Collin County Station

Constructive critique desired.

http://collincountystation.com

Thanks in advance.
Frank

"Frank Vest" <flv (AT) sbcglobal (DOT) net> wrote

Constructive critique desired.

http://collincountystation.com

Thanks in advance.
Frank

Hi,
The graphics look awful, are you resizing them in the html? If you are, stop
and resize them in your graphics programme of choice.

The site doesn't explain its goals and theres no "flow" to it at all.

The links look scruffy and unorganised.

The ticker is annoying.

You're using a style sheet, yet your still using BGcolor on some of your
<TD>'s.

Overall the site looks scruffy and unprofessional, sorry!

Last but not least, why are you using tables for this site?

--
Cheers

Paul watt
http://www.paulwattdesigns.com
http://www.amnesty.org

Paul Watt wrote:

Constructive critique desired.

http://collincountystation.com

Thanks in advance.
Frank

Hi,
The graphics look awful, are you resizing them in the html? If you are, stop
and resize them in your graphics programme of choice.

I want the site to work across all screen resolutions.

The site doesn't explain its goals and theres no "flow" to it at all.

Yes, I've been told that. How do I get it to "flow"?

The links look scruffy and unorganised.

Ok. Fair enough.

The ticker is annoying.

Was trying to do a good thing (public service) with the Amber Alert.

You're using a style sheet, yet your still using BGcolor on some of your
TD>'s.

Ah. That I can fix. I'll do that as soon as I get a few minutes.

Overall the site looks scruffy and unprofessional, sorry!

I asked. Thank you for the honest opinions.

Last but not least, why are you using tables for this site?

I'm not a professional web designer. I am learning. the "div" tag and
how to position are sill lost on me. I understand tables. The make
sense to me. Call it "old age".

Regards,
Frank

Frank Vest wrote:

Paul Watt wrote:
[Actually, Frank Vest wrote this originally -JH]
Constructive critique desired.

http://collincountystation.com

Here's hoping my words will be constructive.

Hi,
The graphics look awful, are you resizing them in the html? If you
are, stop and resize them in your graphics programme of choice.

I must agree that the images are unpleasant. There are all just enough
"off" to give the visitor a vague, uneasy feeling.

Your logo, of all the images, ought to look better than it does. It
needs to be redone at your real goal size and left that way (not
dynamically resized).

I want the site to work across all screen resolutions.

I guess it all depends on what you mean by "work". :-)

I understand and admire your wish to have a flexible design. However the
benefits of the "zoom" facility you're trying to incorporate are
outweighed by the negative effects of the image deterioration. Browsers
"do" the resizing, but they don't do it particularly well.

Also, you need to think about this: when I make my browser bigger, the
images get bigger (not better looking, maybe worse, but bigger anyway).
That's OK. But when I bump up the size of the text (for example, to make
out the tiny text at the bottom), the images start getting _smaller_
(not better looking, mostly worse), and soon I can't make them out well.

Also, the ad at the top right is an iframe ("eeuww," mutters the crowd)
and you have it pointing to a "top.html" file. Top.html uses a table
(but it's a one-cell table, so it's pointless) with a width of 100% set.
That means 100% of its container, which is the whole "top" page, so if
the "top" page gets wider, the ad image gets wider, and proportionally
higher. But you've got top.html stuck in an iframe with height="70"
meaning 70px (Tip: include units on all non-zero values), so while I
widen my browser, your main page gets wider, as does its iframe, so the
ad iteself does too, but I can only ever see 70pixels vertically. Your
ad gets cut off. One solution idea: Drop the iframe, toss top.htm, and
just put the ad in the main page.

But then, I don't like the ad(s) anyway. Sure, I hate this kind of ad in
the first place, but yours:
- is up at the top as if it's the *second most important* element of
your page, right after your logo;
- is too close to the logo; use a bigger margin to get more whitespace
in there and separate the elements;
- tries to set a cookie at every ad change (30 seconds). I know I am
insane for using "ask me" on every cookie, and my insanity is not
entirely your fault, but then the cookies don't seem to be yours either.
It just bothers me. (Excuse me while I take my medication.)

Of course, with JavaScript turned off, there's just a nice, lovely clear
space where the ad would be. It's a fine improvement. Ahhh.

Without JavaScript, your "Of the "Moment" space is just blank, and your
"Good Morning" (greet?) heading and its content disappear.

BTW, your page reliably crashed my IE6 when I tried to visit your site.
I only cured it my turning off JavaScript.

Apropos javascript: If you're going to use it to obfuscate your e-mail
address (which won't be visible at all when JS is off), why not use JS
to make a contact form (make it secure!) so that folks without e-mail
clients configured can still contact you (assuming they have JS)?

The site doesn't explain its goals and theres no "flow" to it at all.

Yes, I've been told that. How do I get it to "flow"?

In general, I think your page would benefit from more white space (okay;
beige space). I mentioned spacing between logo and ad above. Your three
central columns are hard to parse because there's too little separation
between them. I think more horizontal space would provide better
grouping and separation. Likewise more vertical space between the
sunrise/sunset graphic and the More Collin County heading.

Add more vertical space before the "Visitor Information..." heading.

Some sort of welcoming text up at the top might be good. The whole page
consists of headings, links, images, and ads. Give the folks a line or
two of actual _text_, welcoming them, say, or expanding a little on the
railroad metaphor (station, depot) as you explain what the site is.

Do you have a nice photograph of some building or landmark from the
area? (I almost want to suggest a railroad station from around the
county, but I think that might actually confuse people more.) A good
photograph looks many times better than most any gif you can come up
with. And it'd give a more personal touch to the site.

(Oh, just found some of your photos. Your collin-from-greenville.jpg
might work just fine, if you reduce it in a nice way. Or find something
similar.)

The links look scruffy and unorganised.

Ok. Fair enough.

Line up the fields in the Search section. There are staggered in my FF
and IE (although in two different ways).

Line up (or move, or remove) the "Please consider helping..." and VISA
button. Then line them up with the "Collin County Station Advertising"
link (or move/remove it).

The ticker is annoying.

Yes. Very. Plus, it takes forever to figure out what it's annoying
_about_, because it doesn't explain why I'd care about AMBER Alert very
well. And I only cared because you asked me to review your site.

Was trying to do a good thing (public service) with the Amber Alert.

I guess it's a Texas thang. Seems good, though, now that I've figured
out what it is. One thought, beyond the annoyance of marquees in
general: reading about abductions of children doesn't make me wanna
hurry up and visit y'all, if you see what I mean.

You're using a style sheet, yet your still using BGcolor on some of
your <TD>'s.

Ah. That I can fix. I'll do that as soon as I get a few minutes.

You have some strange names for your classes: .onepercent, .twopercent,
..fourpercentb, etc. I'm wondering if they're good for you. The names
don't seem meaningful semantically.

Overall the site looks scruffy and unprofessional, sorry!

I asked. Thank you for the honest opinions.

I admire your mature attitude, sir.

Other Miscellaneous:

Maybe try using a sans-serif font (Arial, say) for your bodytexts.
Your footer has a free sitemaps image, a PR gauge, a W3C icon, and a
counter, all of which I suggest you remove, since no normal visitor will
care about any of that. Consider a purge.

The extra-teensy text down there is annoying, because it's all but
impossible to read. Rationale: If you don't want us to read it, why'd
you put it there? And if it's important, why is it so damn small? As it
happens, your very last line of text is the one thing I most wanted to
know when I got to your page. Your 65% makes it 10px on my browser.

I'm not sure what the "Other Places" links have to do with this site,
except for the Texas one.

Last but not least, why are you using tables for this site?

I'm not a professional web designer. I am learning. the "div" tag and
how to position are sill lost on me. I understand tables. The make
sense to me. Call it "old age".

I'm not a pro either. And I'm especially challenged graphically (I don't
know much about making graphics, but I know what I hate ;-) ). I hope
my criticisms are nonetheless helpful. Good luck!

--
John

John Hosking wrote:

Here's hoping my words will be constructive.

They are very much constructive. Thank you.

Your logo, of all the images, ought to look better than it does. It
needs to be redone at your real goal size and left that way (not
dynamically resized).

I need to make the site for one resolution and leave it there?

I want the site to work across all screen resolutions.

I guess it all depends on what you mean by "work". :-)

True.

I understand and admire your wish to have a flexible design. However the
benefits of the "zoom" facility you're trying to incorporate are
outweighed by the negative effects of the image deterioration. Browsers
"do" the resizing, but they don't do it particularly well.

So I am learning.

ad gets cut off. One solution idea: Drop the iframe, toss top.htm, and
just put the ad in the main page.

I can do that, but I lose the 30 second rotation. Not a big deal, but I
liked the rotations.

BTW, your page reliably crashed my IE6 when I tried to visit your site.
I only cured it my turning off JavaScript.

That's odd. It works on my IE6 with no problems.

Apropos javascript: If you're going to use it to obfuscate your e-mail
address (which won't be visible at all when JS is off), why not use JS
to make a contact form (make it secure!) so that folks without e-mail
clients configured can still contact you (assuming they have JS)?

I've never gotten a form for such a thing to work correctly for me.

You have some strange names for your classes: .onepercent, .twopercent,
.fourpercentb, etc. I'm wondering if they're good for you. The names
don't seem meaningful semantically.

I was making them so I would understand them. I suppose I should have
used "font3" instead of "threepercent".

I admire your mature attitude, sir.

Thank you. My tongue is sore from biting it.

Last but not least, why are you using tables for this site?
I'm not a professional web designer. I am learning. the "div" tag and
how to position are sill lost on me. I understand tables. The make
sense to me. Call it "old age".

I'm not a pro either. And I'm especially challenged graphically (I don't
know much about making graphics, but I know what I hate ;-) ). I hope
my criticisms are nonetheless helpful. Good luck!

You have been very helpful. At least I now understand "why" the pages
look like s**t and what is "cr*p" about them. I've been told that the
images don't look right, look like (explicative) and that this and that
doesn't look good. Never a "why" or what the other person is doing to
make the site look bad. I have looked at the site in IE6, Firefox 1.5
and 2.0 at 800, 1024 and done screen shots from places at higher
resolution and different operating systems. The site looked fine to me,
but people kept telling me that it looked like or was (explicative) ...
but not why, how or other details. I honestly never thought to "bump" up
my fonts and see how that affects stuff. The "constructive" is what I
needed.

Thank you for the help. <sigh> Now I get the joy of redesigning and
making changes. This is gonna hurt and take some time.

Regards,
Frank

Frank Vest wrote:

John Hosking wrote:

Your logo, of all the images, ought to look better than it does. It
needs to be redone at your real goal size and left that way (not
dynamically resized).

I need to make the site for one resolution and leave it there?

Well, not the *site*, the *graphic*.

What I mean is, make the graphic one particular size, and don't let your
page resize it dynamically. (That _can_ be useful, but as discussed, it
doesn't usually work out.)

Let the text and other elements reposition themselves and/or flow around
the graphics as the user chooses other browser widths or font sizes, but
leave the graphic at some good, clear size (that tends to work well over
a *range* of browser sizes, say from 600-1300px wide). This is, um, hard
to do with tables. The big trick (at least as I work on my designs) is
mastering the float property and how container blocks work (or don't).

Apropos javascript: If you're going to use it to obfuscate your e-mail
address (which won't be visible at all when JS is off), why not use JS
to make a contact form (make it secure!) so that folks without e-mail
clients configured can still contact you (assuming they have JS)?

I've never gotten a form for such a thing to work correctly for me.

I am sorry that I can't help you here. I don't have one either. I do
believe I have seen php forms suggested, specifically something called
phpforms (although I may have it a bit wrong and I can't endorse it
anyway). Poke around c.i.w.a.html, a.w.webmaster or c.i.w.a.site-design,
where a discussion about such forms pop up around once a month.
If you've got PHP working for you server-side, you don't have to worry
about the user's JavaScript capability or e-mail configuration.

You have some strange names for your classes: .onepercent,
.twopercent, .fourpercentb, etc. I'm wondering if they're good for
you. The names don't seem meaningful semantically.

I was making them so I would understand them. I suppose I should have
used "font3" instead of "threepercent".

Ah. When I saw the onepercent et. al. I thought they referred to sizes.
The names of classes should usually indicate their purpose or some
semantic context, rather than some info about their styling.

<short pedantic digression>
Consider the example of some text elements which should stand out from
the rest of the page styled like: <div class="bigblue">. The CSS defines
..bigblue as 120% text with color:blue. Then you decide to make those
elements stand out by using a different font in green. You could just
change .bigblue in the CSS to use 100% in the new font with color:green,
but the class is still called bigblue. Otherwise you have to rename all
the class references in the HTML. :-( </digression>

Wouldn't names like depotlink or footer or disclaimer or amberalert be
more appropriate, while still being clear to you?

I admire your mature attitude, sir.

Thank you. My tongue is sore from biting it.

LOL!

Thank you for the help. <sigh> Now I get the joy of redesigning and
making changes. This is gonna hurt and take some time.

Yeah, recruits always whine about boot camp, but then later they're
usually glad they went through it. Anyway, I happen to find it fun,
despite the occasional brick wall on the damned obstacle course (some
things don't position the way they "should," or they line up differently
on different browsers). Just remember, "No pain, no gain."

Regards,
Frank

--
Cheers,
John

John Hosking wrote:

I need to make the site for one resolution and leave it there?

Well, not the *site*, the *graphic*.

Ah ... Ok. That was easy. I remove the logo and just used text. Set
the size firm on the other graphics.

a *range* of browser sizes, say from 600-1300px wide). This is, um, hard
to do with tables. The big trick (at least as I work on my designs) is
mastering the float property and how container blocks work (or don't).

I will master the float thing. It will take time. I note you qualified
this with a "(or don't)".

I've never gotten a form for such a thing to work correctly for me.

I am sorry that I can't help you here. I don't have one either. I do

I'll get that is time. The site is primary at the moment. A php script
and other stuff will come later.

You have some strange names for your classes: .onepercent,
.twopercent, .fourpercentb, etc. I'm wondering if they're good for
you. The names don't seem meaningful semantically.

I was making them so I would understand them. I suppose I should
have used "font3" instead of "threepercent".

Ah. When I saw the onepercent et. al. I thought they referred to sizes.
The names of classes should usually indicate their purpose or some
semantic context, rather than some info about their styling.
Wouldn't names like depotlink or footer or disclaimer or amberalert be
more appropriate, while still being clear to you?

Good point. Another thing to deal with in time.

Thank you for the help. <sigh> Now I get the joy of redesigning and
making changes. This is gonna hurt and take some time.

Yeah, recruits always whine about boot camp, but then later they're
usually glad they went through it. Anyway, I happen to find it fun,
despite the occasional brick wall on the damned obstacle course (some
things don't position the way they "should," or they line up differently
on different browsers). Just remember, "No pain, no gain."

It is fun at times. Frustrating, but fun. I got the index page
rebuilt. Now working on the rest of the site. I think it is better.

Thanks,
Frank

"Frank Vest" <flv (AT) sbcglobal (DOT) net> wrote

John Hosking wrote:
I need to make the site for one resolution and leave it there?

Well, not the *site*, the *graphic*.

Ah ... Ok. That was easy. I remove the logo and just used text. Set the
size firm on the other graphics.

a *range* of browser sizes, say from 600-1300px wide). This is, um, hard
to do with tables. The big trick (at least as I work on my designs) is
mastering the float property and how container blocks work (or don't).

I will master the float thing. It will take time. I note you qualified
this with a "(or don't)".

I've never gotten a form for such a thing to work correctly for me.

I am sorry that I can't help you here. I don't have one either. I do

I'll get that is time. The site is primary at the moment. A php script and
other stuff will come later.

You have some strange names for your classes: .onepercent, .twopercent,
.fourpercentb, etc. I'm wondering if they're good for you. The names
don't seem meaningful semantically.

I was making them so I would understand them. I suppose I should have
used "font3" instead of "threepercent".

Ah. When I saw the onepercent et. al. I thought they referred to sizes.
The names of classes should usually indicate their purpose or some
semantic context, rather than some info about their styling.
Wouldn't names like depotlink or footer or disclaimer or amberalert be
more appropriate, while still being clear to you?

Good point. Another thing to deal with in time.

Thank you for the help. <sigh> Now I get the joy of redesigning and
making changes. This is gonna hurt and take some time.

Yeah, recruits always whine about boot camp, but then later they're
usually glad they went through it. Anyway, I happen to find it fun,
despite the occasional brick wall on the damned obstacle course (some
things don't position the way they "should," or they line up differently
on different browsers). Just remember, "No pain, no gain."

It is fun at times. Frustrating, but fun. I got the index page
rebuilt. Now working on the rest of the site. I think it is better.

Thanks,
Frank

Hey Frank,
Just to let you know your front page is looking better, a bit "link heavy"
maybe, but a vast improvement. I would maybe add a little more padding to
the left and right sides of the screen, it seems a little squashed.

--
Cheers

Paul watt
http://www.paulwattdesigns.com
http://www.amnesty.org

Paul Watt wrote:

It is fun at times. Frustrating, but fun. I got the index page
rebuilt. Now working on the rest of the site. I think it is better.

Hey Frank,
Just to let you know your front page is looking better, a bit "link heavy"
maybe, but a vast improvement. I would maybe add a little more padding to
the left and right sides of the screen, it seems a little squashed.

Thanks. Added padding around the main page. It does look better with
more padding, I agree. I have toyed with the idea of a menu system of
some kind, but I really want to avoid more scripts that search engines
(Google) don't index. Since the idea is to provide information and other
stuff for people and visitors of Collin County Texas, links are a needed
evil. <sigh>

Thanks for the reply and thoughts.

Regards,
Frank

On Mar 4, 9:23 am, Frank Vest <f... (AT) sbcglobal (DOT) net> wrote:

Paul Watt wrote:
It is fun at times. Frustrating, but fun. I got the index page
rebuilt. Now working on the rest of the site. I think it is better.

Hey Frank,
Just to let you know your front page is looking better, a bit "link heavy"
maybe, but a vast improvement. I would maybe add a little more padding to
the left and right sides of the screen, it seems a little squashed.

Thanks. Added padding around the main page. It does look better with
more padding, I agree. I have toyed with the idea of a menu system of
some kind, but I really want to avoid more scripts that search engines
(Google) don't index. Since the idea is to provide information and other
stuff for people and visitors of Collin County Texas, links are a needed
evil. <sigh

Thanks for the reply and thoughts.

Regards,
Frank

i would look into some color schemes and pretty it up - so to speak..
maybe ask someone you know with a creative spark to give you some
help. technically i dont really have a problem with it.