need some critique for a site

#1

I would like to receive some constructive critique for this site in terms
of proper browser rendering, layout, user interface & navigation, clear
unambigious content, ease of use ... etc.

http://www.big-discount-hosting.com

Tony Cortese
--
Send camera phone photos straight to your online photo album plus a loaded
web hosting package for only $4.95/month - No other Fees
http://www.big-discount-hosting.com

#2

Tony Cortese <bigdiscounthosting@gmaildotcom> wrote:

Quote:

http://www.big-discount-hosting.com

100 errors, some severe.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht....big-discount-
hosting.com%2F

FOR EXAMPLE:
end tag for element "TR" which is not open <- SEVERE ERROR

The visual design is every bit as bad due to the poor font choices and
misspellings.

You desperately need both a spellchecker and a page validator.

The Doormouse

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

#3

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 07:07:00 -0700, Tony Cortese
<bigdiscounthosting@gmaildotcom> wrote:

Quote:

I would like to receive some constructive critique for this site in terms
of proper browser rendering, layout, user interface & navigation, clear
unambigious content, ease of use ... etc.

http://www.big-discount-hosting.com

See
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...hosting.com%2F
.. You need to fix 100 errors before anyone can meaningfully check your
code.

#4

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 14:45:47 GMT, The Doormouse wrote:

Quote:

Tony Cortese <bigdiscounthosting@gmaildotcom> wrote:

http://www.big-discount-hosting.com

100 errors, some severe.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht....big-discount-
hosting.com%2F

FOR EXAMPLE:
end tag for element "TR" which is not open <- SEVERE ERROR

The visual design is every bit as bad due to the poor font choices and
misspellings.

You desperately need both a spellchecker and a page validator.

I am more interested in the user experience and what a human eye sees. I
will fix the html stuff later.

What's wrong with the font choices?
A spellchecker was used during the creation of each page. I will use a site
checker to see what other errors are.

--
Tony Cortese
--
Send camera phone photos straight to your online photo album plus a loaded
web hosting package for only $4.95/month - No other Fees
http://www.big-discount-hosting.com

#5

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 14:45:47 GMT, The Doormouse wrote:

Quote:

Tony Cortese <bigdiscounthosting@gmaildotcom> wrote:

http://www.big-discount-hosting.com

100 errors, some severe.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht....big-discount-
hosting.com%2F

FOR EXAMPLE:
end tag for element "TR" which is not open <- SEVERE ERROR

The visual design is every bit as bad due to the poor font choices and
misspellings.

I just passed the homepage through netmechanic's spellchecker and it found
3 possible errors and none were real ones. What and how many spelling
errors you found that make you say the visual design is bad?

Tony Cortese
--
Send camera phone photos straight to your online photo album plus a loaded
web hosting package for only $4.95/month - No other Fees
http://www.big-discount-hosting.com

#6

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 10:45:38 -0700, Tony Cortese
<bigdiscounthosting@gmaildotcom> wrote:

Quote:

I am more interested in the user experience and what a human eye sees. I
will fix the html stuff later.

The "html stuff" affects what the user sees, hmm? Some of the errors can
cause your site to fail for some users. Some reduce usability. Really,
start there. There's no sense in painting a broken chair. Fix the chair
first, then we make it pretty. Function before form.

Quote:

What's wrong with the font choices?

Randomly chosen:

..text-8 {
FONT-SIZE: 8px;
FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
color: #000;
}

Never set font-size in pixels. Especially this small, which is illegible
for many. IE cannot resize it. Therefore, people cannot read the content,
and you lose business.

Use % for font-size units, and think carefully about going below 100% as
if the user has set their preference, that'd be it.

Verdana is not a good choice for general text unless you use a large fnt
size. What if Verdana is not available? Experiment: try uninstalling
Verdana from your machine, or stripping it out of the CSS temporarily. See
how it gets rendered with the second choice Arial.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/verdana.html for more detail on
the unsuitability of Verdana for most WWW use.

#7

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 14:01:37 -0400, Neal <neal413 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 10:45:38 -0700, Tony Cortese
bigdiscounthosting@gmaildotcom> wrote:

I am more interested in the user experience and what a human eye sees. I
will fix the html stuff later.

The "html stuff" affects what the user sees, hmm? Some of the errors can
cause your site to fail for some users. Some reduce usability. Really,
start there. There's no sense in painting a broken chair. Fix the chair
first, then we make it pretty. Function before form.

I forget to add: you specifically requested advice on "proper browser
rendering". Invalid HTML will cause rendering problems, so it's always
wise to correct that first.

#8

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 13:33:18 -0400, Neal wrote:

Quote:

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 07:07:00 -0700, Tony Cortese
bigdiscounthosting@gmaildotcom> wrote:

I would like to receive some constructive critique for this site in terms
of proper browser rendering, layout, user interface & navigation, clear
unambigious content, ease of use ... etc.

http://www.big-discount-hosting.com

See
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...hosting.com%2F
. You need to fix 100 errors before anyone can meaningfully check your
code.

Not every error it reports is valid. It reports errors on dynamic
javascript simply because it's not "smart". Plus it's reporting errors that
I can'd find like a </head> that has no corresponding opening tag. I have a
<head> and a </head> so I am not sure what it's complaining about.

Please ignore the html validation part. I mean I can find this stuff
myself. There are tons of html validators out there.

I am really interested in the human experience. If you, as a human, is
affected by an html error, yes then it's a problem.

Tony Cortese
--
Send camera phone photos straight to your online photo album plus a loaded
web hosting package for only $4.95/month - No other Fees
http://www.big-discount-hosting.com

#9

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 14:04:35 -0400, Neal wrote:

Quote:

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 14:01:37 -0400, Neal <neal413 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 10:45:38 -0700, Tony Cortese
bigdiscounthosting@gmaildotcom> wrote:

I am more interested in the user experience and what a human eye sees. I
will fix the html stuff later.

The "html stuff" affects what the user sees, hmm? Some of the errors can
cause your site to fail for some users. Some reduce usability. Really,
start there. There's no sense in painting a broken chair. Fix the chair
first, then we make it pretty. Function before form.

I forget to add: you specifically requested advice on "proper browser
rendering". Invalid HTML will cause rendering problems, so it's always
wise to correct that first.

I have tested the page under a few browsers and it worked fine (with the
broken html).
What you suggest is valid but I came across situations where a valid html
caused the page to render differently and sometimes very broken. Sometimes
you need to twist an html to make it render well on many browsers.
I would rather have some broken html that renders well everywhere than
valid html that doesn't render well everywhere.. in situations where it
can't be fixed other way.

--
Tony Cortese
--
Send camera phone photos straight to your online photo album plus a loaded
web hosting package for only $4.95/month - No other Fees
http://www.big-discount-hosting.com

#10

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 12:17:33 -0700, Tony Cortese
<bigdiscounthosting@gmaildotcom> wrote:

Quote:

What you suggest is valid but I came across situations where a valid html
caused the page to render differently and sometimes very broken.

Then you have a problem with the design, if it relies on invalid code to
make it work. Example - a lack of appropriate doctype will send some
browsers into quirks mode. You might have the perfect layout in IE's
quirks mode, but when you fix the doctype it looks awful. But the problem
is that users in more conforming browsers might see something different
due to their browser's quirks mode.

Ultimately, valid code is the only way to make it very likely you will
have no cross-browser issues.

Quote:

Sometimes
you need to twist an html to make it render well on many browsers.
I would rather have some broken html that renders well everywhere than
valid html that doesn't render well everywhere.. in situations where it
can't be fixed other way.

Usually it can be fixed. And the only time you really need invalid HTML is
when you simply have to use a proprietery tag or some deprecated element
to achieve what you're after.