Please help me fill my stat page

[Simon]

Hi,

After a bit of tweaking and bug fixes I have reset my Statistics database.
I would appreciate if some of you could have a look at it so I could gather
some new data.

http://www.schoolsofafrica.com

Your opinion is of course greatly appreciated.

Simon

 

[rf]

Hi,

Er, G'day.

After a bit of tweaking and bug fixes I have reset my Statistics database.
I would appreciate if some of you could have a look at it so I could gather
some new data.

Done.

Your opinion is of course greatly appreciated.

It would be helpfull if I could read the site. The default light blue on
white does not work for me. The light blue on light purple menu (I assume it
is) is totally unreadable. Font size is also specified in pixels for much of
the site (but not all) so it is by default unresizable by 80%+ of your
audience.

 

[Simon]

It would be helpfull if I could read the site. The default light blue on
white does not work for me. The light blue on light purple menu (I assume it
is) is totally unreadable. Font size is also specified in pixels for much of
the site (but not all) so it is by default unresizable by 80%+ of your
audience.

Really?, I thought it was readable.
What browser are you using so I can change it, I don't seem to have a
problem with Opera/Mozilla etc...

As for the pixels, I will hunt around for them and replace them with %'s.

Simon

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Olli_M=E4ntyranta?=]

Hi,

After a bit of tweaking and bug fixes I have reset my Statistics database.
I would appreciate if some of you could have a look at it so I could gather
some new data.

http://www.schoolsofafrica.com

Your opinion is of course greatly appreciated.

Simon

Hi!
Let's have a look.
Hmm...I would suggest you the font colour. Blue on blue is not very
accessible, neither is light blue on white.
What's the idea in your way to put same3 links in banner, footer and
'Main menu', but not completely same links? This puzzels me.
Also, in 'searc' you could make the field look as field and 'go' button
look like button so that people would understand what the whole thing is.
When I opened the page all I saw was text 'search go'. ....???


Whooops!

Found a 'choose template' gadget! This was apparently the 'Default
Template'.Perhaps changing the template helps... naaaa it doesn't
work...can't change the template.
Oh I see you have to *reset* the form to change the template! That's a
novelty!!!

I don't think I want to go any further. But since I reloaded the page
quite often, you got lot's of data in your statistics.
I hope you are happy with it.


Oll¡maX!

 

[rf]

assume much

Really?, I thought it was readable.

Are you referring to the colour of the font size? You have not clipped my
post correctly so I don't know which bit you are replying to.

What browser are you using so I can change it,

Sorry, you can't change the browser I am using

I don't seem to have a
problem with Opera/Mozilla etc...

You might not. I do.

If you are talking about the colour then you should be considering my eyes,
not my browser. Maybe my eyes are a little bit colour blind so light blue
may look almost exactly like light purple to me. I am a bloke after all and
3%+ of us are a bit colour blind.

Perhaps my screens are a little out of adjustment. <checks/>. Yep, the one I
happened to use to view your page on is a little defficient in the red arena
and the only difference between blue and purple is a little red. <tweaks
screen>. That is not a very old screen (two or three years) so if I have
problems what happens to those whose screens are several years old?

As for the pixels, I will hunt around for them and replace them with %'s.

Oh, you were not talking about the pixels after all. I see that now. Great
that you are moving to %. Makes a lot of sense. You *are* using 100 of them
aren't you

By the way, what is this:

"17 visitors online."

How do you know I am "online". Sure, you can sometimes tell when I arrive at
your site but you can never tell when I leave it. The best you can say is
that (at the moment) you have somewhere between 0 and 422 "online".

Last time this was seriously mentioned here it was a shopping site which
declared that it had 334 visitors currently online. A little delving
revealed a bit of javascript that pumped out a random number between 200 and
400 for "visitors online"

 

[Simon]

Are you referring to the colour of the font size? You have not clipped my
post correctly so I don't know which bit you are replying to.

Sorry, I was referring to the colour.

Sorry, you can't change the browser I am using

I can always try

If you are talking about the colour then you should be considering my eyes,
not my browser. Maybe my eyes are a little bit colour blind so light blue
may look almost exactly like light purple to me. I am a bloke after all and
3%+ of us are a bit colour blind.

Perhaps my screens are a little out of adjustment. <checks/>. Yep, the one I
happened to use to view your page on is a little defficient in the red arena
and the only difference between blue and purple is a little red. <tweaks
screen>. That is not a very old screen (two or three years) so if I have
problems what happens to those whose screens are several years old?

I am still a bit confused, maybe I should change the colour.
I can understand the light blue writing over the 'purple' background but I
still don't know why you cannot see the blue over white.

%'s.

Oh, you were not talking about the pixels after all. I see that now. Great
that you are moving to %. Makes a lot of sense. You *are* using 100 of them
aren't you

By the way, what is this:

"17 visitors online."

It's nothing very scientific, I check every new 'Agent'. If it is not a
robot of some sort then I assume that it is a real person.
If you are using cookies the values are only updated every 5 minutes
otherwise they are checked all the time.
Users that are inactive for 60 minutes are 'removed' and no longer counted
as 'online'.

How do you know I am "online". Sure, you can sometimes tell when I arrive at
your site but you can never tell when I leave it. The best you can say is
that (at the moment) you have somewhere between 0 and 422 "online".

I agree that it is not an exact science, but I also believe that it is just
for eye catching more than anything else.
It will never be accurate but I believe it is as close as can be without
bringing my system to a crawl.
An as you say it is impossible for me to tell when a user leaves the site.

Simon

 

[rf]

I can always try

Full points for persistance ;-)

[colours]

I am still a bit confused, maybe I should change the colour.
I can understand the light blue writing over the 'purple' background but I
still don't know why you cannot see the blue over white.

I didn't say I could not *see* the blue on white. I said <checks/> "it does
not work". By that I mean that it causes me discomfort to squint at it. That
is why I changed the font size to my largest available (happened to be using
IE at the time, that's how I spotted the pixel problem). If the text is
difficult for me to read I am more likely to move on to a site with nice
black on white text. I *can* read yours but I don't *like* reading it.

It's nothing very scientific, I check every new 'Agent'. If it is not a
robot of some sort then I assume that it is a real person.
If you are using cookies the values are only updated every 5 minutes
otherwise they are checked all the time.
Users that are inactive for 60 minutes are 'removed' and no longer counted
as 'online'.

Yep. I had anticipated that. I, for one, do not *look* at a site for 60
minutes and I have cookies disabled so you won't get me there either. I
suspect that you are more likely to have one, or perhaps two people "online"
at any given moment. The net uses a stateless protocol and it should be
treated that way.

This stuff is right up there with counters which are usually started from
10102 That is, little or no credence. You would be far better off by
stating up front that "you have had 17 visitors during the last hour". Don't
forget that some visitors wont get counted (they live behind a proxy) and
some will get counted more than once (different IP address for each get
request).

 

[Simon]

I can always try

Full points for persistance ;-)
Cheers.

[colours]

I am still a bit confused, maybe I should change the colour.
I can understand the light blue writing over the 'purple' background but I
still don't know why you cannot see the blue over white.

I didn't say I could not *see* the blue on white. I said <checks/> "it does
not work". By that I mean that it causes me discomfort to squint at it. That
is why I changed the font size to my largest available (happened to be using
IE at the time, that's how I spotted the pixel problem). If the text is
difficult for me to read I am more likely to move on to a site with nice
black on white text. I *can* read yours but I don't *like* reading it.

I see now, I will change the colour to something a bit darker.
I like the blue colour, but that's my personal choice, so I will compromise
by making it darker.
Hopefully it will make it easier to read.

I made the blue writing a bit darker and change the css to remove pixels in
the font size.
I haven't had time to really think about it but I don't think that the text
colour #002266 is the best choice, maybe I should give up and make it black.

Yep. I had anticipated that. I, for one, do not *look* at a site for 60
minutes and I have cookies disabled so you won't get me there either. I
suspect that you are more likely to have one, or perhaps two people "online"
at any given moment. The net uses a stateless protocol and it should be
treated that way.

This stuff is right up there with counters which are usually started from
10102 That is, little or no credence. You would be far better off by
stating up front that "you have had 17 visitors during the last hour". Don't
forget that some visitors wont get counted (they live behind a proxy) and
some will get counted more than once (different IP address for each get
request).

I could always check for active users over the last 5/10 minutes?
Giving a message "you have had 17 visitors during the last hour" is a good
idea but simply too long given the space I have.

But, I agree that the value is pretty meaningless, and more for eye candy
than anything else really.

Simon

 

[Robert Frost-Bridges]

rf wrote:

It would be helpfull if I could read the site. The default light blue
on white does not work for me. The light blue on light purple menu (I
assume it is) is totally unreadable. Font size is also specified in
pixels for much of the site (but not all) so it is by default
unresizable by 80%+ of your audience.

I agree, I found it a bit of a strain. I thought the best template to
read was the 'silver' but I had to bump the font-size up a bit to make
it comfortable.

 

[Jim Higson]

Hi,

After a bit of tweaking and bug fixes I have reset my Statistics database.
I would appreciate if some of you could have a look at it so I could
gather some new data.

http://www.schoolsofafrica.com

Your opinion is of course greatly appreciated.

Simon

1) IMO the base size of text on this site is too small.
You see this quite a lot these days and it almost always anoys me!

Basically, I like to browse with the fonts quite small, because I'm wearing
my glasses and have a nice big TFT monitor. When you squash it down futher
it becomes difficult to read.

I would just use one or two font sizes on the site, and trust that if the
user wants to see the text smaller than usual, they have the browser set up
that way already.

It's better to have everything at the normal size, and scale a few things up
than scale a load of stuff down. That way everyone can read it comfortably
because it is never smaller than their prefered size.

2) Personally I don't like the idea of themes much. IMO you should just
deliver one look that everyone can read and use that all the time. It's
neat trick but doesn't really add anything from the POV of an end user.

It also takes away from the recognisability of your site. If I saw someone
browsing in bright red, thought the site looked interesting and jotted down
the URL, then a few days later went to the site I'd think I'd visited the
wrong place because it looks so different.

Accessiblity is important. What if the theme selector thingy is too small
for someone to be able to select a theme they can comfortably read?

3) The site only renders OK in Dillo. Dillo is the best browser for low-spec
machines (I use it to test my paes on a 486). Maybe I'm showing ignorance
here, but I'd imagine a lot of African computers are quite old or low spec
so I'd do my best to have the site work well on such platforms.

4) ...but it looks very nice in elinks!

5) The heading bits are almost impossible to read in black and white. Try
reading it through a 'colourblindnes simulator' - ie looking through a
piece of red/green cellophane! Or try reading it with your browser's
saturation turned to zero.

6) Too much italic text on the main page. Italics should be used to
emphasise the important bits, when everything is italic the emphesis is
lost and it just becomes difficult to read.

7) When I goto the stats section I get a bit that says:
"Welcome to my own little section of the web.
You probably got here by mist..."
cutting off mid-word probably isn't a good idea. Also, you could have just
wrote the whole thing out instead of making me follow a link to see the
rest. "...take but welcome anyways." wouldnt' have broken the bank!

8) How do you do your browser detection? Do you try to catch browsers
pretending to be MSIE? You can do this by putting a tiny css file in
<!--[if IE] --> tags and seeing who downloads it, it will only be fetched
if the browser really is IE.

 

[Jim Higson]

Hi,

After a bit of tweaking and bug fixes I have reset my Statistics database.
I would appreciate if some of you could have a look at it so I could
gather some new data.

http://www.schoolsofafrica.com

Your opinion is of course greatly appreciated.

Simon

Oh, and it seems a bit odd that 28% of visitors are "Unix Based" but only 1%
are "Linux" - is it possible you are counting Linux users as Unix becuase
their browser ID string contains "X11"?

 

[Adrienne]

I see now, I will change the colour to something a bit darker.
I like the blue colour, but that's my personal choice, so I will
compromise by making it darker.
Hopefully it will make it easier to read.

You might be interested in Visicheck
http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckURL.php .