Constructive criticism please

ebolag4 · #1 April 18th, 2002, 08:23 PM

I may be looking for a job soon. (Long story, multiple frustrations.) Will some of you look over my website and the "portofolio" page and look over some of the other sites I've done. I want to know if I have any marketable talent in this area, or if I'm really just the hack I think I am.

Any and all comments will be evaluated and appreciated.

The site address is http://www.joymarkdesign.com

Nummi_G4 · #2 April 18th, 2002, 08:34 PM

I am not a big fan of the purple color... I think a light skyish blue color would look great with that light brown background. But I am sure changing the colors like that would be a pain in the ass.

symphonix · #3 April 18th, 2002, 09:44 PM

It looks like you have a reasonably large folio of quality work. If web design is what you want to do, then by all means, do it. I saw a handful of things I would have done differently, but the quality of your sites was great and there were no real points that were wrong.
If this is what you want, go for it.

roger · #4 April 19th, 2002, 04:12 AM

FYI Viewed using IE5.5 on NT4SP6.

I thought that it was a good site - easy to use, easy on the eye and loaded quickly. I would have done the following differently, though it is a matter of opinion only. They are all small items.

1. I would move fees/charges further right. This is only to get the people interested before putting them off with how much it would cost.

2. Menu along the top: the 'mouse over' colour is the same as the 'selected' colour (if that makes sense). This means that it is possible for the user to get confused as to which section they are on because it can look like two are selected. A small point maybe, but I like a site that is completely non-ambiguous, and little touches like that are good for portfolio sites.

3. Banner was not centralised but the text below wasn't - click on 'Contact' to see what I mean. I personally prefer web sites which centralised everything - makes it look better when viewing on less than full screen mode. Whatever, it should be consistent.

4. When you select 'Graphics' the sunken pane sits there initially, empty. I was expecting it to have something in it initially, and had to look the animated icon in the top right of my browser to ensure that the page had finished loading.

5. I wouldn't have a black background for your graphics. I am not a fan of black backgrounds.

6. 'Interfaces' section of graphics. The Next URL at the bottom of the pane is half off the pane - needs to be moved up.

7. The downloads for the interfaces are SIT or HQX files. I know that HQX works with winzip, but most people would not be sure. This is very mac based, and I might put a note indicating to PC users that these files are not applicable to them. Looking at market share, I would not try to alienate a large % of the market if I can help it. Unfortunately, this is a fact of life.

7. Fees and Services section - the links to the anchors lower in the document are not obviously links. You may want to make them a little more obvious.

8. When you are further down the Fees and Services page, because you are not using frames, there is no way to get back to the top apart from using the scrollbar in your browser. I always like a 'back' link to take the user back to the top of the document, or whever is applicable.

9. Is your address right? Buck Pond Rd?

Hope that this was useful - they are only comments, I wouldn't expect anyone to agree with all of them. Overall I like the site, and it tells the user what they want to know about your services.

Roger.

ebolag4 · #5 April 19th, 2002, 08:15 AM

Thanks for the input guys. Especially you, roger. Not to use it as an excuse, but to be honest, some of the things you mentioned are things I have been meaning to fix, but since I already have a job currently and this was just something in my spare time, I've just kind of lazily let things slide.

As far as providing files in a .zip format, same as above. Just haven't gotten around to it. I was thinking about not doing it at all since there is a Win version of Stuffit expander.

And the address, that's really it. Sounds weird, like it should be Duck Pond and not Buck Pond.

Nummi, I really wasn't going for the purple color either. However, the blue color I wanted to use didn't look good in all browsers on both Mac and Windoze. Every time I got a blue that looked good on one platform, it looked awful on the other. First and only time I've ever run into that problem. I settled on the purple, because for some reason it just worked.

Thanks for the input all.

Anybody else?