Need Help w/ critiquing on my website.

http://symphonicheaven.com/

Since everyone here knows something about web design and web astetics, I thought this would be the best place to post this.

I’m planning on "updating" the layout. Not a total overhaul of everything, but giving it a lighter color-design (whites / greys, I’ve been thinking of using), and fixing some coding issues that have popped up after the initial design of the site was convieved + coded.

Now, where you guys would come in. If any of you who read this thread could look at the site and critique things that need fixing / etc., it would greatly help me out when it comes time to "update" the layout.

(FYI, don’t mention the banner --- that’s something that’s gonna be "fixed" in the revamp.)

It is a little noisy, isn’t it? I’m afraid I’m no graphics designer, though, so can’t really put a finger on what makes it that way.

Quote from: sottwell at Dec 01, 2007, 02:57 PM

It is a little noisy, isn’t it? I’m afraid I’m no graphics designer, though, so can’t really put a finger on what makes it that way.

Yeah...that’s part of the reason I’m going for the "lighter" site colors in the revamp.

Although most of my main competition is "noisy", so I need to keep a balance between the two.

I think the design is fine, the site is well done and has some cool features. But since you asked for critique here go some views.

The background bothers me a bit. The stripes ’vibrate’ and cause my vision to ’tweak’ out, and on my monitor width the vertical line does not frame the site as it was intended. Also it is a bit ’dark’ (lots of gray) maybe some colors could liven it up. The image in the header could be brighter and sharper if possible (the one character to the left is much sharper than the rest and stands out nicer) as well as improve the readability of the "Your #1 source for tales".

The ’notch’ in the header together with the one in the login box and the slight alignment differences (the login box should line up with the content box, including the titles) and the navigation bar’s alignment seem to be fighting a bit.

I am not a gamer, the most modern game I’ve played was sonic hedgehog in the old sega systems over 10 years ago, so I am not the target audience by a long shot so my views may not be pertinent.

Quote from: dev_cw at Dec 01, 2007, 05:42 PM

The background bothers me a bit. The stripes ’vibrate’ and cause my vision to ’tweak’ out, and on my monitor width the vertical line does not frame the site as it was intended. Also it is a bit ’dark’ (lots of gray) maybe some colors could liven it up. The image in the header could be brighter and sharper if possible (the one character to the left is much sharper than the rest and stands out nicer) as well as improve the readability of the "Your #1 source for tales".

The ’notch’ in the header together with the one in the login box and the slight alignment differences (the login box should line up with the content box, including the titles) and the navigation bar’s alignment seem to be fighting a bit.

Yeah, the "stripes" are something that’s gonna "go by the wayside" in the revamp. Same thing with the "dark" colors --- I’m thinking of a mix or white+gray, with maybe some blue. Think a "Nintendo Wii"-derived color scheme, if you will. Banner was a quick job by another staff member, since the one who usually does the graphics was busy at the time. That’ll be fixed in the revamp as well.

And thanks for pointing out that "notch/alignment" issue. I’ll be sure to rectify that (should just be some quick CSS/image edits).

Quote from: ganeshXL at Dec 01, 2007, 06:01 PM

What bothers me most is the "double" navigation on top.

While the Forum / Gallery / Topsite navigation group is clearly recognizable as navigation/links, the icon-group above is somewhat hidden. The symbols are too dim, they don’t stand out.
I’m also not sure if all those icons are recognizable at first sight. I’m no gamer, so I really don’t know. But generally speaking I’d opt to have icon + text-link. A navigation where I have to hover over a symbol first to see where it will lead me, is not so user-friendly (imo).

The overall impression I get at first sight is... "just another portal". Maybe because of such items as the Affiliates box.

Hopefully the lighter color scheme will fix some of those issues. But I will try to "lighten" it up some.

The icon issue isn’t a big deal for my site viewers, since the core audience would recognize what the consoles are. I’ll try to see if I can get an icon+text link solution done, though.

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Thanks for all of the suggestions so far. I feel they’ll really be able to help out the site during the revamp. ^.^

Hmm not bad.. a bit too candy and somewhat noisy - but fitting for the content. I would have the blog entries on the left though.

I would work the affiliates into a space that looks like a blog entry and always on the bottom - since you have so many it takes up a lot of space on the sidebar area.

I would also move the login (and simplify it) to the empty space below the site title.

The nav_header_text graphic doesn’t really work for me - and it will look funny if you swap the columns.

have fun!

I am viewing in Safari (OS X 10.5) and It refuses to go to the index page, I just keep getting ad after ad (I gave up after looking at seven ads).

-sD-
Dr. Scotty Delicious, DFPA.

Quote from: fruitwerks at Dec 03, 2007, 07:40 AM

Hmm not bad.. a bit too candy and somewhat noisy - but fitting for the content. I would have the blog entries on the left though.

I would work the affiliates into a space that looks like a blog entry and always on the bottom - since you have so many it takes up a lot of space on the sidebar area.

I would also move the login (and simplify it) to the empty space below the site title.

The nav_header_text graphic doesn’t really work for me - and it will look funny if you swap the columns.

have fun!

I’ll take it into cosideration.

Quote from: Dr. at Dec 03, 2007, 07:58 AM

I am viewing in Safari (OS X 10.5) and It refuses to go to the index page, I just keep getting ad after ad (I gave up after looking at seven ads).

-sD-
Dr. Scotty Delicious, DFPA.

Gah, seems you got trapped in the "ad after ad" issue. It’s something random they put on this host, but in return, I get free hosting while I’m there (plus a server that rarely goes down).

Could you try it again and see if you have that happen again? If so, I can file a support ticket to see if they can resolve that issue (if it’s Safari-related).

Looking again I see you have some new ’blog’ entries... some of them are somewhat large. I’m not sure how you are doing these, but some pagination would be nice, and it can be handy in the future to slip in some banner ads if you have enough traffic.

Pagination looks like your best bet. It looks like you want all the info out in front instead of having summarized blocks... another idea, but could be somewhat tricky - use mootools fx.slide or accordian functions on older posts, they would still be inline, but hidden until clicked.

When I revisited I did not get an ad, it went right to the site.

Quote from: fruitwerks at Dec 03, 2007, 10:30 AM

Looking again I see you have some new ’blog’ entries... some of them are somewhat large. I’m not sure how you are doing these, but some pagination would be nice, and it can be handy in the future to slip in some banner ads if you have enough traffic.

Pagination looks like your best bet. It looks like you want all the info out in front instead of having summarized blocks... another idea, but could be somewhat tricky - use mootools fx.slide or accordian functions on older posts, they would still be inline, but hidden until clicked.

When I revisited I did not get an ad, it went right to the site.

IIRC, there’s a 15 shown per page limit I have on them (users can go to the forum for ones older than that, since that’s where the posts come from). And due to the script I’m using (MyBB Bolt-On), it *has* to display (can’t do a click full story on it).

Same thing applies to doing a Mootools-ish thing, since that would affect each and every news post.

The ads are *supposed* to show only a few times per day, but I think they do it via IP addresses, thus, if you’re not using a dynamic IP, you get "hammered".