legionballbanter.com/

This is the second year for this website. It has gone through one design and now that the summer baseball season is nearly over, I am interested in tighting it up. Thank you!

Ok, ready?

First of all, remove that splash page. It's completely pointless and I almost missed the "click here to enter" link. The 'Front Page News' page should be the first thing to show up when you go to the website.

Second, your navigation should be text, not images. Use an unordered list and CSS to make it look the same. It's courtesy to those without images enabled, those using text-only browsers, and those on slow internet connections. With CSS, you can use just one image for all three stages of the links as a background. One image instead of 39 is always better.

Something like this would look better anyway, but you can get ideas from this site:

http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/vertical13.htm


Add more padding to the content areas. It's hard to read text when it's snuggling up to a border. Use a bigger font size, increase the space between lines, or indent more. It's hard enough already to read big blocks of text...

I don't particularly like the background of the page. I think you'd be better off looking for a more realistic grass background. The header is a little dull too. If anything make the text a little more aliased. Those jaggies don't help.

Ah, I've got to run. I'll remark upon some more observations later if you'd like.

Thanks Ryanfait! I welcome more of your remarks if you can find the time. It's all about improving the product and making it functional and useful for the reader.

Is there a reason this website is not getting more critiques? Did I submit it correctly?

No, your site was submitted correctly. I would imagine a few missed the 'click to enter' link. As none of your buttons link to the pages as they look like they look as they are supposed to (in Firefox and Safari at least), your entire site looks just like a splash page with a few image rollovers. This forum is also kinder to those who utilize web standards. You have failed miserably in that aspect by using tables, images for the navigation, useless JavaScript, sloppy HTML, and a poor implementation of CSS.

It might help too if you'd take some of my advice into action and post back here to show you're serious about improving your site.

If you're looking to become a web designer, I suggest you take these resources into high esteem:

http://www.w3schools.com/xhtml/default.asp
http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

Can I just remind people of the little box you see above this forum in the critique areas?

Especially the first point.

Ryan, I think that was a little harsh.

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Rob - Webforumz Founder

Here is the problem...

The entire site needs reworked. There is so much wrong nobody wants to spend the required time to explain it all. People get chastised when they give negative critiques with no advice how to fix things. I especially hate critiques like that also. But, in cases like this, it's to overwhelming and time consuming so people will skip over it until they can find the time rather then risk being chastised for not giving a proper critique.

With that said, I will keep my critique brief.

I agree a lot with what Ryan has already said. Splash page must go. The general layout of the main pages is fine, but the coding and techniques used are a total mess. Take too long to explain every aspect and why it's wrong. You'll need to take our advice and run with it and figure it out. Look at other peoples source code and compare it and learn. Read tutorials on CSS and XHTML to better understand what your seeing.

This is not to say the site won't function the way it is, you can leave it alone if you want. But if you want it lean, mean, cross browser compatible with future accessibility, then you'll need to get the code and techniques up to date.

Good Luck.

My apologies. I didn't intend for my post to come off as harsh, I was giving you an honest assessment of your site and to remind you that you've got a lot of work ahead of you if you want to take this site from mediocre to outstanding.

Right bud, here it goes.

What mreine said there was really harsh but unfortuantely quite right.

There are a lot of problems with this site and the low number of critiques could be a representation of people not having the time or patience to write up a "War and Peace sized critique"...

Personally I like writing huge critiques so here it goes....

First point: As others have said, lose that splash screen. It is pointless. I also sat there for a while before I noticed the Click here to enter text... It looked like a subheading.

When I finally found my way to the main homepage I didn't think the overall look was too bad. Navigation was all there and the page was layed out in a familliar fashion. Pictures were of a decent resolution and text (dispite being a little small) was easy enough to read because it resized well in the browser without breaking. This is ok but I would consider increasing the default font size a little.

At the Default text size there is a huge empty space at the bottom in FireFox.

The real problems here are under the hood. Your methods and your code are your biggest problem.

You have dclared no DOCTYPE... This is a Big no-no as without one your page isn't making browsers/search engines aware of what it is. HTML, XHTML, FRAMESET...whatever...

The code is hugley bloated. This is derived from the use of tables for your layout this is poor practice in this day and age. The way to go with sites like this one is with Semantic markup in XHTML and a nice solid CSS driven layout.

Using these methods will mean that your code will dramatically reduce and will also be capable of achieving strict web standards.

Your navigation... It looks and functions ok but, again, there are some under the hood issues with it that would benefit from using XHTML. Using images alone for navigation isn't a great idea. What if the user has images disabled?

Check out this article to see how Navigation should work. I found it really helpful and I intend to implement the vast majority of the things it outlines in the up and coming redesign on my site.

My Verdict as is: 3/10

My suggestions for where you should go from here might seem a little extreme but I assure you... You won't regret doing it.

Firstly. Learn XHTML and CSS. Start with simple tutorials and then build up your skills by practicing and getting a helping hand from us. Here are some basic tutorilas for you to start with:

• http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp
• http://www.w3schools.com/xhtml/default.asp
• http://www.elated.com/tutorials/authoring/css/

Once you have a firm understanding of those then look at the following sites for inspiration:

• http://www.csszengarden.com/
• http://cssmania.com/
• http://www.cssbeauty.com/
• http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/index.htm

This all might seem daunting but I assure you XHTML and CSS aren't too difficult to pick up and once the ball's rolling you will just keep learning. Hopefully you'll be able to turn this site into something really special and modern while still keeping your current user base.

Good luck

Thanks Minute44,

That is EXACTLY what I was looking for. I will begin learning some of these things and implement them, and then submit back here for another critique. I think as a beginner, some of us fall in love with elements that we think are cool, but might not be function (like my splash page). Sometimes, we just need an independent eye to tell us that.

Now that my summer baseball season is over, I will work on learning some CSS and some XHTML for this site.

Because this is a news/text drive site, do you have any suggestions as how to approach this? Is just seems text heavy and like its almost smashed into the pages.

Thanks again!
Mike

Hey, It's no problem dude. Thats what we're here for.

If you have any further Questions regardng any of this you can PM me or even add me to your MSN if you like... If I'm not too busy, I'll help you out.