pixel-house.com.au

justingray · #1 (**permalink**) Jun 1st, 2006, 01:58

Hi,

Ive just started my own little web design business:

pixel-house.com.au

Just after some feedback. Let me know what you all think. Anything I should change? add? etc.

Look forward to getting some opinions.

Justin Gray

spinal007 · #2 (**permalink**) Jun 1st, 2006, 07:15

I think it's great, I only have 2 complaints:

1. The light green on the menu is difficult to read, might need a little more contrast

2. Do you really need flash for the top banner? I don't know about the rest of the world but I've gradually come to hate flash when it's used for anything other than movies and games. Plus, it really bugs me that I see the clip being played over and over again on every page.

Animations and moving things are often designed to attract attention and I don't think you need that effect in this case. You could easily turn the end of the movie (once the animation has finished) into a jpg or gif with a little animation.

It's not a big issue, just my opinion.

justingray · #3 (**permalink**) Jun 1st, 2006, 07:34

Hi Spinal,

Thx for the reply.
I agree about the top banner, it is really starting to annoy me. I have also grown to dislike flash.

I'll make the green on the menu a little darker to make it easier to read.

spinal007 · #4 (**permalink**) Jun 2nd, 2006, 08:48

Now THAT is a perfect website.
Great job.

Only one detail: I would make sure that everytime you display your logo you link back to your homepage. I'm just used to the idea, and probably a lot of people too.

darryladie · #5 (**permalink**) Jun 2nd, 2006, 19:12

Nice one, I like it

justingray · #6 (**permalink**) Jun 5th, 2006, 00:34

thx for the replies. I made all the changes you guys stated.

I look forward to getting some more reviews hopefully

spinal007 · #7 (**permalink**) Jun 5th, 2006, 08:44

I see you made your logo link to your frontpage. Nice one, but there's still a tiny little problem:
/index.html is not the same as /. Linking to index.html makes your site seem to have 2 identical pages. Always link to /.

justingray · #8 (**permalink**) Jun 5th, 2006, 09:30

oh ok, thx for that. I will change them.

justingray · #9 (**permalink**) Jun 8th, 2006, 08:41

Thx for the reviews people. Im open for some more opinions.

spinal007 · #10 (**permalink**) Jun 8th, 2006, 09:59

It's beyond me now...

darudeuk · #11 (**permalink**) Jun 9th, 2006, 00:14

Nice site!

5/5 Design/Looks
5/5 Code/Accessibility

However try making the text bigger and it moves beyond your menu panel, takes alot of zoom to do, but if you wanted to tweak it..

Great site, make more

justingray · #12 (**permalink**) Jul 18th, 2006, 13:20

Hi All,

I have just recently redesigned my website. I submitted it here for reviews a little bit over a month ago but I decided to fully redesign it.
Let me know what you think?

http://www.pixel-house.com.au

spinal007 · #13 (**permalink**) Jul 18th, 2006, 14:59

Once again, very nice! I only have 2 suggestions:

1. make proper use of headings (you have no h1)
2. Design the site with CSS turned off. Improve the structure of your document.

gamenutt · #14 (**permalink**) Jul 18th, 2006, 16:04

Yeah good job its pretty nice...

minute44 · #15 (**permalink**) Jul 19th, 2006, 12:28

Oooooh, I like...

The good.

Nice crisp, clean layout with a nice summery feel that is enhanced by the banner graphic.
Fully valid XHTML and CSS.
Good (not perfect bt good) accessibility.
Page still works beautifully when the text size is increased.

The bad.

I think your main navigation is a bit small. I
The text, both the green and the grey is a little difficult to read on the wite background. This is especially bad on a TFT display.
I think the items in your portfolio could benefit from having some small thumbnails next to them. To give the user more of an idea as to what the site looks like in terms of colours etc...
Your headings are pictures. This is what <h1> etc is for...

Not bad at all, Some tweaks to be made though.

8.5/10

Ryan Fait · #16 (**permalink**) Jul 20th, 2006, 00:40

I like the layout, but the one thing with using CSS instead of tables means you need to check your site out in every modern browser. The latest version of Safari (the OS X Internet Explorer equivalent) shows me this:

http://ryanfait.com/images/pixel.png

Congrats on using CSS. However, one of the greatest things about CSS is that if properly used, it will separate and organize the content. Here is a few things you should do:

HTML: Select all

<div class="headerImg"><img src="images/header01.jpg" alt="pixel house web design" width="701" height="147" hspace="8" vspace="5" /></div>

The above should become something like this:

HTML: Select all

<style type="text/css">
h1 {
    width: 780px;
    height: 200px;
    text-indent: -5000px;
    background: url("images/header.jpg") no-repeat 0 0;
}
</style>
<h1>Pixel House - Stand out from the crowd.</h1>

.

.

.

.

Your navigation should not be a block of text, but rather an unordered list:

HTML: Select all

<style type="text/css">
ul.menu {
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
    list-style-type: none;
    float: right;
}
ul.menu li {
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0 0 0 20px;
    display: inline;
    border-right: 1px solid #cccccc;
}
ul.menu li.last {
    border-width: 0;
}
</style>
<ul class="menu">
<li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="/about/">About</a></li>
<li><a href="/services/">Services</a></li>
<li><a href="/portfolio/">Portfolio</a></li>
<li class="last"><a href="/contact/">Contact</a></li>
</ul>

.

.

.

.

HTML: Select all

<div class="newsItem">
<div class="newsDate">16 Jul 2006</div>
<div class="newsTitle"><span class="title">Windows Media Photo</span></div>
<div class="newsP">Microsoft releases new graphics format to rival JPEG. In a challenge to the venerable graphics format, the JPEG, Microsoft have announced a new compressed photographic file format called Windows Media Photo.</div>
<div class="newsMore" style="float: right;"><a href="template.php?stuff"><span class="newsMore">read more</span></a></div>
</div>

Never use a div to organize and display text when other assorted tags specifically meant for text can be used. The above should become this:

HTML: Select all

<div class="newsItem">
<h2>Windows Media Photo</h2>
<h3>16 Jul 2006</h3>
<p>Microsoft releases new graphics format to rival JPEG. In a challenge to the venerable graphics format, the JPEG, Microsoft have announced a new compressed photographic file format called Windows Media Photo.</div>
<h4><a href="template.php?stuff">read more</a></h4>
</div>

justingray · #17 (**permalink**) Jul 20th, 2006, 08:19

Thx, Im still fairly new to CSS. Thx for the tips, I will change make the changes straight away.

ehosting · #18 (**permalink**) Jul 20th, 2006, 20:57

not bad

nice clean design

top right navigation isn't the standard and may be missed
also your portfolio pieces on the front page, would be better pointed to the relevant section in your portfolio that way users aren't exiting your website straight away

Ryan Fait · #19 (**permalink**) Jul 21st, 2006, 02:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by ehosting

top right navigation isn't the standard and may be missed

I disagree. There is no standard way to place a navigational div. There are certainly better ways than others, but it's on the top and there is nothing surrounding it that would make visitors not see it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ehosting

also your portfolio pieces on the front page, would be better pointed to the relevant section in your portfolio that way users aren't exiting your website straight away

I disagree again. No visitor is going to exit a site because they've seen a tiny sample of work if they're serious about hiring someone.

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