New website, please critique for me

Hi,

I've created a website for my ministry but because I am relatively new to web design there are some things in the site that have come out all wrong. I used templates that I ended up changing to fit my needs so a lot of the things associated with the templates I was very unfamiliar with.

It is primarily a Flash site, with a flash intro and several flash links. Please feel free to be as blunt as possible because I need the feedback so that I can know what needs to be fixed or changed.

The website address is www.iceministries.org and I thank you for your feedback

Oh poor you.. I can see you've been struggling.

You've got alignment issues in Firefox. I would check the heights, widths and cellspacing of all the background table cell images.
If you could reduce the size of the text font, align it left, that would take the professionalism up a notch.
All the flash and animated gifs are distracting. That's a common design plan for new designers. Most want as much flash and bang as possible when in fact less is more.

On the statement of beliefs page, I would not have a scrolling frame. Just let us scroll down normally. Same on the who we are page.

Pick one color font for all the text areas on all pages. Mixing fonts makes the site look messy.

Keep trying...

Ah man ... that just took too long for me to load. I'll tell you right now ... I'm very impatient with Flash site. I hate the fact that I have to wait for it to load and every time I click a link ... I wait again.

There are plenty of chruches, ministries and other associations of sort that have wonderful sites in HTML and CSS.

Keep the flash to a bare minimum.

christ almight! im speachless sorry man but this site is poor. fair enuff your not a pro but i must say iv seen better from beginners.. as lchad said a few things arnt lining up in firefox. and dont let jacob see that flash couse he will personaly boot u up the back side lol.. but hey im here to help so if you need any help just ask and ill be happy to walk you through a few things...

It took way to long to load and I'm on broadband! Imagine how long it takes to load on dial up! They aren't going to stick around waiting for it to load.

Also, I agree with what Lchad said about the site.

You should try making your site in HTML and CSS

As far as your home page goes i would drop the drop shadows on your buttons, ditch all the animated stuff, change your body to text instead of one big picture, drop the industrial attempt at the top, drop everything but your flash header and put the body of text and navigation below that and eliminate all the other junk. It would look half way decent if you did that. Sorry to be harsh. If you are looking for a good help with a ministry site, I actually build them and you can get some ideas at http://www.8bitstudio.com/portfolio I have a couple of samples in there. Otherwise feel free to contact me and I can help you out. Your site needs some work if you want it to be effective.

Hi,

First of all, let me say that I really appreciate all the feedback from your guys. Some of it has been rather harsh but I guess that it what I should have expected.

The next thing that I hope that I can emphasize with all of you is that I am indeed a BEGINNER with not a shred of knowledge like you may have. Therefore, everything you see that I attempted to accomplish was accomplished without knowing what I was doing. I'm sorry for all the different mistakes that I have made in my attempts but when you're new to something mistakes are to be expected.

Having received all of your comments, and having accepted the fact that what I tried to accomplish did not work, I am now open to HELP, in whatever way you choose to offer it. Mind you, this site is already online so if you guys are having this much to say negative about the site, I can imagine what other people must be thinking. Where do I start? Obviously, I need all the help I can get and believe me I'm open so PLEASE assist someone who wants to have a website online but hardy has any knowledge of what I'm doing.

What is the first thing that I need to do? Please keep in mind that because I am such a beginner that some of your verbage may be foreign to me so I would appreciate it if you could be as precise and simple as possible.

Thanks,
Michael

How do I make a site HTML AND CSS?

Michael,

As for the site, You want to make all text areas just text and not a picture like you have. Text is what search engines read. You may want to design your site to be 760px wide which is what many people do for a standard width. Keep your design simple. No animated gifs and distracting things. I have written a small tutorial on how to create a very basic and simple "header" you can read it at. http://www.adbits.net/simple-clean-website-header.html If you have any questions feel free to email me from the adbits site.

Once you have a good header you can continue to build your site. There are some very nice pre made templates that use css which is what you will want to start using on your site. This allows you to change text backgrounds and all sorts of styles on your website. http://csstinderbox.raykonline.com/ has some free css layouts you can download.

I have a few good tips to remember when designing your website posted on my site. http://www.8bitstudio.com/mn-web-design these tips should be followed to keep your site easy to navigate and use, along with keeping it attractive.

The last bit of advice i have is to go check out some good websites that look really clean and nice to you. here is another link that may give you some ideas.
http://tutorialblog.org/30-great-website-designs-part1/

Hope that was enough to get you started.

1. Micheal steps back and takes a couple of deep breaths.
2. He goes through the above posts and breaks down exactly what each poster says.
3. He starts asking questions...for example what is html and css and how does he use them in his site.
4. He leaves his existing site up...(it gets the information out) while he is learning/redesigning the site.
5. Remember, We are here to help and support you...even if you have a 1000 questions to ask and you think they are all dumb...not to worry...at one time in our design careers...we have all asked them.

Now that you have your breath back... Go for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You hand code your website using HTML and CSS. You can do this with Notepad or TextEdit. There are loads of other programs you can use as well like dreamweaver etc but they are very expensive.

See my comment above for HTML and CSS tutorials.

also look for ryan fait he has some good tutorials in his signature.. remember dont just use the file you download couse thats cheeting and moojoo could actualy spank you with a big wet law sute so look at the code, study it, play with it, see what things do and then come back to us in a week or 2 and make us all proud .. as for the design aspect if u need anyhelp either goto the ghaphics forum or come to me and ill help you out man

-dave

Hi,

The major problem is the load time im on broadband but if it was any other site i would have clicked off it by the 5% stage, in fact i would remove the flash intro altogether. but thats just my opinion. Good first try and keep at it

Hi Padraig,

Thanks for your comments, here's the thing...I have both Dreamweaver and Macromedia Flash 8 and I'm slowly trying to learn them but in the meantime I want to be able to have my site up...is there a way that I can use Dreamweaver or Flash to improve on what I have, if so how?

Again, thanks for your comments

Bruno,

Thanks for your comments, here's my question to you....what do I do if I can't understand all the codes. I know that there are all sorts of codes that do different things for a website but trying to learn Dreamweaver and Flash 8 has been tedious enough as it is. Is there a way that I can learn code? If so, would that eliminate my need to use Dreamweaver and Flash? Maybe I could email you the files for my site and you could give me some pointers...

Thanks

I gave you a list of things to work on in my first post. Check it out again.. that's a good place to start.

Glad to see you're taking the criticism OK

We can all sit here and tell you to start hand-coding your site, learn HTML, learn CSS, bla bla bla but what I want to know is ... do you want to know all this stuff or do you just want your website to look good?

If you don't want to learn all this stuff than I would advise you to hire someone to do the job. Spend a little cash and get it done right.

If you actually do want to do this properly yourself, then how about starting here then:

Getting started with HTML
More Advanced Features
http://www.htmldog.com/guides/
Bulletproof HTML: 37 Steps to Perfect Markup

And the mother of all resources ... straight from the horses' mouth
HTML 4.01 Specification

And don't forget to check out the stickies in the various forums

hey at first oviousley u wont understand the code but if you play about with it in dreamweaver codeveiw then after a wile you will see what different things do also google "css tutorials" and you will get a hole list of things you can work on and if u wana email me or add me to msn just pm me and ill seny you my addy and ill walk fru some stuff with you.. also flash is good but only for sertain things and your site isnt one of them lol.. another tip is make your site no wider than 780px couse other wise it will be to big for some peoples screen size and i bet a few people you know still have the old 14 inch screens from the stone ages... i think i still have one in the loft actualy :S dno what this one is tho :S lol anyway if u need help pm me and ill help

Ive got an uncle who still uses a 486DX and windows 3.x ... he doesnt even know the internet exists.

lmao........