Review my personal site?

[Single Paradox]

http://singleparadox.com

Please take note it is not finished yet, but what do you think so far? I tried to make it very unique, did I succeed? ;)

[PcMan]

Yeah, its unique, but i am not a big fan of it. The logo "Single Paradox" is cut off a lil' from the bottom. Other than that its straight.

[ubik]

It's a pretty cool design. The lack of contrast and lights, give the menu a real genuine look onMouseOver it looks like its being back-lit but at the same time you make this sacrifice and the design becomes sort of "flat", without depth, in my opinion maybe because most of the colors have around the same Hue and Saturation.
The scroll is unique, pretty cool. I like that ".:" before the titles, i think its the little things that count. I would like to see your site again once its finished.

I also think the original design at singleparadox.com is good too.

[Single Paradox]

Thank you Ubik and PCman, I will try to get a little more depth and color into my site, of course I will have graphics and personal work that will color it up a bit. Thanks again for the reply. I will be updating it greatly over the weekend.

[Single Paradox]

I also think the original design at singleparadox.com is good too.

Oh and you are the only one that likes my homepage :rolleyes:

[bpeh]

hi,

first of all i like the simplicity of your layout. its just the word "single paradox" is chipped off half way that looks abit funny. some pics will make your site great.

keep coming.

[Single Paradox]

Thank you bpeh, I appreciate your comment, I will work on what to do with the cut off words

[harbingerOTV]

At first glance I think it could have a lot of potential. Of course with out java script how will it all function?

The layout is neat. There are some spacing issues that look like they are off though. Vertically centering the navigation and scrolling text box might look better. If the text box was the same height as the navigation it might look better as well.

What graphics app are you using? They are grainy. One way you can clean it up is making the transparent background of the sp_layout.gif black. You might have to rebuild the image but theres no need for the transparent background if the whole site has a black background. If your app can give a matte wghen saving it as a gif give it a blck one and that alone should help clean up the jaggedness of it.

I think a little cleaning up graphic wise will go a long way all in all.

[Single Paradox]

Thank you Harbinger. Yes graphics are my problem. I can code fine but I have trouble with graphics :rolleyes:

I have been trying to work on fixing the graphics and all that already before you mentioning it. Thank you for your comments though. This is the first site I've built that anyone has said anything good about :D Literally.

[Single Paradox]

Ok, I did 2 little changes. Now, the content box is as big as the navigation as Harbinger suggested. Also, the scrollbox is changed so you don't have to hold it down to move from box to box. Just click it and it will give you a scrolling effect such as http://13thparallel.org/archive/interface/

I also made another page using php that displays all the pages in a certain directory (/codes/). So click the "projects" link and look at that page as well. Thank you. Any more suggestions?

[Single Paradox]

I just made the "portfolio" page as well. Not completely done but again gives an overview of what it is going to look like. Oh and with the non-java users, I am going to put a noscript that hides the arrows, and another that makes the horizontal scrollbar visible. So it will look like this:

<noscript>
<style>

#divscroll{overflow-x:auto;}
#scrollBar{visibility:hidden;}

</style>
</noscript>


That SHOULD take care of the main problem with accessibility. I will have more javascript in the page but I don't know quite how to fix that YET. What do you all think?

[Single Paradox]

Alright. I've been tweaking it slightly every now and then. I gave it some depth, centered the nav and content, and made them both the same height as well. I made the "single paradox" at the top a link to the homepage. Plus, I am going to add some neat tribal and elemental looking designs at the top and bottom. Keep looking in if you feel like it.

Edit: Ooh forgot to mention, I also got it validating in XHTML 1.0 strict. That was a big accomplishment for me :)

[evo]

It still doesn't display well in Opera 8.52...

[Single Paradox]

I don't have opera. Can you give me a screenshot of what it looks like please?

[evo]

http://www.mudsplat.com/sp.png

[Grant Palin]

It is a unique design, and it looks good in Firefox. I have a couple of suggestions:

1. Maybe add a light background image to the page so the empty space is not just some big black expanse.

2. The sliding effect between subsections of current pages is rather neat, but I think the forward/backward links could use some sort of styling to indicate that there is more to be seen in either direction. I mean, until I actually click one of those links, I don't know whether anything will happen.

3. I see you're using tables to seperate out each subsection. You might be able to change the TDs to DIVs, and save a little bit of HTML/CSS.

Other than that, I have no complaints. It looks really good.

[Single Paradox]

Thank you very much Grant, and Evo as well.

Grant: What do you mean by the slider? Do you suggest if it is at the end of the line, the arrow should be a different color or somthing to show that it is at the end of the line? I'm just trying to specify. Oh, and about the background image. I was kind of thinking somthing like this background might look good: http://www.dj-designs.com/

I just think that a good gray and black design might break up the black. What do you think?

Evo: Thank you for taking the time to screenshot it in Opera. I have never used Opera and I am just wondering why it is doing that? Is it some sort of padding? A margin? It looks like a simple fix. If not, I'll simply move the background down a little bit.

Thanks again both of you.

[Grant Palin]

With regards to the slider, I mean that there is no indication of whether you are on the first or last slide. You have to click on the forward/backward links to find out whether there is any more to see. It would be a litle more user-friendly to indicate that, perhaps by hiding the forward link if you are on the last slide, for example.

The background doesn't have to be obvious, just subtle enough to put something into that empty space without distracting from the content.

[Single Paradox]

Ah ok. I will be playing with backgrounds as well. As for the slider, maybe I can have somthing like (1 of 5) to indicate which slide you are on? As well as hide the slider.

[Pennimus]

I wish you'd clean up the main image/logo thing, it looks so sketched out. Hell, I'll do it for you if you don't have the programs required, it drives me nuts every time I see it :thumbsup:

[Single Paradox]

Lol, I know, it drives me nuts as well. I am just not a graphic designer. I want to be, but I don't get how to do really clean work. All those edges were hand-softened by me. I go to the 2000% view and pretty much play with every pixel that doesn't look right. It drives me crazy. That offer is very tempting though. :rolleyes:

[evo]

You don't need to do that, you just draw it at 100%, your standard user will browse at that zoom. Have you been hand drawing these shapes?

Also, it looks like your site doesn't work in Safari either.

[Single Paradox]

Nah I haven't been hand drawing them. But the anti-alias wasn't working for some reason so I had to go around softening all the pixels on the edges. And Evo, what do I do to change the look in Opera? Like I asked before, is it some sort of padding or margin?

[evo]

Sorry, and yeah, it is gonna be a padding/margin issue. I'm on a mac at the moment, so can't open it up, or view the source to have a peep and see what is wrong.

[Single Paradox]

Oh its ok, and thanks. I'll download Opera and try this out. Does it look the same in Opera as in Safari?