Did I screw up from the beginning...?

Discussion in 'HTML & Website Design' started by Swiftie, Nov 12, 2007.

  1. #1
    My site http://www.bounceweb.com has a few problems (I think)... may I have your expert comments...

    #1) It's too graphics intensive. Long load times and such.
    #2) It uses tables instead of CSS for the style. Longer load times and harder to maintain the consistency with the style.
    #3) No meta tags on any pages. I can add the description and keywords, but should I?
    #4) Usability is sub par or on par at most. Do you find it hard to navigate, or is it easy?

    Thank you, I appreciate your input.
     
    Swiftie, Nov 12, 2007 IP
  2. KaniGT5

    KaniGT5 Active Member

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    #2
    Swiftie :

    Excellent design man!! I love it...

    It is a little graphic intensive, you should really go over the site and see where you can do without some of the graphics, possibly see how much you can cut the gifs down in size as well!

    Tables instead of css...ouch big no no. For a site as well designed as this, I would have def. put the extra effort in to make this a w3c compliant site :| It goes a long way...as mentioned before: (webstandards.org/learn/faq/#p3)

    Again, Dont know what you are shooting for here, but with a webhosting site, competition is steep, I would get the FULL meta data in there, and start getting some unique content up there so you can get in the rat race.

    Usability is excellent, the static nav is great, I don't have any issues navigating the site, might want to look into some breadcrumbs or a secondary point of return for SEO purposes...

    Design - 9/10
    Code - 2/10
    Usability - 8/10

    Again, LOVELY design man...
     
    KaniGT5, Nov 12, 2007 IP
  3. Swiftie

    Swiftie Active Member

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    #3
    Thanks! I like the design too :). I'll see what I can do to convert it all to CSS... yikes. Haha...
     
    Swiftie, Nov 12, 2007 IP
  4. twistedspikes

    twistedspikes Notable Member

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    #4
    The design is nice, I like it. I wouldn't say it's too graphicly intensive. Although you could optimise your images, loose a bit of quality (not usually noticable) for less size.

    I'd change it from tables to css though (or hire someone to do it for you). This will help you quite a bit.

    You don't really need to worry about the usability, it's easy to navigate to me (although screen readers might find it dificult due to your code).

    I'd get the meta tags in there, they won't do too much, but as KaniGT5 said the webhosting game is pretty competitive, and if your the only one without them, your the one missing out.
     
    twistedspikes, Nov 12, 2007 IP
  5. clinton

    clinton Well-Known Member

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    #5
    It's a great design, I am surprised at how nice the html table indentation is, I'm a hudge fan of indenting everything in the code, even the titles and links:D


    This site is overall awesome. There are some loading problems but nothing some good hard work won't fix.
     
    clinton, Nov 13, 2007 IP
  6. bonzay

    bonzay Peon

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    #6
    I think the most important factor slowing down the loading of your website is the huge number of requests to be made. There are 51 requests. Have a look at the load time test for your website:
    http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/?url=http://www.bounceweb.com/&treeview=0&column=objectID&order=1&type=0

    You could use CSS sprites in order to reduce the number of requests.
    Last but not least, you may want to minify all Javascript and CSS and concatenate all the Javascript files into a single one.

    Edit: The meta-keywords tag is quite worthless these days I presume. But you may want to use a meta-description tag as that is what users see in search engines.
     
    bonzay, Nov 13, 2007 IP
  7. Dan Schulz

    Dan Schulz Peon

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    #7
    The site is inaccessible, plain and simple, so yes, you did "screw up from the beginning" here. Fortunately, a good overhaul can take care of that for you. I happen to be a minimal markup expert; if you want my advice, feel free to reply here and I'll see what I can do for you.

    And yes, I am willing to do this as a favor.
     
    Dan Schulz, Nov 13, 2007 IP
  8. Swiftie

    Swiftie Active Member

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    #8
    Thank you for your input, and yes of course I'm interested in your advice! ;)
     
    Swiftie, Nov 14, 2007 IP
  9. Dan Schulz

    Dan Schulz Peon

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    #9
    No problem. I'll tackle this in the morning. I'm working on one of my sites at the moment (as in right now) so I'm (shall we say) indisposed at the (exact) moment.
     
    Dan Schulz, Nov 14, 2007 IP
  10. Dan Schulz

    Dan Schulz Peon

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    #10
    (ugh, had to postpone this for 24 hours - I apologize for the delay)
     
    Dan Schulz, Nov 16, 2007 IP