Re: Beginner @ HTML, no CSS, Java? HA! Site for Work

tangerine37 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com (BGW) wrote in news:81315364.0307081148.6bbdd5e8
@posting.google.com:

Hallo!

I've written this site last week, with help from my husband, google
groups, Dave's HTML tutorial, and a lot of swearing. . . any
constructive criticism would be appreciated (although my boss'll
probably veto the implementation of anything truly helpful. . .)

www.garlikovcompanies.com

On my system (1153x864) the image at the top of the screen looks
pixelated and a bit nasty, and it's also absolutely ginormous! It'd
look even worse on our 1280x1024 system.

Not seen an image sized quite like that before, but it does mean people
with higher screen resolutions are not going to see it at its best: It'd
guess that's why it's not usually done.

If I take my browser width down, it looks better, but as people have
pointed out, it quickly stops resizing gracefully and gives horizontal
scrollies instead. I guess your system is set to 1024x768?

I suggest you get a copy of Size-O-Matic from Pythoness, and your boss
does the same. That way you can see the page very easily in lots of
common screen resolutions. Remember to try it with Favorites bar turned
on as well as off.

On a non-technical note - that's not the final text, is it (I hope!)?
You've got the same text on the home page and the services page, and the
'long text' on, say, the 'associates' page is really difficult to read.

People read much slower on a screen than they do on paper, (tell your
boss 50% slower, though I'm not sure if that stat is up to date with
modern monitor technology) so it's really important to use short words
and short sentences.

It's also really important to get across on the home page:
- Who you are (yes, does this fine - nice friendly personalisation with
the photo)

- What you do (sort of does this, though you have to pick the info out
of a long sentence - a list of bullets would be better).

- why they should read on to find out more.
(I think this is the weakest area. The home page doesn't do a great
sales job for the internal pages.)

I suggest you and your boss sit down together and work out why you have
a website, and what you want people to do as a result of visiting it.

(phone you? email you? arrange a meeting? leave the site with a nice
warm feeling about the group? understand the group's purpose?).

I'm guessing this is why your boss is tormenting you with niggles. If
you agree in advance what the site's for, it makes it much easier to
identify what contributes to that final objective, and what doesn't.

Then look again at the menu systems and text, and see how you can
restructure those to make it as easy and attractive as possible to do
whatever it is. The navigation and the content, are, dare I say it, at
least as important as the layout and images.

There's a broken link on http://www.garlikovcompanies.com/BD.html to
http://www.garlikovcompanies.com/Overview, in case you didn't know.

Victoria
--
Clare Associates Ltd
http://www.clareassoc.co.uk/
01822 835802
--

<snip>

I suggest you get a copy of Size-O-Matic from Pythoness, and your boss
does the same. That way you can see the page very easily in lots of
common screen resolutions. Remember to try it with Favorites bar turned
on as well as off.
Is it Free-ware? Otherwise, she's not going to go for it. . . I'd

like something like that for personal use however - soulds very
useful. . .thank you!

On a non-technical note - that's not the final text, is it (I hope!)?
You've got the same text on the home page and the services page, and the
'long text' on, say, the 'associates' page is really difficult to read.

People read much slower on a screen than they do on paper, (tell your
boss 50% slower, though I'm not sure if that stat is up to date with
modern monitor technology) so it's really important to use short words
and short sentences.

I will try to bring this to her attention. . . however, as she's just
requested that I make all text right and left justified, I'm not
certain that she places comprehension over pure aesthetic. . .

snip many great suggestions

There's a broken link on http://www.garlikovcompanies.com/BD.html to
http://www.garlikovcompanies.com/Overview, in case you didn't know.

I didn't - thank you so much!! I really appreciate this feedback. = )

Victoria

tangerine37 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com (BGW) wrote in
news:81315364.0307100511.7af93068 (AT) posting (DOT) google.com:

snip
I suggest you get a copy of Size-O-Matic from Pythoness, and your
boss does the same. That way you can see the page very easily in
lots of common screen resolutions. Remember to try it with Favorites
bar turned on as well as off.
Is it Free-ware? Otherwise, she's not going to go for it. . . I'd
like something like that for personal use however - soulds very
useful. . .thank you!

Yes, it's freeware, though you can make a donation if you find it handy.

Download from http://www.pythoness.com/

Victoria
--
Clare Associates Ltd
http://www.clareassoc.co.uk/
01822 835802
--