A Not So Simple Site Anymore....

[intelboy15]

In the past, you guys have given me lots of great feedback and now that I've gotten off my lazy butt and started to use more creativity, I've come up with a new site design. It is not quite finished, but for the most part is complete. Give me your remarks, comments, likes, and dislikes! :D

Website: www.terraguard.net

[linnetwoods]

Seems the forum has turned all links to sites into pop-ups! Weird... Anyway:

1) I wasn't madly keen on the look of the home page but the forums look fantastic! In the last statement on the home page, you repeat the word "events" once too often - you might want to try just replacing the last 'these events' with the word 'them'.

2) I'm not madly keen on the brightness of the colours behind the names on the members page - I would reduce their strength or increase that of the text - people like to see their name clearly...

3) I've reached the Code page and, you know, I think it is the combination of the background blue and the text box blue that I don't like about the pages - it doesn't come across very well, to be honest - they almost clash. Incidentally, there should be an 'e' on the end of revere...

4) A Jedi does not go about provoking others into a conflict nor tries to start a conflict Would read better as: "A Jedi does not go about provoking others into a conflict nor does he try to start one."

5) "Slangs" should be slang... ...young Jedi who are either a member... should be: "young Jedi who are either members"... and should be followed by a comma, not the word "or" because you go on to use 'or' after the statement that follows it....

It is basically a good site and suited to the purpose for which you built it. The only thing that I cannot reconcile myself to is those blues together. I would change one or the other and, preferably, the boxes, because that pale text doesn't look too brilliant against that shade of blue anyway. Maybe the text boxes could be a great deal darker than the background or something. If you decide to experiment with it, I'd be glad to take another look.

Anyway, as I always say to everyone - these are only my opinions. The fact that I have clients who pay me bags of money to give them the same sort of run-down on their third-party websites is neither here nor there !:D

[Mirzabah]

Seems the forum has turned all links to sites into pop-ups! Weird... Anyway:vBulletin has always opened posted links in a new window.

[linnetwoods]

Yes but they just opened as new windows normally until this evening - now they are opening as pop-ups, or at least they are on my computer! Actually, that isn't strictly correct - they set off my pop-up blocker which tells me to use ctrl while I click if I want to see them and then they open as normal new windows...

[intelboy15]

just a bit of a correction, i use phpBB not vBulletin. When it comes down to it phpBB is easier to fix and easier to use and is more widely supported by the community.

[linnetwoods]

I didn't mean your forums, intelboy15, I meant the PowWeb forums... and it has stopped happening, too!

[intelboy15]

o ok sry...lol :D


I've updated the site and fixed most of the images. I only have to redo the member images (remove glow, etc). As for the downloads page and such, I will finish that and follow up with an update post when I have it done this weekend. Linnet your comments and suggestions were almost the same as the other suggestions I got from having some 20 people review my site. Thx! :D

[linnetwoods]

My pleasure! Looking forwards to seeing the revised site.

[linnetwoods]

My pleasure! Looking forwards to seeing the revised site. oops! How did that happen?!:D

[YvetteKuhns]

The site is mostly images, including the text, which means the forum is the only contents that could be readable by search engines. I know your target audience does not include the visually impaired, so you aren't worried about text-to-speech software being able to read this website.

Text really should appear as text. The page would load faster. Search engines could read the text. I could highlight or resize the text in the browser. The text would not look as blurry. If you wanted to use a special font, I would understand.

Also, I see an extra set of scrollbars which is annoying. I had to scroll the inside and outside scrollbars to view the contents at 800x600 screen resolution. I know your target audience uses a higher resolution, so they may not be seeing this. Frames are bad, but I guess you are stuck with them if you are using that evil Front Page. ;)

The site is easy to read and navigate. The color scheme is nice. The forum color scheme is nice, but it doesn't match the website. Be sure your phpBB forum is updated and you may consider removing or altering the "Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group" message to prevent exploitation.

The site does look more professional. It needs more contents, but it is coming along nicely.

[intelboy15]

I would glady use regular text again for text, the only problem is I want to use a specific font that most users don't have. The font I want to use is Tahoma, but most people don't have that font, so Arial or Times New Roman ends up being my only 2 boring choices.

I hand code my site, but yes i used frontpage mainly because of it's easy preview tab.

Unfortunately I am pretty sure I'm not allowed to removed the "Powered by..." part of the forum. I can do it, but legally I don't think I can since the "software" is released free for non-commercial use under the GNU license (may be wrong).

As for the forum not matching the site, it's temporary, when it is finally done, I'll probably update this thread with an update post (if the post hasn't been deleted or pushed into page 7) :D

And yes my target audience is gamers who usually have a fast connection and nice systems (1024 x 768 screens or higher).

Thx for all the comments and suggestions guys!

[intelboy15]

I have finished the site Linnet :D

Hope everyone likes the site more this time than last time :D

[linnetwoods]

On my way to have a look... Can't wait!

The site is looking a lot better, well done! I still can't help thinking Yvette is right - you are going to lose out by having the large image and no relevant text for search engines to read on the pages...

Is Tahoma really the only font you can stand for the text (as opposed to the buttons which have to be images anyway)? I would have thought one of the fonts available as standard would have fitted the bill, with a bit more experimentation.

Under Events on the home page it still says: These events are only fun and successful if everyone gets involved in planning and carrying out each of these events. I would still change the second 'these events' to 'them'....:D

The white text still seems quite hard to focus on but that may be because my eyes are past their sell-by date, so I wouldn't worry too much about that, still, that would be the good thing about using text on a blue background rather than an image - you could adjust it as and when you saw the need rather than having to recreate the images.

I had a go with Arial and the difference is miniscule, really...622

[intelboy15]

ok i will experiment more this weekend. thx linnet and yvette! :D

[linnetwoods]

A pleasure!

[YvetteKuhns]

I would glady use regular text again for text, the only problem is I want to use a specific font that most users don't have. The font I want to use is Tahoma, but most people don't have that font, so Arial or Times New Roman ends up being my only 2 boring choices.

You can use tahoma, arial which means that if the user does not have tahoma, then he/she will see arial. I think most people have tahoma.

Unfortunately I am pretty sure I'm not allowed to removed the "Powered by..." part of the forum. I can do it, but legally I don't think I can since the "software" is released free for non-commercial use under the GNU license (may be wrong).

You can make this appear in an image instead of text which is readable by search engines.

I know I keep bugging you, but you keep asking for it! :D

[intelboy15]

lol :D

i did more tweaking on the site. I'm not sure what color to use as a border for the navigation bar, so I just used black. Right now it stands out from the rest of the page. I've decided to just keep the text as images, I don't care as much of the search engines can see it or not. I didn't get any interested people from the search engines for the last year anyways. :) Thx for all the help guys, I'm gonna be updating the site more, like the banner is going to be redone again.

[intelboy15]

Update

I changed domain's on my account. The website address is now:

www.jediorderclan.org