

floele

Don't know if that helps, but you can also use a quite simple PHP
script to use the correct mime-type for each browser (placed at the top
of every document):


<?php
if ( stristr($_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT"],"application/xhtml+xml") ) {
header('Content-type: application/xhtml+xml');
}
else {
header('Content-type: text/html');
}
?>
 
B

BJ in Texas

Travis Newbury wrote:
|| John wrote:
||| I've used this group occasionally with questions on CSS,
||| HTML etc. I've just finished re-doing a site in what I think
||| is a standards compliant and presentable fashion. If you
||| could have a look and provide a bit of feedback it would be
||| much appreciated.
|||
||| http://www.enterprisesystems.co.uk
||
|| It looks like every other validating site in the world.
|| Bland. You can be creative and still validate if you really
|| want to.
||

Other than not having enough wiz bang widgets flying around and
kool
multi-color animations. :)

It looks pretty good, I would lose the right-justified text and
make the
width resizeable.

BJ
 
T

Toby Inkster

floele said:
<?php
if ( stristr($_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT"],"application/xhtml+xml") ) {
header('Content-type: application/xhtml+xml');
}
else {
header('Content-type: text/html');
}
?>

Function goodbrowser() below should give better results. If goodbrowser()
returns true, then send using an XHTML content-type, and include an XML
prologue. If goodbrowser() returns false, then use "text/html" and strip
out the XML prologue.

# goodbrowser()
# by Toby Inkster, based on code by Bertilo Wennergren
function goodbrowser () {

$ac = strtolower(getenv('HTTP_ACCEPT'));
$ua = getenv('HTTP_USER_AGENT');

# Netscape 6 can't properly handle XHTML
if (substr_count($ua,'Netscape6') > 0 ) { return false; }

# Wget can (well, it doesn't care!), but doesn't list it
elseif (substr_count($ua,'Wget') > 0 ) { return true; }

# Any browsers that don't specificially list XHTML, use HTML
elseif (substr_count($ac,'application/xhtml+xml') == 0) { return false; }

# Otherwise we need to compare 'q' values.
else
{
$xhtml_q = 1; $html_q = 1;

if (preg_match("/application\/xhtml\+xml\s*;[^,]*\bq\s*=\s*([\d\.]+)/",$ac,$m)) { $xhtml_q = $m[1]; }

if ( preg_match("/text\/html\s*;[^,]*\bq\s*=\s*([\d\.]+)/", $ac, $m)
|| preg_match("/text\/\*\s*;[^,]*\bq\s*=\s*([\d\.]+)/", $ac, $m)
|| preg_match("/\*\/\*\s*;[^,]*\bq\s*=\s*([\d\.]+)/", $ac, $m)
) { $html_q = $m[1]; }

if ($xhtml_q >= $html_q) { return true; }
else { return false; }
}
}
 
P

Philip Ronan

Don't know if that helps, but you can also use a quite simple PHP
script to use the correct mime-type for each browser (placed at the top
of every document):


<?php
if ( stristr($_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT"],"application/xhtml+xml") ) {
header('Content-type: application/xhtml+xml');
}
else {
header('Content-type: text/html');
}
?>

Unfortunately that has the side-effect of knocking out all the other useful
headers your server would have otherwise added (Content-Length, ETag,
Last-Modified, etc.).

Google for "cacheability" if you want to know why this is a Bad Thing.
 
T

Travis Newbury

BJ said:
||| http://www.enterprisesystems.co.uk
|| It looks like every other validating site in the world.
|| Bland. You can be creative and still validate if you really
|| want to.
Other than not having enough wiz bang widgets flying around and
kool
multi-color animations. :)

You don't need all that to be pleasing to the eye. The current problem
with (most) CSS is that the techies (most who could not design their way
out of a paper bag) know how to do i, and the really creative people are
still clinging to table layout. Slowly as these people learn, they will
bring with them good (better) design.
 
D

Disco Octopus

John wrote :
I've used this group occasionally with questions on CSS, HTML etc. I've just
finished re-doing a site in what I think is a standards compliant and
presentable fashion. If you could have a look and provide a bit of feedback
it would be much appreciated.

http://www.enterprisesystems.co.uk

Cheers,

John

At first look, I would probably do the following....


Change this.....
#narrow_layout {
POSITION: absolute;
CLEAR: both;
RIGHT: auto;
LEFT: 50%;
MARGIN-LEFT: -390px;
WIDTH: 780px;
BOTTOM: auto;
TOP: 0px;
}



.... to this....

#narrow_layout {
POSITION: absolute;
CLEAR: both;
RIGHT: auto;
BOTTOM: auto;
TOP: 0px;
}

.... gives more flexability to the screen resolution factor.
 
P

Phoenix

John said:
I've used this group occasionally with questions on CSS, HTML etc. I've
just finished re-doing a site in what I think is a standards compliant
and presentable fashion. If you could have a look and provide a bit of
feedback it would be much appreciated.

http://www.enterprisesystems.co.uk

Cheers,

John

You should lose the horrible W3C buttons at the bottom. If you really
need to advertise your validation, just use text, or make your own
buttons. Those W3C buttons have ruined many a decent design, by
definitely not fitting in.
 
P

Phoenix

John said:
I've used this group occasionally with questions on CSS, HTML etc. I've
just finished re-doing a site in what I think is a standards compliant
and presentable fashion. If you could have a look and provide a bit of
feedback it would be much appreciated.

http://www.enterprisesystems.co.uk

Cheers,

John

Sorry about posting more than one answer. I just found some new issues.
Using Lynx, I see the following on the "Existing Customers" page:


----
K & L Ross Ltd.

K L Ross Logo

Enterprise Systems provides all IT services for K & L Ross, with the
----

The alt-text on that logo doesn't help much. Reading the words "K L Ross
Logo" gives me no clue what that is, unless I know what the K L Ross
Logo looks like already. Besides, it's repeating the header, so I would
say the logo is only there for "show", so to speak, and can probably do
very fine with an empty alt-text. Move the link to the header instead.
Link texts are supposed to be useful, and "K L Ross Logo" as a link text
certainly isn't useful. Of course you're able to guess where you're
going, but...

On the consultancy page, there's also an uneccesary alt-text. Just see
this output:

----
Sometimes it is necessary to obtain an objective, impartial opinion on
a software project, on IT strategy, or an a specific technical problem
that has become bogged down in detail or negotiations. We can provide
consultancy and audit services at short notice and across a wide
remit.
Sequence Diagram

Our approach to providing advice is not about playing it safe and
providing non-committal advice; we examine problems and provide
----

That alt-text, "Sequence Diagram", doesn't really fit there, or what do
you say? ;)

Last, although you probably won't care, like most people who use it, I'd
say ditch the XHTML and go with HTML 4 instead. Lot more support for it,
and there's nothing you need in XHTML that is not present in HTML anyway.
 

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