Opinions of website re-design

[JimboS]

I have a site running at www.wpsoptometrists.co.uk/main.htm (I have bypassed the flash intro so no comments on that please).

I am in the process of re-designing and have set-up an initial outline of the site layout at www.wpsoptometrists.co.uk/New_Site/welcome.htm If you enter one of the sections there will be a list of further sub-section below this.

I would be grateful for opinions of the new layout before I proceed further (other than the fact that I am using Frontpage!!!)

Jimbo

[bradyj]

The layout you have redesigned looks much more clean and structured -- I like it:thumbsup:

I have a couple graphic complaints:
1) the gradient you used on the right for the blocks looks cheap and a little out of place. I would use a solid color like some of the other stuff on the page -- it would keep with a clean structure. Plus the gradient gets wacky for people with crappy monitors.
2) the buttons on the left are a little plain... if anything I would make them stand out a little more.
3) the white space at the header on the top looks like an error (in the middle). I would readjust it. Visually, it is the first place your eyes go to when the site is open, as white is an eye catcher, you don't want that to be blank. A funny example of useful white space is Leonardo's Mona Lisa: her chest is the only large white area in the painting, directing your eyes to that very spot on purpose. Just a little art tidbit.:)

Other than that it's great -- would you like screenshots of how it looks on my macintosh in different browsers?

[JimboS]

Screenshots would be great

Jimbo

[ionsurge]

I like it... and have no real graphical moans, apart from the right menus, which seem pretty naff compared to the style of the rest of the site which is very clean cut.

My main issue is with the uppercase words, such as "YOU", or "INDIVIDUAL" - I don't think that is really necessary, simply making the word bold will do the trick with it in normal case.

[meow]

Wow! That's what I call improvement. :thumbsup:

I notice one flaw though. In Moz and Opera I get quite a bit of whitespace between the head graphics (the happy family) and the gray bar. I do in IE too if I increase the font size to one notch larger than normal. If you give the text to the right (in the header) more width so it doesn't have to linebreak so soon it would fix the increased text size problem. The Moz and Opera problem could be caused by line breaks within TDs, but that's just a guess.

Goodlooking page anyway. ;)

[ronaldb66]

Basic design and layout is very nice; good looking pages indeed. I like the graphic header buttons, no "mystery meat" here since it's clear what they stand for. Proper use of alt text, too.

I second earlier comments on the nav buttons; they could stand out a little more, and I would make them, as well as the whole nav bar, a little narrower, which gives you more room for the center content section.
Also, the plain dark grey is fine for the footer and will do for the header title bar, but I'd consider a little more visual interest for the latter one. Also consider lining up the page title either to the center, or otherwise left-aligned to the left side of the content section which ties it in to the content more.
The font size in the news items on the right is very small; maybe a good incentive to go and visit the optometrist...

Since you're using Frontpage, and are probably doing so for a good reason, I won't bug you with the usual code comments.

[duniyadnd]

The new design is MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH... better.. :thumbsup: I got to agree with some of the other comments that the gradient on the right is a little out of place.

[bradyj]

IE for mac:
http://www.dotfive.com/iemac52.gif

Opera for mac:
http://www.dotfive.com/macopera602.gif

Mozilla for mac:
http://www.dotfive.com/mozmac.gif