Critique Wanted!

#1

My site:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/ozmorrowind/

Any comments, suggestions etc. post 'em!

Be as rude and blunt as you want - don't spare my feelings.

Couple of things though:
The majority of my target audience don't consider themselves very good
(according to surveys I've done) with computers (ie. computer
literate), so please consider that when viewing.

I really want to gravitate users towards the "Morrowind Character
Profile Creator", do you think the site design does that without
shoving it in their face?

Ignore the help files, I hate them but don't have time to code them
myself so I have to let RoboHelp do all the work (they are thus
sloooowww to looaaddd).

Also, paid hosting is _not_ an option (Gamespy's not all that bad:
relevant ads, no quotas/bandwidth limitations...basically everything
you'd get with paid hosting, except for the ads).

Thanks all!

#2

"Matthew" <matted (AT) bigpond (DOT) net.au> wrote

Quote:

My site:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/ozmorrowind/

Any comments, suggestions etc. post 'em!

If you were to use just one font face, size (preferably 100%) and decoration
(not italic) it would be much easier to read.

Use CSS and get rid of all of those font elements.

You used Frontpage for this, and filed off the serial numbers, didn't you.
This

gives it away :-)

Cheers
Richard.

#3

"Matthew" <matted (AT) bigpond (DOT) net.au> wrote

Quote:

My site:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/ozmorrowind/

Any comments, suggestions etc. post 'em!

Be as rude and blunt as you want - don't spare my feelings.

Oh goody! I can be myself without someone crying!
First, the obvious:
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...ozmorrowind%2F

Above and beyond the validation errors is the fact that you're using many
elements incorrectly and/ or using the wrong elements altogether.
For instance, in your left-side navigation, you're using <br> to create a
new line. Well, isn't this navigation a *list*? If so, then it is more
appropriate to use a <ul> in this case.
I also find it very odd that the page is a massive mish-mosh of CSS
presentation with a lot of bogus, deprecated markup like <center> and
<font>. I mean, if you're going so far as to use CSS for positioning the
layout, why not use CSS for typography?
The code also has a mix of uppercase and lowercase in the markup. IMO, this
is bad practice...

--
Karl Core
http://www.karlcore.com
http://www.usabilityinfo.com
http://www.murderthestupid.com

#4

matted (AT) bigpond (DOT) net.au (Matthew) wrote:

Quote:

http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/ozmorrowind/

I love that shade of blue! And also the font.

However,
I cannot read white or yellow text on a light blue background, so the
review will end here.

The Doormouse

--
The Doormouse cannot be reached by e-mail without her permission.

#5

"rf" <rf (AT) example (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

You used Frontpage for this, and filed off the serial numbers, didn't
you.

ROFL!

The Doormouse

--
The Doormouse cannot be reached by e-mail without her permission.

#6

"Karl Groves" <karl (AT) NOSPAMkarlcore (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

Oh goody! I can be myself without someone crying!

LOL!!

The Doormouse

--
The Doormouse cannot be reached by e-mail without her permission.

#7

The free hosting with the ads actually works for this site seeing that the
link in my window at least is for a game...kind of makes it look like they
are paying you to be on the site. On the other hand if you want to get rid
of that check out affordablehost.com as they offer a free hosting page
(without email).

I think the colors are wrong for the site...why not use the same color
scheme and feel as Morrowind...in fact I think I'd go a step further and
give it the feel of the morrowind interface.

The character profile isn't in your face (not that I think it would be wrong
if it were since that is the purpose of the site); I think I would consider
more emphasis on it and bring it more attention. One good rule of thumb is
not just telling what you have but why they need it.

It resizes well....wish I could get mine to do that....so much to learn!

mb

"Matthew" <matted (AT) bigpond (DOT) net.au> wrote

Quote:

My site:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/ozmorrowind/

Any comments, suggestions etc. post 'em!

Be as rude and blunt as you want - don't spare my feelings.

Couple of things though:
The majority of my target audience don't consider themselves very good
(according to surveys I've done) with computers (ie. computer
literate), so please consider that when viewing.

I really want to gravitate users towards the "Morrowind Character
Profile Creator", do you think the site design does that without
shoving it in their face?

Ignore the help files, I hate them but don't have time to code them
myself so I have to let RoboHelp do all the work (they are thus
sloooowww to looaaddd).

Also, paid hosting is _not_ an option (Gamespy's not all that bad:
relevant ads, no quotas/bandwidth limitations...basically everything
you'd get with paid hosting, except for the ads).

Thanks all!

#8

"rf" <rf (AT) example (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

You used Frontpage for this, and filed off the serial numbers, didn't you.
This
!--WEBBOT bot="HTMLMarkup" Endspan --
gives it away :-)

Cheers
Richard.

I dunno whether or not you're being serious or not...so I'll presume
you are. Actually, I'm not using Frontpage (wish I could afford it!),
that's just the code that the site meter/statistics thing told me to
paste into my site, so I did it.

#9

"michael" <no more spam> wrote

Quote:

The free hosting with the ads actually works for this site seeing that the
link in my window at least is for a game...kind of makes it look like they
are paying you to be on the site. On the other hand if you want to get rid
of that check out affordablehost.com as they offer a free hosting page
(without email).

Yeah, most of the adverts are either game related or targeted at game
audiences (my audience) since Gamespy are a pure gaming site (you have
to be 'invited' to join their hosting service). I've actually clicked
on several adverts myself whilst on my own site!

Quote:

I think the colors are wrong for the site...why not use the same color
scheme and feel as Morrowind...in fact I think I'd go a step further and
give it the feel of the morrowind interface.

I hate the Morrowind interface. It's ugly and absolutely horrible. I
would go with the colours that Morrowind uses, except that there are a
billion websites that use a similar colour scheme, and I'm totally
sick of it. I used to have a nice yellow, but people told me it was
distracting (I suppose it was). I've actually had a few compliments on
the blue so I guess it's working.

Quote:

The character profile isn't in your face (not that I think it would be wrong
if it were since that is the purpose of the site); I think I would consider
more emphasis on it and bring it more attention. One good rule of thumb is
not just telling what you have but why they need it.

Hmm, thanks for the advice. This project was sort of a big jump for
me. I have had absolutely no experience in html/graphics design (not
that there's much there, but I'm learning how to create better icons),
software development, marketing, yada yada yada (I'm only 15
actually). So yeah, every little piece of advice is good to me (and I
have no skills/intelligence in this area for people to insult)!

Quote:

It resizes well....wish I could get mine to do that....so much to learn!

Only after a tonne of feedback from the people here (thanks all) about
how to get it working properly.

#10

"Karl Groves" <karl (AT) NOSPAMkarlcore (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

"Matthew" <matted (AT) bigpond (DOT) net.au> wrote in message
news:cad5a66b.0406030508.170c74df (AT) posting (DOT) google.com...
My site:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/ozmorrowind/

Any comments, suggestions etc. post 'em!

Be as rude and blunt as you want - don't spare my feelings.

Oh goody! I can be myself without someone crying!
lol.

Quote:

First, the obvious:
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...ozmorrowind%2F

Most of those validation errors are to do with the ad code (which I
technically have to have, although I could just not put in the
"insertadthispage", but Gamespy are so nice...

) and the counter
code - neither of which I can really do anything about. The rest are
on the navigation bar...which is what you've commented on below...

Quote:

Above and beyond the validation errors is the fact that you're using many
elements incorrectly and/ or using the wrong elements altogether.
For instance, in your left-side navigation, you're using <br> to create a
new line. Well, isn't this navigation a *list*? If so, then it is more
appropriate to use a <ul> in this case.
Hmm, yes. I will investigate this further. What advantages does making

it a list have over just adding <br> tags?

Quote:

I also find it very odd that the page is a massive mish-mosh of CSS
presentation with a lot of bogus, deprecated markup like <center> and
font>.
That's coz the CSS design was a template and the other stuff (you call

'deprecated markup') is mine.

Quote:

I mean, if you're going so far as to use CSS for positioning the
layout, why not use CSS for typography?

I could, but when I designed the site I really knew nothing about CSS
(or really HTML either), but I'm learning. One small step at a time.
The website's design will be redone if I can come up with something
that looks better and is within my reach. I am planning to do it for a
'celebration' of my 20 000th visitor (currently hovering at around 16
000), lol (I read that some site had 100 000 visitors a month and they
considered it unsucessfull...they can give me their visitors if they
like!).

Quote:

The code also has a mix of uppercase and lowercase in the markup. IMO, this
is bad practice...

Yeah. I'm making sure that future pages follow the same format
(although I'm sure there's a program I can find that will convert all
my markup to uppercase as I like it).

Thanks!