New website for AutoShop... Please review.

bowenac

New Member
Hello, I am just starting to do some freelance work. I got my degree in web development recently. I would like a review of a site I am working on. It is pretty basic, just looking for some suggestions, pro's con's etc for future work. The shop loves the site, and gave very good feedback and says a lot of his customers are already commenting on the site.

www.stockcustomsauto.com

Thanks in advance.

Here is my site if you would like to review that as well, been making some changes here and there so anything you could recommend for that would also be great.

www.adamcbowen.com
 

d a v e

New Member
header background is twice as wide as it needs to be and it quite weighty at around 250kb - compress it a little more and make it the right width

Padding! please - there's so little space around the text

use real xhtml headings (i.e. h1 etc)

it's 2012 so your copyright should say 2011-2012 ;)

optimise (and properly size) your thumbnails

tone the text down a little to say #e0e0e0 or similar - too stark and uncomfortable to read.

navigation text is a bit on the large side

use proper alt attributes - text that properly replaces the image: using "Stock Customs Auto Hours" doesn't tell you what the opening hours are.

bulleted list needs more space after the bullets

i would also use a heading before each paragraph that sums up the point of the paragraph e.g.

Saves you money
stock Customs Auto performs licensed warranty work on cars as well. At half the cost of dealerships, Stock Customs Auto is the perfect alternative for regularly scheduled maintenance check-ups.


stockcustoms.jpg
 
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benjamin.morgan

New Member
I like the design. The navigation is a bit on the large side, but what really kept distracting me away from the content was the square that has the big HOURS text.
 

bowenac

New Member
header background is twice as wide as it needs to be and it quite weighty at around 250kb - compress it a little more and make it the right width

Padding! please - there's so little space around the text

use real xhtml headings (i.e. h1 etc)

it's 2012 so your copyright should say 2011-2012 ;)

optimise (and properly size) your thumbnails

tone the text down a little to say #e0e0e0 or similar - too stark and uncomfortable to read.

navigation text is a bit on the large side

use proper alt attributes - text that properly replaces the image: using "Stock Customs Auto Hours" doesn't tell you what the opening hours are.

bulleted list needs more space after the bullets

i would also use a heading before each paragraph that sums up the point of the paragraph e.g.

Saves you money
stock Customs Auto performs licensed warranty work on cars as well. At half the cost of dealerships, Stock Customs Auto is the perfect alternative for regularly scheduled maintenance check-ups.

Thanks I went with your suggestions and it is updated now if you would like to review it again... I wasn't sure what you meant about the header being to wide, or the thumbnail optimizing and size...

Not really sure what else to do with the hours section, I kind of like it but maybe I could make it a little smaller.
 

mjrzasa

New Member
It looks sleek, nicely done.
What he means about the image is that it does not fill the box it is in, don't know if that is your intention or not, but it only uses half the image, so either fit the entire image to the box (I believe with width:100% ) or crop the image down to the box size, so that the image is only the size of the box and no extra (file size).
I like the hours being big, afterall, that is one of the main reasons people look up business' , I think. Maybe separate it from the body text more with a larger margin.

Anyway, you seem to know more about coding so you can take or leave my comments :p
Is this all done on WordPress or just the blog page?
 

bowenac

New Member
It looks sleek, nicely done.
What he means about the image is that it does not fill the box it is in, don't know if that is your intention or not, but it only uses half the image, so either fit the entire image to the box (I believe with width:100% ) or crop the image down to the box size, so that the image is only the size of the box and no extra (file size).
I like the hours being big, afterall, that is one of the main reasons people look up business' , I think. Maybe separate it from the body text more with a larger margin.

Anyway, you seem to know more about coding so you can take or leave my comments :p
Is this all done on WordPress or just the blog page?

Thanks for the kind words.

Only the blog page is using wordpress, that just makes it easy for them to discuss events, meetups, shows, etc easily...

I just fixed the header image, I didn't realize that I was originally messing with different sizes etc... and had a header wrapper thing.

Here is a screenshot of how the homepage looks now.

stockcustomshomepage.png
 
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bowenac

New Member
Check out jQuery Transform for contact us elements.
Add an effect to the facebook graphic on over.
Wood background is nice.
Why is the URL - http://www.***.com/Default


I guess I could have changed it to home... haha if that is what your talking about. If not that is just the default page when you start a new site in Visual Studio and I did not rename it, if your talking about it missing the .extension I wrote url redirect for user friendly urls.

What is the jQuery Transform elements and what would that do can you give an example?
 

Edge

Member
As a design it seems OK although the font size here and there is a little large so it has the effect of shouting. What I'd really like to see is some substantial content and how the design holds up to that. Also be nice to see some more prominence to the social networking integration - you could possibly pull in some tweets as news items.
 

bowenac

New Member
As a design it seems OK although the font size here and there is a little large so it has the effect of shouting. What I'd really like to see is some substantial content and how the design holds up to that. Also be nice to see some more prominence to the social networking integration - you could possibly pull in some tweets as news items.

Yea I guess I should ask what others use as far as resolution to view web projects. I have 3 24" monitors so at 1920X1200 it doesn't look to big to me. But I guess if I was using a 17-19 that might change.

The twitter thing is a great idea, but getting the client to do anything like that seems like it would be a task. I have been trying to get them to update the facebook page with the new website link for over a week now, and they have yet to even do that. I also asked them what they would like on the services page, and they were supposed to be writing some content for that and the home page.

The home page is re used from the old design. I just created the site, gallery, contact forms, blog, etc. Still trying to get some good content to use for them. But I guess they are in no hurry haha.

Do you know of any javascript or jquery for using a news ticker... I did a google search and found some but wondering if you had any suggestions. I will mention this to them and see if they would be interested in doing the twitter thing... Be cool and easy way for them to tweet about sales, project cars, shows, etc...
 
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reverseengineer

New Member
Is it just me?

Or is the font size and all just somehow off scale? The header, nav and body all appear in a non-fluid way is the only way I can put it.
 
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