Site critique please

#1

Hello, I have a new site. Its not quite finished yet. This is my first site.
It is an oscommerce site.
Any feedback would be helpfull www.ravenview.net
Thanks. G.W.

#2

"Ravenstravels" <drunknsober#hotmail.com> wrote:

Quote:

Hello, I have a new site. Its not quite finished yet. This is my first
site. It is an oscommerce site.
Any feedback would be helpfull www.ravenview.net

* http://validator.w3.org/check?verbos...ravenview.net/
* Mainly dark blue on light blue isn't too easy to read
* While links on light blue are all by impossible to read
* White section headings in the sidebar are fine against the background
image, but too low a contrast against the background colour that appears
while the images are loading (or if images are turned off)
* http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?Tableless_layouts
* http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?AnySizeDesign
* http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/navmenu.html
* Your headings are table data cells of class "infoBoxHeading" instead of
<h2> (or whatever the appropriate level is)
* You provide users with a choice of languages. American or ... nope, no
other choices. Seems rather pointless.
* Ditto currencies
* Your toolbar has an icon of what I'm guessing is supposed to look like a
house and indicate the homepage. It doesn't look like that and lacks a
title attribute to inform people of its purpose
* Your alt text is redundant:

Sovereign of the Seas
Sovereign of the Seas
$580.00 HMS Bounty
HMS Bounty
$580.00 Serenity 2
Serenity 2
$91.00
Serenity
Serenity
$91.00 Egyptian
Egyptian

--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is

#3

Ravenstravels wrote:

Quote:

Hello, I have a new site. Its not quite finished yet. This is my first site.
It is an oscommerce site.
Any feedback would be helpfull www.ravenview.net
Thanks. G.W.

Please don't multipost.

Crossposting with follow-up set is much preferred. This way, everyone
gets to see all the replies.

--
Ben M.

#4

Ravenstravels wrote:

Quote:

Hello, I have a new site. Its not quite finished yet. This is my first site.

HTML/CSS:

1. The HTML does not validate. The HTML code is incorrect: it starts with
<body> that is never closed, and is followed by a DOCTYPE. Very bad.
2. A 3 column layout is difficult without using tables. However, the
internal structures use tables for layout that is quite unnecessary.
And table-based layouts are harder for search engines (Google, Yahoo)
to process.
3. The CSS takes no advantage of the "cascading" aspect of CSS. This leads
to an excessive use of "class" attributes for much of the styling.
4. Fixed width designs are user un-friendly.

Appearance:
1. The link styles are inconsistent, there are at least 3 different link
presentations. In some places they are white with underline. In other
places there is no hint that it is a link (except the mouse pointer
changes), and no a:hover either. And why not make the major links (like
Specials, Reviews, What's New, ...) actual links rather than hiding the
link in a hyphen?
2. The colors scheme for the text has a low contrast. Light blue on medium
light blue, medium-light blue on light blue, white on light blue, a:hover
uses dark red over medium blue, ..., these are all not so easy to read.
When using light text and dark background, set to the font weight to
bold. Light-on-dark has a bleed-through effect, especially on CRTs, that
makes the text contrast even lower.
3. The font size(s) are set to pixels and are mostly too small to read,
exacerbated by the low contrast. IE users cannot compensate for such small
fonts because they are specified in pixels (don't use points, either).
Use % or EMs to size the fonts.

--
jmm dash list (at) sohnen-moe (dot) com
(Remove .AXSPAMGN for email)

#5

Jim Moe wrote:

Quote:

HTML/CSS:
1. The HTML does not validate. The HTML code is incorrect: it starts with
body> that is never closed

The end (and for that matter, start) tag for the body is optional in HTML 4.

Quote:

, and is followed by a DOCTYPE. Very bad.

That is bad though.

--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is

#6

Jim Moe wrote:

Quote:

2. A 3 column layout is difficult without using tables.

Not really ... <g>

<http://www.benmeadowcroft.com/webdev/csstemplates/3-column-with-footer.html>

I agree with the rest of your critique, though.

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

#7

"Ravenstravels" <drunknsober#hotmail.com> wrote

Quote:

Hello, I have a new site. Its not quite finished yet. This is my first
site.
It is an oscommerce site.
Any feedback would be helpfull www.ravenview.net
Thanks. G.W.

Thanks everyone. I will make some changes.

#8

On Thu, 28 Apr 2005 23:54:49 -0500, Ravenstravels wrote:

Quote:

Hello, I have a new site. Its not quite finished yet. This is my first site.
It is an oscommerce site.
Any feedback would be helpfull www.ravenview.net
Thanks. G.W.

Did you make the graphic at the top with Bryce?

#9

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

Quote:

2. A 3 column layout is difficult without using tables.
Not really ... <g
http://www.benmeadowcroft.com/webdev...th-footer.html

It fails in IE6 if there is a div {position:relative;} anywhere before

the start of the 3 column code. As long as there is no such div, it
displays as shown.

Quote:

I agree with the rest of your critique, though.

:-)

--
jmm dash list (at) sohnen-moe (dot) com
(Remove .AXSPAMGN for email)

#10

Jim Moe wrote:

Quote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

2. A 3 column layout is difficult without using tables.

Not really ... <g
http://www.benmeadowcroft.com/webdev...th-footer.html

It fails in IE6 if there is a div {position:relative;} anywhere
before the start of the 3 column code. As long as there is no such
div, it displays as shown.

Can you describe why you would want a position: relative before the
<div id="content"> ? A banner space? I don't see why it would be
necessary to make it relative, unless I'm missing something.

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.