btcartoons.com

You guys seem to know what you're talking about around here, so I was just wondering if I could get a critque of my site http://btcartoons.com.

Things I'd really like you to hit on are:

Usability -- could a baby find his way around?
Overall layout -- do you feel everything is in it's proper place?
General look and feel -- I didn't design it to look like it was from the year 2057 and I didn't want the user to have to click 10000 times to get to useful content. The main focus is for btcartoons to be a site for and about cartoons. Is that the feeling you guys are getting or do i need to take a step back?

Thanks

It seems to function quite well. Had no problems browsing around. For the most part, the look and feel of the site is dead on for it's content.

One thing that is very common on many many sites... revisit your margins, padding and whitespace. Don't be afraid to use larger margins and padding. Experiment and play around with different spacings and you'll see an amazing difference in legibility. You should also revisit your font sizing issues. Try to leave them default or use "em" for resizing so that everything can be resized using the standard browser functions.

As for your navigation lists.... DO NOT put the horizontal bar in as a list item. Use CSS and apply a border for the same effect.

Revisit your headers.

"Welcome to Btcartoons, or for our foreign visitors: WELCOME TO BTCARTOONS" should be your H1 tag.

"About us" should be H2 and maybe even come up with a better heading. I don't know, something like.. "What is BT Cartoons all about".

"The launch of BTcartoons DOT COM" - H2

"El News" - H2

The news headers should be H3's

Follow this concept throughout your site.

"See the fabulous cartoons that we've spent our limitless free time making" - H1

"Ben's cartoons" and all the other headings - H2's

So on and so on....



More to come later after you look in to and correct these things.

On the whole I have to agree with mreine. I had no problems navigating around the place and thought that the look was about right for your subject and content.

It is mainly "under the hood" problems that your site is experiencing.

As mentione before; tighten up on the use of headings (<h*> tags) to maintain a better document structure.

Also make sure that all of your links give feedback to the visitor. a colour change, an underline... or something more obscure...

Thanks, I believe I hit on everything the above posts mentioned but I was wondering...

What is the reason for using H level headers? I used to do it but during my latest redesign about 3 months ago the site was getting very complex to the point where alot of my classes are only uses on 1 page. <p> seemed like a better solution rather than 20 different header classes. My style sheet is a bit long...

So thats that. I may go back and convert to headers but I'll wait until the week end atleast.

Anything else?

They are important for the proper structure of a document. They have SEO importance also. Do a google search and read away.

headings are perhaps the most important elements in document structure.
every page should have one h1 (and one only).
ideally your h1 should be first in source, or very close to the begining of the document.

Having an appropriate document structure means you have a reliable structure to work on. and when css/images fail, your document structure is your line of defence that makes your website 1. accessible, 2. printer friendly, 3. search engine friendly...

If you haven't got Firefox, get it now and try this:
1. Open your website,
2. Go to "View > Page Style > No Style".
3. Try to navigate around the website. Font sizes, font weight and decoration are all elements of SEO and if you can't see any of those, then you're lacking something. Search engines will find it difficult to understand the topic/theme of your pages.

Now compare it to this:
http://www.w3.org/WAI/

I see, I have firefox -- thanks for the tip.

though, I'm not that concerned about SEO it's definitely something I'll try

I see...
But even when you're not concerned about SEO, it's always a good base for your website because as I said, if everything fails, the visitor still ends up with an accessible and usefull website.
You did ask for usability, and this is the bottom line...

I know you're not concerned about SEO, but it would bug me if I didn't mention this:
- don't link to index.php, only link to the directory.
ie: /database/ instead of /database/index.php

I do like the design, only it doesn't look "cartoony" enough in my opinion...
eg: www.thesimpsons.com, www.gotfuturama.com, www.dilbert.com

Other than that, great clear content and all the rest...
Good job!