Site Review

S

sorry.no.email

Hi,

I posted this message on al.html.critique but it seems to be shut for
Easter, so I repeat my post here, sorry if it is a little off topic:

Could I please have a review of a site that is now about a quarter
complete:

http://people.aapt.net.au/~adjlstrong/

I am keen to benefit from criticism / suggestions etc before
completing the site, incorporating any suggestions from this group and
moving it to its final home. Section mostly complete is the Strongs of
Ulster, Ireland:

http://people.aapt.net.au/~adjlstrong/strongs

Thank you very much for all criticisms and suggestions,

Andrew.
 
L

Leonard Blaisdell

Could I please have a review of a site that is now about a quarter
complete:

I would suggest the 'Strong Family Web Site' as a simple styled <h1> and
not as <div id="Header"><a href="http://www.pnc.com.au/~plstrong"
title="The Strong Family Web Site ">The Strong Family Web Site
</a></div>.
If the link is important, I would put it at the top of the UL navlist
with a creative name, since 'The Strong Family' is already taken.
Highlighting the links may or may not be desirable to you.
<http://people.aapt.net.au/~adjlstrong/> looks quite clean to me.
Now for your second link. I see that you're fond of 'The Strong Family
Web Site', but again I'd change that to a styled <h1>History</h1> or
somesuch. You might consider a list for the line that starts with
'Chapter 1:', and style the background of that element with a faint
green. Yellow and green are my favorites ;-)

leo
 
F

frederick

I am keen to benefit from criticism / suggestions etc before
completing the site, incorporating any suggestions from this group and
moving it to its final home. Section mostly complete is the Strongs of
Ulster, Ireland:

http://people.aapt.net.au/~adjlstrong/strongs

Random thoughts and comments, based on the above page:

Nice to see a page that validates straight off the shelf! The W3C CSS
Validator's warnings, mainly the usual about color and background-color
not having been defined, look like they can be ignored, although you
might want to pick through the list just to be thorough:
<http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/...ttp://people.aapt.net.au/~adjlstrong/strongs/>

Personally, I'd think about your navigation and "chapter" structure.
If this page is anything to go by, each chapter's page will be quite
long, and there doesn't seem to be any navigation available to easily
navigate to or between sections. I'd also make the menu for the
chapters smaller in relation to the left-hand menu, and I'd lose the
centering. There might be an argument for splitting the chapter
sections to a web page each?

I know this has been done to death, but since you appear to be serving
the pages as text/html, is there anything to be gained by coding to
XHTML 1.0 Strict?

The JavaScript seems rather redundant.

Although you have a stylesheet for printing, there should be an
explicit link to seeing the page formatted for printing; at the moment,
a browser's print preview will show something different to what the
user had just seen in their window, which breaks expectations for the
average user. I'd also have the printable version make better use of
the page, as there's a large stretch of unnecessary white space along
the left-hand side. Possibly you might consider suppressing link
formatting in the print version, too, although there's pro's and cons
either way.

I'd use <h1> for "The Strong Family Web Site", and then <h2> for the
chapter name.


Mental note:
It's really about time I put my family history research up on the 'net!
This guy's making me jealous!
 
C

Colin Wilson

seems quite good to me, A neat and clean design.but I do think that the
pale yellow backgound on hover is too pale. However that is probably jusst
a personal preference.
 
T

Travis Newbury

Could I please have a review of a site that is now about a quarter
complete:
http://people.aapt.net.au/~adjlstrong/

If your goal was to make this information available in a very basic non
decoritive presentation, then I have achieved your goal. The second
level menu is a litle funky though. Kind of rough to follow

I prefer a fancier internet.
 
S

sorry.no.email

seems quite good to me, A neat and clean design.but I do think that the
pale yellow backgound on hover is too pale. However that is probably jusst
a personal preference.

Hi,

Thanks for that, I have taken your advice and beefed up the hover a
little: #FFFFAA

Thanks,

Andrew.
 
S

sorry.no.email

If your goal was to make this information available in a very basic non
decoritive presentation, then I have achieved your goal. The second
level menu is a litle funky though. Kind of rough to follow

I prefer a fancier internet.

Hi Travis,

Thanks for your input. The look is a little plain because I am
actually a refugee from table-layout land I am still feeling my way
without tables :) As well though I am aiming more for depth of
information than flair of presentation, but there will be time for
more sparkle when the site is fully built, it will be about 100 pages.

The second level menu could definitely use some structure and I am
open to any suggestions here. Would a proper styled horizontal list
look better perhaps? I was actually following the simple horizontal
top structure I saw at http://www.w3.org/2003/glossary/ although mine
is still a little under-developed.

Thanks for your trouble,

Andrew.
 
D

dorayme

Travis Newbury said:
I prefer a fancier internet.

No, this would be simply awful. The internet as a whole is too
fancy already. Less fancy internet is what is needed (rather than
wanted).

What is more, this particular sites's unfancy is quite
appropriate to the nature of this material. Wonderfully
undistracting.

Make the yellow strip black with white lettering or grey and an
appropriate coloured lettering, and get some elegance into the
unfancy without risking unneeded fancy.
 
N

Nije Nego

Hi Travis,

Thanks for your input. The look is a little plain because I am
actually a refugee from table-layout land I am still feeling my way
without tables :) As well though I am aiming more for depth of
information than flair of presentation, but there will be time for
more sparkle when the site is fully built, it will be about 100 pages.

The second level menu could definitely use some structure and I am
open to any suggestions here. Would a proper styled horizontal list
look better perhaps? I was actually following the simple horizontal
top structure I saw at http://www.w3.org/2003/glossary/ although mine
is still a little under-developed.

Thanks for your trouble,

Andrew.

Beautifull resource for lists:

http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/
 

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