feedback please - aquarium site

This has been fun to make. It's not completely finished (some css and
flash), so I'd love some comments at this time.

English - http://www.cineaqua.com/?s=index
French - http://www.cineaqua.com/?s=page_accueil

thanks

osman wrote:

This has been fun to make. It's not completely finished (some css and
flash), so I'd love some comments at this time.

English - http://www.cineaqua.com/?s=index
French - http://www.cineaqua.com/?s=page_accueil

thanks

I like the look - very calming!

Watch what happens to the "information" menu if your browser width is,
say, 600 px wide or less.

Watch what happens to the "information" menu if your browser width is,
say, 600 px wide or less.

Yes, I admit to neglecting small screen sizes here. It's a widescreen
homepage.
Might do an alternative style. Thanks for pointing that out.
--
i

osman wrote:

English - http://www.cineaqua.com/?s=index

All the absolute sizes and positioning does poorly at larger text sizes
than you designed for. Take a look at the home page in Firefox or
Seamonkey with text zoomed up a couple notches. It doesn't do well at
smaller window sizes, either. My usual size is a bit less than 800px wide.

The layout of the inside pages seems OK for the most part, but the home
page is where you'll make the first impression.

Nice photos!

--
Berg

great on the eyes

love the logo and the top menu with icons ( key-ute! )

at the bottom the sea background for me is a little too light.
the pink underline on the links is not too crash hot either on the text
down the bottom IMHO.

but seriously i do think its a good looking site - that i would use no
problem!


osman wrote:

This has been fun to make. It's not completely finished (some css and
flash), so I'd love some comments at this time.

English - http://www.cineaqua.com/?s=index
French - http://www.cineaqua.com/?s=page_accueil

thanks

osman wrote:

This has been fun to make. It's not completely finished (some css and
flash), so I'd love some comments at this time.

"Please upgrade your Flash Player here and have javascript active to

view this content."
I have Flash 7. What is special about later versions of Flash that
Flash7 is inadequate?
As others have noted the layout disintegrates badly when the font size
is changed, both larger and smaller.
Loads of fixed heights and widths that should be either ems or %s.
Body text size is rather small, hard-to-read. It looks to be about 70%
of my preferred size.
With a viewport width of 850px, the "Information" menu is almost
completely overlaid by the Events list.

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

Jim Moe wrote:

I have Flash 7. What is special about later versions of Flash that
Flash7 is inadequate?

Hi, the current slideshow uses a bit of flash 8 masking.
It will be updated though, so thanks for that.

I have had some comments on how this design doesn't handle 800px wide
browser windows well.
So, when I have time, I'll make a 1 column style sheet and include a
style switcher for these people.

I tried the man in blues script to automate the switch but maybe I did
it wrong somewhere as it didn't work for me in testing. I'll also
include a max-width for people with very big screens as I've had
comments about that also.


Bergamot wrote:

It doesn't do well at smaller window sizes, either.

I wrangled with relative sizes and pixel menu text instead of using
html text.
This way, it looks perfect and doesn't scale at all, but it's harder to
update the menu.
The problem is that there are a lot of menu items from the front page
and to get them all visible above the fold on an 800px wide layout is a
challenge.
Sticking them all inside a bigger footer area would do it.

Thanks for the compliments and criticisms.
I appreciate it, although I have a job on my hands now.
Keep 'em coming please.

osman wrote:

So, when I have time, I'll make a 1 column style sheet and include a
style switcher for these people.

That's the wrong way to go, IMO.
http://www.allmyfaqs.net/faq.pl?AnySizeDesign

I tried the man in blues script to automate the switch

FYI, anything that depends on JavaScript is likely to fail. Besides, if
your visitor has to work to make your site usable, they will often just
turn around and leave. But not without cursing the "clueless deeziner" a
bit first.

I wrangled with relative sizes and pixel menu text instead of using
html text.

Not sure what you mean by this.

This way, it looks perfect and doesn't scale at all

No, it is not perfect - it looks rather messy unless the visitor allows
you to set all those absolute sizes.

You need to learn to account for user settings that are different from
your own. I need larger than average text size for comfortable reading,
so set the minimum font-size in my browser to 17px. Any page that
doesn't scale is a definite problem, and there are plenty of them out there.

BTW, if you only test your work in IE, then you're ignoring a fair
portion of your audience. If you are testing in other browsers, like
Firefox, then you must try things like zooming text and resizing the
window to see how your layout adapts. If it falls apart or has other
undesirable results, then your design is broken.

It doesn't have to look the same at all sizes, but it at least needs to
be usable. When different elements overlap on screen, usability is at
best impaired, or at worst destroyed. The only way for me to save your
home page is to disable stylesheets altogether. To your credit, the
unstyled page is very usable.

The problem is that there are a lot of menu items from the front page
and to get them all visible above the fold on an 800px wide layout is a
challenge.

Care to guess where my "fold" is? It is not at 600px, even though the
viewport is somewhere near 800px wide. Regardless, your layout has some
flaws that need addressing.

--
Berg

Berg wrote:

FYI, anything that depends on JavaScript is likely to fail.

How about this : http://particletree.com/examples/dynamiclayouts/

I wrangled with relative sizes and pixel menu text instead of using html text.
Not sure what you mean by this.

I mean to say that instead of using regular html and css formatted text
for the menu, I could make the main menu with image replacement and
have complete control of how it looks and fix it to a text size that
doesn't scale. I didn't do this, I could, but didn't as it's a
cosmetic fix that doesn't add to usability.

You need to learn to account for user settings that are different from
your own. I need larger than average text size for comfortable reading,
so set the minimum font-size in my browser to 17px.

This issue needs to be sorted out quite soon then.

BTW, if you only test your work in IE, then you're ignoring a fair
portion of your audience. If you are testing in other browsers, like
Firefox, then you must try things like zooming text and resizing the
window to see how your layout adapts.

I use firefox as my main testing browser, then safari and then I check
explorer.
I do check what it will look like with resized text and understand your
need for complete usablity at larger text sizes. This is one of the
reasons for asking for opinions on this.
Maybe I need to use more em sizes and less floats and absolute
positioning to make it resize gracefully. I'd love to know how they
achieved this with css :
http://www.wordofsport.com

Thanks for your input

--
i