Elastic Node Review

sharkey182uk · 08-16-2004, 11:25 AM

Hey i was wondering if anyone could review my site from design to code, usability and accessibility please.

Its lacking some good content at the moment but that will be up soon.

Cheers
Chris Sharkey

llizard · 08-16-2004, 02:15 PM

re: http://www.elasticnode.com/

Only commenting on the look not the coding....

I quite like the look of it at 800x600 resolution. But when I looked at 1024x768, it wasn't quite as pleasing because of sitting in the middle of two fairly wide columns.

Perhaps you could divide your header image (the one with the rose) into two and place it on a white background centered div that is 95% in width. Align the rose to the left and the "ElasticNode" to the right. You might also consider reducing the size of the rose. It is very large. My eye is drawn immediately to the rose and doesn't really want to move away from it.

You could also divide the striped background image for the page into two. (At least I think you could do that....

The white lettering on the green bars is a little difficult to read. There isn't quite enough contrast.

sharkey182uk · 08-16-2004, 05:31 PM

Ill take this into consideration soon thank you for the review.

oracleguy · 08-16-2004, 05:36 PM

The code looks pretty good and it does validate. The only thing that bothered me and it isn't an issue at all, is that you could have indented your code better so it is easier to read but its not like that affects anything but how easy it is to read and make changes to.

Also, you could "upgrade" your doctype to XHTML 1.1 and it still validates fine, so I'd do that if I were you.

Your site looks like it would be eligible for our examples of XHTML & CSS based sites thread.

rmedek · 08-16-2004, 08:27 PM

For some reason, although the rose is huge and doesn't really mean anything other than it's pretty, it doesn't bother me at all. I actually really like it...

Over all the code is clean and the layout is nice. The only thing I would say is it's yet another page with a header, a left menu column, a right column w/ content, etc, etc. There are a million sites like this-- what about branching out and trying something new? Just my opinion

Except for that, I think it's a clean, attractive design...

sharkey182uk · 08-20-2004, 12:57 PM

Thanks guys abit late reply from me yes i do know what you mean about stereotypical css layout ill change that on my next redesign. Ill update the doctype mate. And about the code indentation i tend not to indent for some reason. Ill add it to the example xhtml, css sites thread.

Thanks again guys.
Chris Sharkey

AaronW · 08-20-2004, 01:06 PM

Actually, you shouldn't update the doctype because XHTML 1.1 MUST be served with the Content-type: application/xhtml+xml header. The code will validate, but it won't be XHTML 1.1. If you try serving it with that content type, IE will refuse to show it.

Stick to 1.0.

As for the layout:

- I would adjust the green so that it actually matches the rose... Right now it's a bit too bright and looks weird.

- The google ad is touching your text.

- The padding/margins look very inconsistant. The main "cell" has like 15px on the right and top, and maybe 4 on the left. Then there's about a 20px space between the content box and the sidebar. Then the sidebars are padding with too much on top and too little on the sides. Might try cleaning that up.

- There's a strange mix of serif and sans-serif fonts. The sans-serif font you use doesn't fit too well with the design in my opinion.

- Try designing your own little "folder icon" for the news. It looks like you stained a forum icon green and the folder might look better opening the other way (flip horizontal).

- The shadow just stops on the bottom of the site. Try rounding it off, maybe?

Heh. Seems like lots of negative stuff, but they're just ideas on making it potentially better.