review commercial website

[clair de lune]

hello everybody

i know there are lots of mistakes in the design, that will be for next version, but you can still help as i am not very good at it

i am also asking your advice on coding, user experience and whatnot

site validates xhtml 1 transitional, positioning is through css, (and now even trying accessibility validation but last efforts are not online)

but site is complete and online, and i would appreciate if you folks could check it up

english version is here (http://www.campingclairdelune.com/(GB)/index(GB).htm)

thanks for taking time to help :)

[se4b4ss]

the colors hurt my eyes.

:eek:

[MysteryMan]

My comments would be that everything is bad.

Can't find anything I would keep. Colors, layout, menu choice, arrangement, aesthetics..........it's just not that good.

Why not consider having someone make it for you?

[newmand2]

Unless you've changed it, Id say that you two are wrong. Its not terrible. It delivers information nicely and in a clear way.

If you really wanted to improve it, Perhaps make a large title image thing at the top from photos of the resort.

I am viewing the blue colour scheme at the minute, and I think the black links could be a better colour. Not sure which try orange, a lighter blue or bold.

You may want to get a better navigation section with your own images. Perhaps a list with expanding or indented sub-menus.


On the tariffs page, the flashing lights are just plain annoying.

Thats my opinion for now

Just thought, you could possibly put a white/grey background on the outside of the main content and just center the whole thing to give padding on the sides? Maybe just wont look so bland

[se4b4ss]

the blue color scheme is ok, but the green and yellow are giving me a headache. :)

[newmand2]

Yep make the blue the default scheme, or pull more attention to the choice to change it. And the french => english image is hard to recognise

[clair de lune]

thank you all for your advice

the colors hurt my eyes.

sorry, you can change color theme, but i seem to have only flashy green, flashy blue and flashy yellow, but beware i'm working on a flashy white background with black writing :D

Why not consider having someone make it for you?
hey man, may i try to do it myself and ask some advice first, considering price of artists nowadays, or does this forum ban all tasteless people ? ;)

thanks newmand2 for constructive criticism, i will work on your suggestions :thumbsup:

[Vladdy]

No JS - No navigation that is the worst.
Blue color scheme is OK everything else is .... as others said
Bird,menu images are decoration - put them in the background via CSS
For the content images add alt attribute.

[clair de lune]

No JS - No navigation that is the worst.

yes vladdy, i am well aware of this major flaw

haven't finished and it is not online, but i will have a noscript tag with a simple list of links so as to provide navigation in case js is off

i suppose images in the background via css are for accessing content better for text only browsers, so i quite agree, but how do i do that, is it a css property of the div where the image is ?

For the content images add alt attribute. yes this is being done with alt and title attributes, but finished only in the french version, sorry :(

thank you for your help, you can please sometimes you know ;)

[Roy Sinclair]

It's a better site than most which ask for help here, with the xhtml 1.1 doctype you've abandoned all the deprecated html constructs which tend to dominate other sites. You might want to look into the menu that Brothercake is working on (see the POST A JAVASCRIPT forum) as a way to overcome the must have javascript to have navigation problem.

Add some title properties to the links for language change and color scheme change so people will be able to tell what those items do without having to click the links.

You've done pretty well with one side of the equation but a problem I see is that you've overused DIV and the like so that while your page is functionally correct it's semantically shallow. You need to use <h1>, <h2>... and other tags which impart meaning to the content, otherwise your search engine rating is going to be low.

[Vladdy]

Originally posted by clair de lune

haven't finished and it is not online, but i will have a noscript tag with a simple list of links so as to provide navigation in case js is off

That is not the way to do it. Define your menu in HTML as a list of links and then when javascript is available add the "expand/collapse" functionality to it.
Users without JS (SE included) will see complete expanded menu.

[MysteryMan]

Well when you say commercial website - the implication is that it has a monitary goal.

Not that you're doing a commercial website and taking the time to learn as you go along. People generally don't START learning on a commercial site.

Your design is fine. But your menu is a poor choice, and so is the colors.

Keep it all centered and create a menu right under the banner at the top center. You might try focusing the logo in there as well.

[clair de lune]

hello roy sinclair

You need to use <h1>, <h2>... and other tags which impart meaning to the content, otherwise your search engine rating is going to be low

i am working on that as well, not for search engine matters but to try to do it right, unfortunately i did not know of that problem before having gone quite far, and yes as a result the semantics is wrong and i got to change that

that is on my to do list ;)

Add some title properties to the links for language change and color scheme change so people will be able to tell what those items do without having to click the links.

i do not understand, there is a title and alt attribute to these images :confused:

as to brothercake's ultimate menu, i saw it some weeks ago and have been going back to the page quite often, it is a beauty of integration, and i will hopefully use it on my next site's version

vladdy, i will have problems following your advice (or i did not understand), as i do not control the menu script, it is tigra tree menu and far too difficult for me

by the way for others, green and yellow are less flashy now, which does not save the design but will hurt less

;)

[clair de lune]

to mysteryman

People generally don't START learning on a commercial site.

sure but i did, by necessity, and it is almost surely the only site i will commit, as my job is not webdesigner but campsite manager, it is much easier :)

that is why i appreciate your help, you all :D

[Vladdy]

get rid of your tigra menu and write simple nested list of links: www.vladdy.net/Demos/CSSNav.html
THEN use javascript to add effects.

[clair de lune]

vladdy, i just did not want to hear that... but it makes sense for so many reasons

i think i will get rid of that menu, as you are not the first one to point out its (or it's ?) problems, technical and design wise

:(

but for tigra defense i don't think it is intended as a navigational menu, and it works fine, it is just me who liked the simple and well known look of it, seems i was alone on that one :o

had been before on your site and had a longing look at your demo, but like brothercake's site that was after having gone far and wrong

mind you funny thing is that if i had not gone far and wrong, i might have not reached this forum as i would not have had so many problems

:thumbsup: , thanks anyway for recalling me the link, can i use that styling and mess it up... sorry adapt it... to my needs ?

[clair de lune]

hello everybody

i followed most of the advices given here, and my site works better now, so i can say it was sound advice :thumbsup:

design wise... hum, well, i give up

so i just wanted to thank you all for your help :)