Please critique non-profit web site!

[HouseCreation]

Hi everyone,

I'm kind of new at this, and I need some feedback on our website. It is www.hohc.org.
I published it with FrontPage. Is there a better program?
Also, the pictures and graphics that I put in are now moving to different parts of the page, and my linkbar at the top should be on one straight line, but on smaller monitors, it goes to two lines. Any suggestions?
Thanks so much!:o

[YvetteKuhns]

I published it with FrontPage. Is there a better program?

Anything is better than FrontPage! If you have to use a WYSIWYG program, try Dreamweaver. You do NOT have to publish in FrontPage just because you created a website in FrontPage.

Also, the pictures and graphics that I put in are now moving to different parts of the page, and my linkbar at the top should be on one straight line, but on smaller monitors, it goes to two lines. Any suggestions?

If you need that many links, you should consider placing your links vertically down the left side of the web page. You can resize your images, so your images do not push the other contents. Design your pages in 800x600 screen resolution, but use relative positioning instead of fixed positioning and widths.

Don't use too many text sizes, colors and styles. There should be enough contrast in color or hue of text and background for easier reading. The patterned background can compete with text, especially when the text color tends to blend into the background. What is that pattern? It looks like snail shells. Odd. Little baby footprints would be more appropriate if any pattern is used.

The actual size of the text for the name of the website is too large for 800x600 screen resolution, so the text continues on the next line. Then the links appear on two lines. These contents fill the entire screen view and I must scroll to read anything else! Yes, you must change your screen resolution to redesign this. And paragraphs of text should align to the left and not be centered.

Learning HTML and CSS would be helpful, but while you experiment with Front Page, please remember to compare in different screen resolutions and browsers. I was using Firefox. FrontPage was created by Microsoft and should look okay in Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

[Builder]

My browser window is set to 1024 wide (even though my screen is wider -- I find it easier to read pages at the narrower width). Your link bar still wraps the last link buttons to another line at that width. It's not until I widen out to almost 1200 that the buttons all end up on one line. 1024X768 is the most common screen resolution being used, or was the last I looked anyway. There are still a lot of people, Yvette included, who use 800X600.

A few other, small, nits to pick:

Your home page is entitled "Home" -- yours and about 10,000,000 others. Change to a more descriptive title such as "House of His Creation".

The text in the navigation buttons disappears when you mouse over them. A little disconcerting.

The picture of the woman with the baby at almost 200kb is way too large. Oh, I see. You "resized" it using the img tag's width and height attributes. The original image is 1,280px × 854px. You should resize the original image using an image editor down to the dimensions you need (467px × 314px). The file size of the image will probably drop down to less than 50kb -- much better for dial-up visitors. (Just did this as an experiment and ended up with a file size of 18kb.) There are pictures on other pages that could use the same help.

"Click here" links are a no-no for accessibility. Consider changing the text. One example on your Services page "Click here to learn more!" could be changed to just "Learn more". Actually, the "Click here" links are somewhat redundant on that page since you already have links in the headings for the group homes.

Holy moses, blinking text! Get rid of it immediately. -- on your News page.

Never, ever, use underlined text. People expect underlined text to be a link. Bold or italic should be used instead. -- Volunteers page

All caps is very difficult to read! -- Employment page


I published it with FrontPage. Is there a better program?
I always recommend Nvu (http://nvu.com/). It's free and WYSIWYG, although it doesn't do as much "hand holding" as FP does with templates, etc. And did I mention it's free? :D

Good luck,
Kevin

[Kitchensink108]

I second nvu. I've never used it, but my friend (who's about as fanatical as I am against Frontpage) recommends it.

This'll reiterate a few of the above points:
-The nav text shouldn't disappear on hover.
-The nav itself is fairly good looking, but it doesn't make good use of space. The fact that it goes onto a second line (and my resolution is wider than most people's) looks bad.
-Again, compress your images. I took the image from programs, resized it and saved it at 60% quality (you can't tell the difference), and the filesize went from 235kb to less than 10kb.

-On the homepage, put the text next to the image, not under it. Minimize the need for scrolling.
-I suggest fixing the width of the content area at like 600px and centering it. I'm not a fan of lines that stretch extremely far.
-NOT BLINKING TEXT. Especially not blinking links.

"Send mail to Webmaster with questions or comments about this web site."
Put that on the contact page and remove it everywhere else. You can also remove the Last Modified or move it to only the contact page.

-Decrease the size of the address info at the bottom of each page and possibly put it all on one line.