Newbie Web Designer's First Web Site

[an3rkist]

This is the first web site I've made, so don't get your hopes TOO high! Anyway, looking at other sites on here it looks as though most people are using Dreamweaver to make their sites. I went the old school way and just used good old XHTML and CSS to make mine. It's a fairly simple site, and not entirely complete yet, as you'll notice, but I think it's pretty good for my first time.

Anyway, I already have an idea of what some of the criticisms will be, but I'll let them play out on their own. This web site is more of "project" web site for me. In other words I'm building it as a "hands on" way to learn web design myself. (Kind of ironic that my web site is attempting to teach others how to make a web site when I'm obviously no expert, but...) The content will be changing some as I tweak the SEO, etc. (I'm just learning SEO.) Plus I think some of it's just plain dumb at the moment. But I'm interested in some critiques of the design itself, as I'm not sure my design is working very well.

Anyway, any suggestions and criticisms are welcome, so that I can make my web site better. My lack of experience is probably fairly obvious in the design, but maybe with help from you guys I can make it better...

http://www.wisenterprises.com/

 

[Xian]

It is indeed a nice website. However, there are two things that comes to my attention:

Make sure that the colors contrasts well, with this link:http://www.colorsontheweb.com/colorcontrast.asp

Also, in my opinion, the color choice is not the best. The same site has a useful color wizard.http://www.colorsontheweb.com/colorwizard.asp

 

[an3rkist]

Thanks for the input! I knew the color thing would be a huge criticism. Personally, I like the color scheme. But I know it should be changed as it is not the best choice and most, (if not all), decent web designers would probably agree with you.

I was hoping it would just work since I like it, but I'm sure it's going to need to be changed.

Thanks for your time and for the links! I'll see what I can do about the color scheme. I've read that light colors are best, so I'll probably end up changing the background to a light grey or something. We'll see what I can figure out on this web site you linked me to.

Thanks again!

P.S. Actually I ran my color scheme through that link you gave me and it passed as long as my text is 18pt or larger OR 14pt or larger in bold. Maybe if I make all the text bold, but I don't really want to do that. I should probably just change the color scheme cause you're not the first person to not like it.

 

[natenation]

Yeah I would work on providing some contrast, and maybe a white bg where the main text is? Basically something that is different from the rest of the page so my brain automatically goes, hey... That's where the content is.

Also the logo thing should be updated, it is hard to read. While creative, if you're logo doesn't really identify who you are clearly it's not much of a logo. Overall good job! You're on your way to being a web hero! haha

Take Care!

 

[an3rkist]

Yeah I would work on providing some contrast, and maybe a white bg where the main text is? Basically something that is different from the rest of the page so my brain automatically goes, hey... That's where the content is.

Yeah I'm trying to figure out a way to put the content in a different color without it looking horrible. I originally made it so that the content was in a box with rounded off corners because a lot of sites I've seen are like that and look really good, but mine just looked so amateur it was worse than having it the same color. Maybe I'm just not very good at doing that or maybe I did it the wrong way. I also didn't want the main content to be in a CSS content box because I heard that that might not be the best way to do it as far as SEO goes, but I could be wrong about that.

Also the logo thing should be updated, it is hard to read. While creative, if you're logo doesn't really identify who you are clearly it's not much of a logo. Overall good job! You're on your way to being a web hero! haha

Take Care!

Ha! The logo! Yeah, I'm not much of a graphic artist. It was actually the first thing I made on the whole web site. All I did was write some stuff in Photoshop and run it through some stylistic filters. I think it might be too big, too. It's definitely going to be changed, though.

Thanks for your critiques and comments! You and the other poster have made up for the severe lack of replies I'm getting, (compared to what I was hoping for...). I don't know what "web hero" means, but I sure like the sound of it!

 

[scarlett]

Personally, I like the color scheme.

Yes, but you should also think for the visitors of your site. You cannot please everyone but make it pleasing to the eyes.

 

[bmccarrie]

This is a great first effort.

I looked at your code and I see that you are using a combination of Tables, Divs and CSS. Move in the direction of using all Divs and CSS. You'll have way more control over the display if you get away from tables.

Also, it looks like you're using straight HTML. Using PHP includes will make it easier to maintain a large site like this.

For example, your navigation could be contained in one file and you would "include" that file on all of your pages using PHP.

In addition to all of this there is the color. There is no other way to say this and I"m not trying to be a jerk here but I hate the color.

A red background with gray text on top is a bad color combination. Here's why. Even though red and gray are different colors, they are very close in tone. A color blind person may not be able to see any text on your page.

For me personally, I find the text hard to read and you've got a lot of text there. The color scheme should reinforce the content. You may have a lot of great content there but I won't read it because it's not easy to read because of the colors.

You can keep the same color scheme but modify the layout a bit so it's more readable.

Like I said, I'm not trying to be a jerk, I hope this info helps.

And again, great first effort.

 

[an3rkist]

I looked at your code and I see that you are using a combination of Tables, Divs and CSS. Move in the direction of using all Divs and CSS. You'll have way more control over the display if you get away from tables.

Yeah I just started figuring that out today. The site is now undergoing a major overhaul, so if I find the time I'll trade the tables for DIVs where I can. (Assuming I can get it all done well enough to look good in both Firefox and IE. I had major problems in IE with the positioning of one of my content boxes when I was first learning them. I had to do a hack by putting different pixel positions in the stylesheet with a hash(#) before them specifically for IE. Maybe I just don't know how to do them right though.)

Also, it looks like you're using straight HTML. Using PHP includes will make it easier to maintain a large site like this.

Heh, I'm still in the learning stages of XHTML and CSS. PHP is next on my list, but I think it's a little ways in the future.

In addition to all of this there is the color. There is no other way to say this and I"m not trying to be a jerk here but I hate the color.

*sigh* I'm apparently not a very color-minded person. I've been going through different color schemes for about two hours now and can't find any I'm happy with. Unfortunately I liked the original colors the way they were, but nobody else did. I obviously have horrible taste in colors.

Needless to say it will be changed, though. Assuming I find a color scheme which I'm content with. I'll be back to ask for opinions when I settle on a new one since my taste obviously will not suffice. I'm changing the logo, too, though it won't be any better; just different.

I'll be back when some of the changes are made to see if it's any better, (opr at least not worse!)

Thanks for your time! Great advice!

 

[an3rkist]

Alright, I changed the colors. I think the new colors are better, but I worry that they will pose a similar problem as the last color scheme. I'm currently playing around with the idea of making the content a different, lighter color. The link colors will be changing, I just haven't gotten around to it yet, and the menu across the top is still being redone so it's not looking too great at the moment.

I also changed the logo so that it's easier to read, and also so that the "slogan" says what my web site actually is. However, as I said before, I'm not a graphic design expert on any level, so it's still just words, very simple, etc. I also centered it at the top of the page because I added a smaller logo to the top of my main menu and didn't want them too close together.

I also transferred the layout of the whole site from tables to DIVs as was recommended, and I'm very happy with this. In the process I discovered the fixed position capabilities of the DIVs and at the moment there is a fixed header and the menu on the left is also fixed, leaving only the main content in the middle and the DIV on the right to scroll. (The DIV on the right will also be fixed once I replace the Google Ads with my affiliate banner ads.) I'm not sure how I feel about this, though. I think perhaps it would be best if the whole page just scrolled, but I'm not really sure. Was hoping for others' thoughts on this.

The code needs to be cleaned up, since at the moment there's some stray end tags scattered throughout the code from my editing, but I'll get to that later.

Please let me know about the color scheme and the scrolling, and thanks for everyone's time and advice!

 

[DPTECH]

Nice site keep it up... but i would recommend not using frames again for search engines they do not like frames and have a a hard time indexing the site... unless there is new info i dont know about...

 

[scarlett]

Good job for a first timer!

 

[Havox]

Glad to see you're using CSS, a lot of people try to get away with using just tables. Having said that, make sure your site has both valid CSS and XHTML. You can check at http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ for CSS and http://validator.w3.org/ for HTML.

Now your actual design isn't too bad, I just have a few criticisms.

1. Choose better colors. You can get some inspiration for a color scheme at http://kuler.adobe.com/.

2. Stay away from frames. They're a bad way to design a site and yours could work perfectly fine without them.

3. Make sure your code works with all popular browsers. (Safari, Opera, IE, Firefox) You have some major bugs when viewed in IE.

 

[an3rkist]

Glad to see you're using CSS, a lot of people try to get away with using just tables. Having said that, make sure your site has both valid CSS and XHTML. You can check at http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ for CSS and http://validator.w3.org/ for HTML.

I know there's many errors in HTML and CSS validators at the moment. I just redesigned the site so there's some stray tags in there, etc. This is being fixed as we speak.

1. Choose better colors. You can get some inspiration for a color scheme at http://kuler.adobe.com/.

Apparently my choice of color schemes is a huge drawback. This is the second color scheme and this is the second time it's been a no-go. I'll work on it, even though it passes as "okay" as far as web design goes.

2. Stay away from frames. They're a bad way to design a site and yours could work perfectly fine without them.

I'm not using frames, they're DIVs only. I know the main content DIV is currently the only DIV that scrolls. I liked the idea that the menus would stay fixed for a more user-friendly design, but people seem to think it is bad design, so I'll probably change them so they all scroll as if one DIV.

3. Make sure your code works with all popular browsers. (Safari, Opera, IE, Firefox) You have some major bugs when viewed in IE.

This is a problem I'm running into a lot. My current code works in the most recent versions of FF and IE, but earlier versions of IE don't support it as well. Those are the only two browsers I've checked since the vast majority of my visitors use these two browsers, (according to my AWSTATS). I'll start checking other browsers soon, too, but for now I'm just checking those two. As for the earlier versions of IE, it's a very small amount of visitors that use them. I hate to screw them over, but I can't please every browser on the web, I don't think.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[an3rkist]

Alright, I've completely redesigned the web site, taking suggestions from posters in the thread. (Thanks to everyone, by the way.) It's still far from being perfect, but I think it's a lot better now. Any thoughts on this please let me know!

 

[hawk12online]

Nicely done considering its a first design...

Just a few minor things; (1) The footer image is slightly wider that the white text background, this could do with shortening in length. And (2) The menu on the right is a little bland, tabs or some other way would be a good way to improve.

Other than that, nicely done