> -----Original Message----- > From: Russel Madere [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 9:28 AM > To: CF-Community > Subject: Web Design feedback needed > > Hello All! > > I'm back posting, but not as rabidly as before :) > > I was recently asked (commanded is more accurate) to create a web site for > a veterans' group of which I am a board member. The URL is > http://www.washingtonartillery.org.
To be blunt: it's perfectly adequate. Nothing special, but neither is it embarrassing. ;^) As is it's much better than most small non-profit sites. Some comments: Header The crest/logo is unfortunately really poor quality - if you can't get a better version of the image you might consider getting creative and using a photo of the actual crest. The graphical title is also pretty poor - not horribly so, but pretty poor. It's also insanely large. I think it could be a 1/4 of that size (or smaller) and be just as effective on the field of color and still clearly legible. Since both of these images are such anchors for the site you might want to bite the bullet and hire somebody to do them professionally (or work out a trade with somebody). As I said the header is REALLY BIG. It's more than twice the size of most. It seems like the header size is being forced by the Crest. Personally I wouldn't allow that item (which cleanly fits in the vertical left bar) to dictate the size of the horizontal header. Menu I find the white text a bit hard to read on the scarlet. This may be because the buttons are so "squeezed" into their gold boxes. Personally I see no need to place each menu item in a box - it's just extra design junk in my opinion. A simple horizontal spacer line between each item would serve the same purpose and present much less visible clutter. Breadcrumbs Why have them at all? Your site (as is) is flat - you can get to EVERY PAGE from EVERY PAGE. There's no purpose at all for breadcrumbs in this scenario. In general I prefer to include only containers on the breadcrumb trail not the pages themselves (although this is very debatable). I find placing the current page on the breadcrumb list confusing. In your case that would eliminate all but the "Home" link on the trail which leads me again to just getting rid of it. It seems like you worked really hard to get the breadcrumbs "tucked" into the header curve - but I wouldn't do it. You've got a nice airy design with lots of negative space but then the breadcrumbs are squished right to the top. I'd add a little space between either the breadcrumbs and the header or the breadcrumbs and the page title. Just give things a little more breathing room. Content The "Gold on Black" headers seem too heavy to me - they drag the eye around in an unpleasant way. This is something that just has to be played with but I would suggest plain black-on-white with perhaps some kind of gold-black-scarlet flourish or underline; a little of those colors in the content go a very long way. Also on this topic I would prefer to see a clear, distinct "Page Title" style. Right now the same style is used for both the page title (the "H1" content) and the sub-headers (the "H2" content - and I would highly suggest using H2's rather than styled P's for headers). A very minor personal peeve: I'd drop the colons from the headers. I really dislike making link and text colors the same. Since bolding and underlining are used to emphasize so many other things I really think that a clear, unambiguous link identifier is essential. You text size is rather small in my opinion (death the widespread idea that tiny text is "more professional"!) You have so little content overall I think that you can beef up your text size a little bit. In this vein (and I'm not one to talk since I've not fixed my own site in this regard) but since you're using fixed font sizes you've killed the browser text-resizing feature (and, by extension, accessibility). I would expect some veterans to have vision problems - giving them the option for big text seems like a requirement. That's it. Sorry for writing a treatise here - the site really isn't at all bad. I'm just a picky bastard. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Protect Your PC from viruses, hackers, spam and more. Buy PC-cillin with Easy Installation & Support http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=61 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:165289 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
