Be Harsh But Fair

Have a look at this site guys : www.deck20.co.uk

Let me know what you think, on any aspect of the site. Please do bear in mind that it's under construction and the PHP email forms don't work properly at the moment.

Thanks,

Miggsy007

banner is stretched and bad quality. lose the validation tags, hit counter, copyright, etc from the bottom of the page. your tables (us, join us, etc) are too big for 1024x. dont center all the text in news, rules, etc.

*edit - go with a sans font like verdana.

regards,
steve

Thanks for the tips! I've been meaning to replace that banner for ages. As for the rest of them, I'll take your suggestions on board and try to sort them out.

Anyone else who wants a look, please do - the more feedback the better it'll be! That's the plan anywya.

Cheers,

Miggsy007

Ditto on the header and the font; I didn't see any font specified, which results in my - ugly - default Times.
Having browsers stretch images is never a good idea, since the results are almost always dissapointing; I'd suggest a wide (something like 1600px), fixed width background of which a certain portion can be seen depending on screen width. If needed, the site title can be placed in top of it if you wish to keep it right; a left alignment would however work just as well.

I'm not impressed by the menu; the button style reflects nothing in the rest of the design (not that there is much of that anyway), and the position next to the header is inappropriate. I recommend dropping it below the header on the same starting hight as the content, and stretching the header over to the left corner.

The white on black contrast is far too high; reduce it by either lightening up the background (which would be a good idea at any rate), by slightly darkening the text, or both.

Center aligned text fails as a design element in almost all cases, certainly where body text is concerned; make left and/or right alignment the rule, and break the rule only once in a while.

Same goes for the tables in "Us": the format is ugly and unnecessary. Explore definition lists to structure these property - value pairs; consider for instance right-aligning the properties (handle, age, etc.), moderately separated from left-aligned values, both lining up against a common center line.

Lastly (for now!): underlining is commonly accepted as indicating links; underlining headers that aren't links is therefore a bad idea.
Use some other form of adornment to style those headers: size, boldness, color, background (color and/or image), borders, etc; there are sooo many options!
On a similar note: the actual links don't stand out at all; they could do with a lot more attention.

Rummage around the famous CSS Zen Garden (http://csszengarden.com/) for some design inspiration.

Hi again guys, thanks for the tips. I've done my best to implement them all.

Font is now specified as Verdana.

Still working on the header image.

Menu dropped and header centered.

Black background is now dark grey.

Most body text now justified not centered.

Tables played around with to look better.

Underlining removed on headers that aren't links.

I'm still playing around trying to go with your other suggestions, keep checking it and let me know what you think of my changes.

Cheers,

Miggsy007

Hi again all. As I said, I've implemented the above changes and done a few other things. Please, anyone with a spare minute have a look and see what you think.

www.deck20.co.uk

Cheers,

Miggsy007

a single observation from me would be that the paragraph on the first page is very wide, it's a strain on the eye for people to read a line that long, the fact that it runs wider than the header banner doesn't help, get it tidy and line things up

Why don't you use a style like http://www.phpbb.com/styles/forum/index.php?style=131 for your forum?