http://www.soundopinions.net

[mrsamlowry]

This site is a site dedicated to a radio/tv show about music airing in Chicago. I'd be particularly interested in design/usability comments, but all comments are appreciated.

http://www.soundopinions.net

Thanks...

Jason

[oracleguy]

I fail to see why you made the titles of the different body sections images, it'd a simple matter of making them text and it would help the page load much faster. For your menu, you should provide the name in the alt attribute in case the images can't be viewed or don't load.

[bradyj]

Since I'm from Chicago, I'll be nice to ya' -- parents live in Gurnee, I went to Columbia, lived downtown... and found myself face down at the double door many a times.

Well, usability is going to be a major problem -- Since you used tables for layouts, it's not fully accessible -- but you may already know that. There are UPPERCASE and lowercase tags in there, it would be best to stick with one. The HTML validator will show you that: http://www.w3.org

Design issues:
1. The wavy sound top left is a distraction -- only because it's height is greater than the photo, and since it places itself visually in the top, it throws that extra gray matter on the right, off. You'll notice it almost makes it feel heavy, and visually forces your eyes right -- but since your logo is not strong, you tend to skip over it... all the while, not strolling down to the content. This is also affected
2. By the lack of strength in the headers and text of the content area. 'scheduled guests' and the rest do not stand out, they look more like a simple database that was cooked up by the browser than a design. Stronger continuity in this area could allow the header to stay as it is -- at the moment, I didn't want to read anything. In fact, I skipped over much of the text because it does not pop. If you're going to keep the three column set, then I'd recommend dividing them up into straight columns better. A good example is looking at the XRT logo, if you look at that area long enough, it feels out of place. Looks as though it was shoved in there because of all these hard outlines with the content, weak headers. Unify this section more and you'll see large improvements.

All in all the design is not bad -- but I would not come back. Not because there's not enough useful information, but because the content area is so out of structure, it's not pleasant to look for information. Maybe make a center column white, or the outsides white. Give it some shadows or flair -- make the borders less imposing and up the headers to grab attention -- just ideas.

[llizard]

As oracleguy has already mentioned: You really should fill in the alt tags on your images. Those with text-only browsers and people who are blind will have no idea what your page is about, not to mention no idea how to navigate through the site.

The red image seems to be extraneous. If you really like the image, why not use it as a background image for the "the worlds only rock and roll talk show Sound Opinions"? (typo: should read world's)


I'm thinking that the 'talkback live' box should be the same width as the 'upcoming radio schedule' and 'sound opinions' boxes. (Remember, if images are disabled, there is no way of knowing what the boxes are for.)