Critique of website design

[Toby A Inkster]

Hi all,

Could you take a look at this example page from my new CMS and let me know
what you think?

http://test.tobyinkster.co.uk/article/foo/

Note: most of the links are broken, so don't bother following them.

What I'm mostly interested in is the usability of the navigation. Is it
obvious what everything on the page is there for? Is there any navigation
device you feel is missing?

Although I'm mainly after your thoughts on navigation and usability, I'd
also be interested on any other thoughts you might have. Is the visual
design OK? How do you think it is for accessibility? Any other thoughts?

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact
Geek of ~ HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python*/Apache/Linux

* = I'm getting there!

 

[Neredbojias]

Hi all,

Could you take a look at this example page from my new CMS and let me
know what you think?

http://test.tobyinkster.co.uk/article/foo/

Note: most of the links are broken, so don't bother following them.

What I'm mostly interested in is the usability of the navigation. Is
it obvious what everything on the page is there for? Is there any
navigation device you feel is missing?

Although I'm mainly after your thoughts on navigation and usability,
I'd also be interested on any other thoughts you might have. Is the
visual design OK? How do you think it is for accessibility? Any other
thoughts?

I get an obscuring white background on the double-arrow of the links with
IE 6 but not FF or Opera.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

I get an obscuring white background on the double-arrow of the links with
IE 6 but not FF or Opera.

Most likely IE6 limitation with transparency in PNGs, needs to be a
simple palette PNG and with s simple transparent color, like a GIF for
it to work in IE, or you have to use that dang IE Filter doodad...

 

[Jeff]

Same here.

Minor points.

Artical detail table could stand to be vertical-align: top, and the
links in it weren't obvious.

Nav folds under content on a narrow screen.

Could use a little margin under the blogroll text and before the links.

Nothing to be concerned about, if you dont mind black and lime green!
I'm working on it!

Jeff

 

[Bergamot]

http://test.tobyinkster.co.uk/article/foo/

http://www.bergamotus.ws/screenshots/tobyinkster.png

 

[Andy Dingley]

Although I'm mainly after your thoughts on navigation and usability, I'd
also be interested on any other thoughts you might have.

<div id="clearer">
<!-- This is a very nasty hack. -->
</div>


Interesting. Instead of your <div> I'm using <hr> for much the same
purpose, but with CSS to make it invisible. I used to use <br> but
decided it was something of an abuse of an "inline" element, event
though it was DTD-valid (everything was inside at least one <div>). I
use <hr class="fleuron" > if I want them visible.

An example: <http://codesmiths.com/shed/things/boxes/ark/>

 

[Richard Formby]

Hi all,
G'day.

http://test.tobyinkster.co.uk/article/foo/

The "page: 1,2,3..." line. What does this do?

....

Ah. Figured it out. It restricts your content to certain "sections" of the
"page". All became clear when I must have accidently selected Full and
noticed your .htaccess? redirect, "/full", in the address bar. I was not
aware (visually) that there were "sections", or "pages", until then. I
thought I was going to different URL pages in the, is it blog, element.

In the above line the colour contrast between the "current", er, page,
compared to the links to the others is so low that I didn't see it until I
figured out the aforementioned. Very pale cream as against very very pale
cream? Same applies elsewhere.

Also, the text-decoration: underline; you apply on :hover is, for the 1, 2
and 3 options is almost completely obscured by... the mouse cursor


Finally, why use up only the very middle one third of my canvas for the
content? Wears out my mouse wheel

Really finally, I personally don't like white (or cream) on dark. Hurts my
old eyes. Your choice though

 

[Chaddy2222]

The "page: 1,2,3..." line. What does this do?

...

Ah. Figured it out. It restricts your content to certain "sections" of the
"page". All became clear when I must have accidently selected Full and
noticed your .htaccess? redirect, "/full", in the address bar. I was not
aware (visually) that there were "sections", or "pages", until then. I
thought I was going to different URL pages in the, is it blog, element.

In the above line the colour contrast between the "current", er, page,
compared to the links to the others is so low that I didn't see it until I
figured out the aforementioned. Very pale cream as against very very pale
cream? Same applies elsewhere.

Also, the text-decoration: underline; you apply on :hover is, for the 1, 2
and 3 options is almost completely obscured by... the mouse cursor


Finally, why use up only the very middle one third of my canvas for the
content? Wears out my mouse wheel

Really finally, I personally don't like white (or cream) on dark. Hurts my
old eyes. Your choice though

Hmmm, maybe Toby could use some kind of style sicher for the CSS so
that people can choose to have diffferent colours for the site,
without having to fiddle with browser settings.

 

[Richard Formby]

Chaddy2222 wrote

Hmmm, maybe Toby could use some kind of style sicher for the CSS so
that people can choose to have diffferent colours for the site,
without having to fiddle with browser settings.

Yes perhaps so. But, IMHO such things are bandaid over bandage. Fixing the
wrong thing.

Why not get it right, and accessible, the first time.

How do we know that any of Toby's new switched colours will be better than
the first ones? Until we see them that is...

 

[Chaddy2222]

Chaddy2222 wrote


Yes perhaps so. But, IMHO such things are bandaid over bandage. Fixing the
wrong thing.

Why not get it right, and accessible, the first time.

How do we know that any of Toby's new switched colours will be better than
the first ones? Until we see them that is...

Interesting question. But yes I see what you mean regarrding the issue
about getting it right the first time. But I think what I was refering
too more so was to have a swicher (where the user can chage the style
right from the website. Yeah I know, the usual issues relating to
pointlesness aply, but if he really want those original colours, for
branding or whatever.

 

[Bernhard Sturm]

What I'm mostly interested in is the usability of the navigation. Is it
obvious what everything on the page is there for? Is there any navigation
device you feel is missing?

not missing but you take an unusual approach by positioning the search
box at the top left corner. From an accessible point of view one would
expect the search field top right.

Although I'm mainly after your thoughts on navigation and usability, I'd
also be interested on any other thoughts you might have. Is the visual
design OK? How do you think it is for accessibility? Any other thoughts?

I have problems reading the typeface you have chosen. Swiss721BT ist
installed on my system, but it renders terribly on low font sizes. If
you ask about accessibility you should consider the fact that some fonts
are not suitable for small font sizes.
I would stick with the usual suspect (Verdana) as they were specially
designed for this purpose...

HTH
bernhard

 

[Charles Sweeney]

Toby A Inkster wrote

http://test.tobyinkster.co.uk/article/foo/

My eye was initially drawn to the name "tobyinkster.co.uk" then the
navigation below it.

My eye was then drawn (albeit pre-warned to look for navigation) to the
left-hand column which at a glance I presumed was navigation. Turns out it
has a mixture of navigation/links and article info. I would try to
minimise such mixing here.

I would make the name/logo link to home.

Readability isn't too bad, but white letters glow a bit much for me.

 

[Toby A Inkster]

Charles Sweeney

Yay! Charles is back!

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact
Geek of ~ HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python*/Apache/Linux

* = I'm getting there!

 

[Baho Utot]

Yay! Charles is back!

Bah!