Critique please...

Any critical (or otherwise) comments would be appreciated. I've done my
best to make the site conformable, accessible and use CSS for layout.
Its only a simple site and I'm quite happy with it so far, but I'm sure
improvements can be made, so let me know what you think, before I show
it to my client..

http://www.casalvista.co.uk

Thanks.
Alan.

--
Alan Cole. E-mail: justal at lineone dot net
http://www.forces-of-nature.co.uk [Coastal Sports]
http://www.pixelwave.co.uk [Website Design, hosting and promotion]

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 16:39:20 +0000, Alan Cole <justal (AT) lineone (DOT) net>
wrote:

Any critical (or otherwise) comments would be appreciated. I've done my
best to make the site conformable, accessible and use CSS for layout.
Its only a simple site and I'm quite happy with it so far, but I'm sure
improvements can be made, so let me know what you think, before I show
it to my client..

http://www.casalvista.co.uk

Looks pretty good on the whole. Default text size is a bit on the large
size, but better that than too small. It is a fixed-width layout, which
isn't normally recommended - I end up with quite a lot of wasted space
each side. With just a modest amount of text on each page that won't
cause problems for many readers. But on the other hand I don't think it
would be too difficult to make it fluid.

Why XHTML Transitional by the way? Strict is recommended for new pages,
and the one page I checked validated as Strict.

On the rental prices page you've got the name of the villa spelt three
different ways. (If there's one thing you *must* spell right it's the
name of the product. And the name of the client. ... If there's *two*
things you must spell right ... )

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

Alan Cole wrote:

Any critical (or otherwise) comments would be appreciated. I've done my
best to make the site conformable, accessible and use CSS for layout.
Its only a simple site and I'm quite happy with it so far, but I'm sure
improvements can be made, so let me know what you think, before I show
it to my client..

http://www.casalvista.co.uk

Pros:
Looks slick;
Semantic markup;
Good use of CSS; and
Great accessibility

Cons:
Fixed width;
Irretrievably slides off the left edge if browser window is < 750px [1];
Some photographs as Gif where Jpeg would be better;
Transitional doctype - why not use Strict?;
Direct email link will attract spam [2];
Accesskey definitions not obvious to users; and
The villa photograph (top of every page) could do with a little more
saturation and a little less compression.

Overall a great effort. I hope your client likes it as much as I do!

[1] Simple fix: put a thin border (of the same colour as the background)
around the centred content.

[2] A simple form is preferred instead of mailto: links.

Hth,
--
Ben M.

In article <oHFYd.3022$QN1.2367 (AT) text (DOT) news.blueyonder.co.uk>,
Ben Measures <saint_abroadremove (AT) removehotmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Alan Cole wrote:
Any critical (or otherwise) comments would be appreciated. I've done my
best to make the site conformable, accessible and use CSS for layout.
Its only a simple site and I'm quite happy with it so far, but I'm sure
improvements can be made, so let me know what you think, before I show
it to my client..

http://www.casalvista.co.uk

Pros:
Looks slick;
Semantic markup;
Good use of CSS; and
Great accessibility

Cons:
Fixed width;
Irretrievably slides off the left edge if browser window is < 750px [1];
Some photographs as Gif where Jpeg would be better;
Transitional doctype - why not use Strict?;
Direct email link will attract spam [2];
Accesskey definitions not obvious to users; and
The villa photograph (top of every page) could do with a little more
saturation and a little less compression.

Overall a great effort. I hope your client likes it as much as I do!

[1] Simple fix: put a thin border (of the same colour as the background)
around the centred content.

[2] A simple form is preferred instead of mailto: links.

Hth,

Thanks for that, glad you like it and I'll experiment with your
suggestions later... What is the generally accepted way to make
accesskey definitions more obvious (not that I think it is going to be
too much of an issue on this site).

I'll certainly change the doctype to strict though... it should validate
as far as I am aware.

Al.

--
Alan Cole. E-mail: justal at lineone dot net
http://www.forces-of-nature.co.uk [Coastal Sports]
http://www.pixelwave.co.uk [Website Design, hosting and promotion]

In article <049631dmspq0o49b3ecmvbgvjsi2hqttv6 (AT) 4ax (DOT) com>,
Stephen Poley <sbpoleySpicedHamTrap (AT) xs4all (DOT) nl> wrote:

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 16:39:20 +0000, Alan Cole <justal (AT) lineone (DOT) net
wrote:

Any critical (or otherwise) comments would be appreciated. I've done my
best to make the site conformable, accessible and use CSS for layout.
Its only a simple site and I'm quite happy with it so far, but I'm sure
improvements can be made, so let me know what you think, before I show
it to my client..

http://www.casalvista.co.uk


Looks pretty good on the whole. Default text size is a bit on the large
size, but better that than too small. It is a fixed-width layout, which
isn't normally recommended - I end up with quite a lot of wasted space
each side. With just a modest amount of text on each page that won't
cause problems for many readers. But on the other hand I don't think it
would be too difficult to make it fluid.

I set the default text size at 1em, I think it is too big as well, but I
didn't want to set it any lower than the visitors default setting. I
don't usually go with fixed width designs myself either, but decided to
with this site as it made things pretty easy. As you say, hopefully as
the pages are all pretty much the same size with loimited amounts of
text it shouldn't matter too much.

Why XHTML Transitional by the way? Strict is recommended for new pages,
and the one page I checked validated as Strict.

I'll change that.

On the rental prices page you've got the name of the villa spelt three
different ways. (If there's one thing you *must* spell right it's the
name of the product. And the name of the client. ... If there's *two*
things you must spell right ... )

Ooops... Better sort that out, thanks for the 'eagle eyes' it always
helps to have someone else look over these things.

Cheers.

Al.

--
Alan Cole. E-mail: justal at lineone dot net
http://www.forces-of-nature.co.uk [Coastal Sports]
http://www.pixelwave.co.uk [Website Design, hosting and promotion]

In message <justal-BF2D94.16391912032005 (AT) ptn-nntp-reader01 (DOT) plus.net>,
Alan Cole <justal (AT) lineone (DOT) net> writes

Any critical (or otherwise) comments would be appreciated. I've done my
best to make the site conformable, accessible and use CSS for layout.
Its only a simple site and I'm quite happy with it so far, but I'm sure
improvements can be made, so let me know what you think, before I show
it to my client..

http://www.casalvista.co.uk

Thanks.
Alan.

Just a few initial thoughts:

(1) You need to run each page to a spell-checker to remove the spelling
errors on each page
e.g accomodation --> accommodation
barbeque --> barbecue
Mediterrenean --> Mediterranean
activites --> activities
etc.

plus the odd punctuation error: Spains --> Spain's
as well as missing punctuation.

and the odd questionable grammar:

"The holiday villa has a small private garden leading into the communal
grounds and secure parking facilities."

Getting this right is the mark of the professional ;-)

(2) Anything described as { display : none; } will be hidden from most
assistive technology readers (screen-readers, talking browsers) as well
as visual UAs.

If you want to put 'hidden' messages onto the page for screen readers,
use CSS to position the text away to the side of the viewing window.

(3) Disable any link on a page that points to itself. i.e. On the
'accommodation' page, disable the 'accommodation' link.

I'll have a closer look later.

regards.

ps. At the bottom of the page you have:
xhtml - css - 508 - aaa

Are you inviting your users to go and read up on the subjects (assuming
they've any idea what it's about) -- or are you claiming conformity to
the standards?



--
Jake

In article <Z+tM9ol3I0MCFwTd (AT) gododdin (DOT) demon.co.uk>,
jake <jake (AT) gododdin (DOT) demon.co.uk> wrote:

In message <justal-BF2D94.16391912032005 (AT) ptn-nntp-reader01 (DOT) plus.net>,
Alan Cole <justal (AT) lineone (DOT) net> writes
Any critical (or otherwise) comments would be appreciated. I've done my
best to make the site conformable, accessible and use CSS for layout.
Its only a simple site and I'm quite happy with it so far, but I'm sure
improvements can be made, so let me know what you think, before I show
it to my client..

http://www.casalvista.co.uk

Thanks.
Alan.


Just a few initial thoughts:

(1) You need to run each page to a spell-checker to remove the spelling
errors on each page
e.g accomodation --> accommodation
barbeque --> barbecue
Mediterrenean --> Mediterranean
activites --> activities
etc.

plus the odd punctuation error: Spains --> Spain's
as well as missing punctuation.

and the odd questionable grammar:

"The holiday villa has a small private garden leading into the communal
grounds and secure parking facilities."

Getting this right is the mark of the professional ;-)

All done... I had just copied and pasted from the clients e-mail and
hadn't noticed those (among the loads of others I had already fixed)...
Although I prefer barbeque with a 'q' myself and I think it is
interchangeable.

(2) Anything described as { display : none; } will be hidden from most
assistive technology readers (screen-readers, talking browsers) as well
as visual UAs.

If you want to put 'hidden' messages onto the page for screen readers,
use CSS to position the text away to the side of the viewing window.

OK. Thanks, should be a simple job to change that.

(3) Disable any link on a page that points to itself. i.e. On the
'accommodation' page, disable the 'accommodation' link.

I'll have a closer look later.

Thanks.... I'll expect a grilling!

regards.

ps. At the bottom of the page you have:
xhtml - css - 508 - aaa

Are you inviting your users to go and read up on the subjects (assuming
they've any idea what it's about) -- or are you claiming conformity to
the standards?

I think you know the answer to that.... claiming conformity, at least
that will be the plan when it's finished and the main reason for asking
for a critique here.

Cheers.
Al.

--
Alan Cole. E-mail: justal at lineone dot net
http://www.forces-of-nature.co.uk [Coastal Sports]
http://www.pixelwave.co.uk [Website Design, hosting and promotion]

Alan Cole wrote:

Any critical (or otherwise) comments would be appreciated. I've done my
best to make the site conformable, accessible and use CSS for layout.
Its only a simple site and I'm quite happy with it so far, but I'm sure
improvements can be made, so let me know what you think, before I show
it to my client..

http://www.casalvista.co.uk

Thanks.
Alan.

And another misspelling of the villa's name on the Contact Us page:

Caslavista Villa Spain - Contact Us


Ed

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed kchayka <usenet (AT) c-net (DOT) us> writing in
news:39hqh1F60lv8aU1 (AT) individual (DOT) net:

Ben Measures wrote:

[2] A simple form is preferred instead of mailto: links.

I disagree. Personally, I don't like mail forms because I don't get a
copy of the message.

Supply both mailto: links and a form, then your visitor has a choice.

Add cc:me to the form so the user can choose to have a copy of the message
sent to them. That's in addition to the mailto.

--
Adrienne Boswell
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

In article <42338a95$0$10953$cc9e4d1f (AT) news-text (DOT) dial.pipex.com>,
Ed <ex@directory> wrote:

Alan Cole wrote:
Any critical (or otherwise) comments would be appreciated. I've done my
best to make the site conformable, accessible and use CSS for layout.
Its only a simple site and I'm quite happy with it so far, but I'm sure
improvements can be made, so let me know what you think, before I show
it to my client..

http://www.casalvista.co.uk

Thanks.
Alan.


And another misspelling of the villa's name on the Contact Us page:

Caslavista Villa Spain - Contact Us


Ed

Grrr... Spanish and typing never were my strong points!!!

Thanks.

Al.

--
Alan Cole. E-mail: justal at lineone dot net
http://www.forces-of-nature.co.uk [Coastal Sports]
http://www.pixelwave.co.uk [Website Design, hosting and promotion]