2Dolphins Site Critique Request

[rodaniel]

We've (mostly) completed a massive site overhaul recently and would love some feedback.

Our PowWeb-hosted site had languished in MS Frontpage frames-based layout for several years and just didn't seem very current (design-wise) or easy to maintain. So, with the New Year, I decided it was time for a new look. Now the site is CSS-based and I'm hacking it out (mostly) by hand with a simple text editor. I've been considering switching over to Dreamweaver, but haven't mustered the oomfph to tackle that yet.

While the Blogger content is still the focal point, navigation from one area to another feels much more seamless - I hope. Anyway, I'd sure appreciate any comments or constructive criticism.

Rob O.
Life's a beach!
www.2dolphins.com (http://www.2dolphins.com)

[Kitchensink108]

In Firefox, I was getting some extra whitespace at the top and the nav was pushed down a few pixels:
http://kyle.barr.name/files/dolph.jpg

I don't like the color the nav changes to on mouseover. It's too dark, and the combined with the font color change, makes the text really hard to read. I suggest going with a really light gray (like #ddd or something) for the background, or something that's a bit easier to read text on.

I suggest separating blog entries with something more apparent, like a border that stretches across the entire white area.

Tell the user if you're linking them to another site if it's not obvious. I'm mainly referring to the marketplace link in the nav, and like half the links on the photos page are linking offsite.

I suggest replacing Email Us with a link to a Contact page. As I don't like links in the main nav linking to other sites, I don't like nav links that have a different protocol (it's annoying if you click that link, expecting to go to a page that gives your email address, and instead have Outlook launched).

On the Russian Adoption Page, it isn't immediately obvious that the nav is linking to different places (home takes you to the adoption page, not 2dolphins). I couldn't think of a good way to fix this. It's not a huge problem, I'm just throwing it out there.

You're using XHTML but you're not closing all your tags (check your meta and link tags).

You have a lot of CSS hardcoded into the page. You may want to put it in an external stylesheet.

That's pretty much it. The design is clean and overall decent. Most of what I said was just nitpicking.

[rodaniel]

Scooter,

Wow! Really constructive feedback! Much more than I had anticipated.

I rarely use Firefox, so I hadn't caught the problem with the extra whitespace at the top in that browser. But sure enough, there it is. Gotta look into that...

I've been intending to move the CSS code to an external file for several weeks but was still unsure about exactly how to do so. Finally got that ironed out (on both the main and the adoption blogs) and I think the pages do load a bit quicker. Definitely makes editing the pages that are scratch-built (not Blogger-generated) much easier since there's so much less code to wade through.

I'm still learning on the coding stuff - slowly - can you give me an example or two of where I haven't properly closed tags?

I'm also still trying to find the balance on the targeting of links. Currently, I've tried to standardize on internal links opening in the same window and external site links opening in a new window. Is this a bad idea?

Again, thanks for the helpful comments!

[Kitchensink108]

Code problems:
<meta http-equiv="imagetoolbar" content="no">That should self-close, as with your other meta tags.<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.2dolphins.com/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">That should also self-close, like the meta tags.

Within <ul id="supernav">, you have a lot of </li> tags but no <li> tags.
I don't know if you're using <MainOrArchivePageOrItemPage> for Javascript or something, but you should probably get rid of it.
You can check for more errors at validator.w3.org. A lot of the errors aren't causing rendering problems, I'm just a code freak.

As for links, I know some people (like myself) don't like links opening in new windows. Actually, I use Firefox and force links to open in new tabs instead of new windows, so it's not really a problem for me, specifically. But people who use IE6 or before, or people that use Firefox/Opera and don't have it set to open new windows as new tabs might get annoyed, mainly if they don't know it's going to happen.

If you can just differentiate the local links from the external links somehow, like a slightly different font color or an image nearby or something, that should be fine. For links within the content of the page, external linking isn't really a problem. It just gets tricky when you put those links in your main nav.

This post was really unorganized. I think a good summary is that everything works the way it is, but it can be annoying when something happens I don't expect to happen.

[rodaniel]

Hey Scooter, gimme another look.

I've been doing a bit more refining and tweaking. I believe I've resolved a unmber of pesky coding blunders.

Per your advice, I've also added a contact page. Still working on a cleaner solution for the external link on the main navigation - I actually have a plan, just haven't had the opportunity to implement it yet - but at least it does have a tooltip (TITLE tag) to indicate that the link will open in a new window.

At any rate, I appreciate the feedback!

Rob

[Kitchensink108]

Looks a bit better. The banner and nav are still a few pixelsl off in Firefox, and I think the nav would look better if the background changed to #ccc or #ddd instead of #999 on hover. As for the code, it really isn't necessary to fix everything. I will say, though,that, referring to #supernav, if you're going to put your nav in the a list, put each link in an <li> (because you have a horizontal nav, you'll probably need to set #supernav li {display:inline;} in your css).

That's all I have to say for now.

[ffholy]

My first impression from just seeing it before reviewing it looked personally professional and clean. If I was to visit your site through google, I probably would go through it because there is nothing that throws off the visuals. Ya, the Css rocks alot and helps standarize your site without causing errors. I would say just to improve the top part of the site, like make the menus not look exactly like the page. They're good and all, but I think it could be worked on.

Have a good one,
Eric

http:///www.ffholy.com

[rodaniel]

Thanks for the input, Eric! I'm continuing to tweak and refine things as I go - like anybody else, I suppose.