Three Critiques

[Skyzyx]

Hey guys.

I've got three designs that I'd like to get some feedback on.

The first is http://www.goldenruleproduce.com
This is one of my older, non-compliant sites. I know it uses TABLES for layout, it doesn't validate, it uses pixels and points for absolute design. I'm working on a redesign in XHTML and CSS, but I'd like to get some feedback on the user interface.

I'm also looking for compatibility issues. Let me know about quirks in all browsers. I already know about the jacked up menu on Macs.


The second is http://www.unknownjeromes.com
They gave me some colors and some content and wanted me to put something together. Am am aware of a missing bio for one of the band members. Support is limited to innerHTML-capable browsers. Opera 7's got some quirks that I haven't gotten around to fixing, so Opera is blocked. IE5/Mac has that friggin' margin-right bug in it's rendering engine that I haven't worked around yet. Other than that, critique away.


The last is http://www.skyzyx.com
This is my new personal site that focuses on Gecko and standards-compliant design. It validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional, CSS2 (although the domain name isn't set up properly yet, so the validate CSS link doesn't work yet), and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 rating-A.

But the design and color scheme is a bit dull. What would you suggest I do to improve, without a complete re-write?


I appreciate the feedback -- both good and bad, so let me know your thoughts.

[whackaxe]

definatly the last one. standards compliant and pretty sweet looking

[bradyj]

1. The golden rule one does what it needs to do -- honestly, it looks a lot like these typical types of sites... but really that is what it is made for, and I think that is great because of (bad grammar, but I'm ending a sentence in a preposition). I wouldn't change a thing, very clean.

2. I hate a pop-up window like most people: and I honestly don't see why you did it. When I build flash sites, I have been requested to pop up the flash movie (which makes some sense for design purposes to control the page, but is unneeded in the scheme of things - and more a psycho problem with us designers to keep everything perfect, and not flexible like the web), but no where else. Even though I think you built it to that way to have control of the window size, I think it's more troubling than anything. The content is great, and I'd like to see more graphical elements like the Theatre sign photo you had. I don't care for the cursive typeface for the buttons, but that's a personal

[bradyj]

preference. I would just put more into adding little graphical elements like you did in your personal site.

3. Killer, I love it. This site is clean, flexible -- cool logo type face with a fresh futuristic design that makes me want to come back often to see what's new. If you want to spice this thing up, all I would say is to add more elements that are simliar to your grid background (animation if your into it, or just things that look similiar to layout styles like: rules, measurements, blue print look). But I really don't think you need to spice it up, it has a really good minimalist look to it, and that's what's cool about it. If you want to add more color, sure, go extreme and pop something in there that will let it jump like orange... but I like the cool futuristic feel to it, and I'd keep the colors the same. May I suggest less white is what would be helpful? It may be a tad bright... but this is PURELY nit-picking - I think it's great.

[cg9com]

Originally posted by Skyzyx
(although the domain name isn't set up properly yet, so the validate CSS link doesn't work yet)

Make your life easier:

http://validator.w3.org/check/referer
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/check/referer

This way it always works, no matter the URL :thumbsup:.

[Skyzyx]

Thanks for all the feedback, bradyj. Many of the chefs who use the Golden Rule Produce site think that it looks great, is very clean, and I haven't had a single complaint on the design. Maintainence, however, is a nightmare. I did alot of document.write-ing to the page, and as I said before, I'm planning a rewrite using standards.

For the Unknown Jeromes site, yes, I did use a popup window for the purpose of controlling the size of the window. The band leader is real picky about specific design elements, such as the pictures, etc. More or less what I'm looking for is: could I use this design again? Or at least, could I reuse a similar design without people hating it, and actually kind of liking it? Or should I scrap this design in the future?

For Skyzyx.com, I was going for a more "minimalist" look. I also was looking for something that was easy to maintain, so I decided to avoid things like graphic topic titles and other such graphical elements. I think it has a cool vibe to it, but it could use a smidge more color. Maybe a small amount of orange to freshen up the coloring. Y'think?

Anyways, I appreciate the feedback. Does anyone else have any thoughts?

====================

cg9com: I appreciate the URLs, but all of my styles are in an external stylesheet. Would it make a difference?

[MotherNatrsSon]

Yeah, I have one. SCREW COMPLIANCE. Either it works or it don't. everyone having to follow the same rules and code the exact same way seems real boring and not very creative. Personally, I code for everything except IE because PC's suck and so does windoze. As long as it works in Netscape and Mozilla, it should work in others too. I am personally tired of seeing site that say best when viewed in IE 6 or something similar. These days most people have and use more than one browser. If it don't work in one and it is really important they will fire up another and try.

MNS

[bradyj]

Well, not necessarily... designers and coders use more than one browsers. For people like us who are designing for business accounts, home bodies that know little if nothing for the web, and those handicapped users who need to have accessibility use; it's important to build for multiple sites.

And, for those of use who break the rules, you need to first learn the guidelines to know what your breaking. Even Jack Keroauc took years of English, read everything under the sun, until he decided to drop out, lead a lonesome life that was unfullfilled until his mid-thirties.

... and though I'm a Mac user as well, I know I make up only a good 2-3% of the population. Forgetting about the rest of the world would do little to benefit my learning -- many of the web geniuses who teach me useful methods on this site are PC users who may almost feel the opposite that you do.

I would recommend before making statements about the closeminded 'rule following majority', that you show me some of your ground breaking work and enlighten me?

[MotherNatrsSon]

I am not into doing "ground breaking" work. Just very simple functional stuff for my own e-commerce site. The people "on the bleeding edge" can have it.

I did not say it is impossible to learn from people that happen to be unfortunate enough to use pc's, I just do not code for them or their software. In fact, what I do know of making pages I have learned on the web and from experimening with the software I have and seeing what works and what doesn't.

I have no idea what my site looks like on a pc, but I am judging by the hits I get from windoze and microjunk IE users that the site must function all right. I have only been doing this computer stuff for about a year and am self-taught, and usually only have problems when it comes to something like perl for cgi to interface with the payment gateway to accept credit cards online.

My personal opinion is that 90% of the sites I go to are "overdesigned" with all the graphics and gizmos and just plain unecessary bleeding edge crap that they are pretty much useless.

The web is a good tool. There are great people. But it isn't all that it is hyped up to be.

BTW, I do my homepage in Photoshop 7 and Image Ready, save it as layer based slices in css layers with div tags and put it in a regular html page in Dreamweavwer 4 and it works fine. I'd be willing to bet there are many "standards" that I am not aware of and that are shattered in that page.......LOL

[cg9com]

Originally posted by Skyzyx
cg9com: I appreciate the URLs, but all of my styles are in an external stylesheet. Would it make a difference?
good point :D

[ionsurge]

unknownjeromes.com

We're terribly sorry, but your browser is either too old, or doesn't support current internet standards.

This site requires a version 5.0 or newer browser (except Opera, which does not yet support standards).
Please upgrade (or use a current browser) in order to view this site.

We apologize for any inconvenience.



Uhm what? Opera is built on standards.

[bradyj]

ionsurge, are you on a Mac like me? Sometimes I get bumped out if I use Opera... the Mac version lies about it's DOM support, which I know brothercake has told me before and I've seen, so people kick me out if I'm on the ol' mac Opera 6

[liorean]

Opera is built to the CSS standard, mostly. It's HTML and XML support is okayish too, but it's DOM support was before version 7.0 nonexistant. It pretended it had DOM, though, which led to not a few problems with it for people who relied on feature detection instead of browser detection. As feature detection is the better way to do it, I'd say they screwed up by faking features that it didn't have.

Opera 7 has far better DOM though, even if it can be quirky at times.

[bradyj]

Yeah, but us Mac users are up a creek without a paddle -- no Opera 7 anytime soon:(

... that's ok though, Mozilla has made some good ones for us recently.

[liorean]

Don't diminish Safari... Safari has better Dom support and pretty equal CSS and HTML support to Opera 7. Opear 7 has XML support which Safari doesn't have yet, though. (Apple are working on porting expat (same XML parser as Mozilla uses) and incorporating it in the browser.)

[bradyj]

No, infact I think Safari is a great browser -- it seems lightening fast compared to anything I've ever used on the Mac to surf the web.

[Skyzyx]

At the time, Opera 7 was in Beta, and didn't handle some of the JavaScript properly. Opera 6 doesn't work at all, and I haven't yet had a chance to test on a final build of Opera 7.

MotherNatrsSon, you didn't give me a single bit of legitamate feedback, so I would appreciate it if you didn't respond anymore to this post. Your comments are entirely the opposite of what the web was intended to be.

I haven't tested Safari, because I have no OSX to test on.

[MotherNatrsSon]

Too bad you think my comments aren't valid in any way. I think the web is supposed to be something anyne can use without being a "geek" to the point of all they do is read standards and learn all the various forms of coding to comply with them. I won't reply anymore to this thread....

MNS

[bradyj]

<off topic>
OOOOkay... it's always nice to see the seeds of violence grow and develop in web forums. They still try them as adults now in the US, right?
</off topic>

Moving on -- I viewed all your sites in:
Camino (also known as Chimera) - looks great
OmniWeb - some things are jumbled, but it's omniwebs fault, not yours
iCab - same as omniweb, just not in the game yet
Safari - looks great
Mozilla (pretty much the same as Camino) - looks great
IE 5 for Mac - looks great

Any other Mac browsers you need?

[liorean]

Originally posted by bradyj
No, infact I think Safari is a great browser -- it seems lightening fast compared to anything I've ever used on the Mac to surf the web. Try one of the nightlies of Camino or even Mozilla. The 1.4 version of Gecko is radically improved when it comes to speed, and it doesn't have some of the glitches of the 1.02 engine. The fact that Mozilla Firebird on the mac beat Camino and Safari in speed (based on a Mozilla biased source, though) promises that the 1.4 based version of Camino will be fast.

[bradyj]

sweeet, that's what I like to hear about Mozilla -- I like to see them pushing harder. I will download one of the nightlies -- haven't done that, just the 1.4 ok build, but I would like to try it.

...and, honestly, I did not know Mozilla Firebird was Mac based! I only saw it for PC when I checked, so I use it on that alone... Alright, I'm going to work on the downloading right now, thanks liorean:D

[ionsurge]

Skyzyx, I am on Opera 7.11

[liorean]

Bradyj, I think that was a special build. As Mozilla Firebird WILL replace the current Navigator, they will have to make it Mac compatible, but the main builds aren't really there yet. Have a look at Asa's blog.

(It might be that they have already made it compatible, though. I haven't checked it recently.)

[Skyzyx]

I checked out the Unknown Jeromes site in Opera 7.03 and Opera 7.1. Opera 7.03 is still a bit quirky for me, but Opera 7.1 is more or less fine. It just has a right margin quirk similar to IE5/Mac.

I've modified the sniff to allow Opera 7.1 or newer, and any other document.getElementById-compliant browser.

I'm still wondering about peoples thoughts on these sites though. I've only actually gotten two responses out of 23 posts...

[Jerome]

Funny, there are also unknown jeromes...

Jerome