Newbie critique

Boomer29 · Apr 28th, 2008, 21:33

Hello all....

Newbie to the site and have some freelance work coming up in the next 2 months. I have been using Frontpage 2003, a simple gif animator and Photoshop 5.5 and from what I hear, I am well behind. I played around with NVU and the dreamweaver 30 day trial.

But I am here to learn..

A friend had told me about Namo and the package it comes with is way better then what I am currently using. Just looking for things to get started and some constructive criticism...

http://www.stevewinklerreptiles.com/

Boomer29 · May 1st, 2008, 17:30

Well since nobody critiqued the site it must be poor......

I have read some posts about CSS is the way to go...anyone no where to start. Maybe some online tutorials?

Thanks in advance

saltedm8 · May 1st, 2008, 18:02

ok, i am sorry, but i cant comment on your site, there is too much i could say was wrong, and nothing i could say was right

you need to check out w3schools, this will teach you the very basics of html - you don't need any 'specialist' software to learn html, notepad is good enough,

you just have to know html and css to be able to design a half decent site

don't give up just because of my comments, we were all there once, and those that decided to stick with it are still here, ( myself included )

learn html, then learn css, my advice is to create maybe something really simple, like a table of information, then find out how to add colour to it, then images etc, build on from there, once you have got that down, look into css and practice some more

if you save your files in notepad as yourname.html ( the .html part is the important bit ) and save it to your desktop, click on it and it will take you to your localhost and show you the results of your coding

have a good look around, ask lots of specific questions and learn loads

nate2099 · May 2nd, 2008, 14:41

Wow man, you live with these things?? How on earth do you sleep at night!?
I don't like your site, although I think the green and orange work ok together. Your snakes are crazy! Get someone to professionally design it man, cost you a few hundred bucks. I would then buy one (if I could get it through customs!). Certainly some unique content to work with!

mwdesign · May 4th, 2008, 09:42

Hi,

Its good that you have kept the colour theme to three colours and they're not bad, they compliment the subject. If you ever modify the site, maybe try using a three column layout, this will bring your images and text together, preventing so much scrolling and make the site look much more controlled in its layout.

mwdesign

Boomer29 · May 6th, 2008, 14:04

Thanks to all for the advice....

They are not my snakes I did it for a co worker for a couple bucks. He is extremely happy with it, so I guess I got away with using front page for this one. It was designed by him and I just added the pictures and content.

I will check out the w3schools. Thanks for the comments now I know what level I am on.

CloudedVision · May 6th, 2008, 23:58

Definitely learn CSS, tables are not meant for design. Personally, I don't like the colors, but don't take my opinion. (Everybody hates my color schemes

)

There's some side scrolling in Firefox. You always have to have cross-browser compatability. Check your website in all the major browser. (IE6, IE7, Firefox, Opera, Netscape, and Safari)

I don't really like the titles on the sides, they seem rather pointless.

For the menu, always have an HTML alternative if your doing it in flash, search engines ignore flash content. Also, the menu has a cool animation, the text disappears after mouseover, which isn't great for accessability.

Quote:

Get someone to professionally design it man, cost you a few hundred bucks.

Don't listen to him. Never be discouraged just because somebody says you should get it done by someone else.

And to whoever posted that: Please don't tell people that they should get there website designed by a professional. This is the website critique forum. They come here for critique, not people telling them to give up.

nate2099 · May 7th, 2008, 00:49

of course.. my apologies..