MalaysianJazz.com :: Photos - Penang Island Jazz Festival My friend and I are working hard at putting all the images online at MalaysianJazz.com and AllDatJazz.com Hope you enjoy them. The Jazz Fest was a blast.
Comments on http://malaysianjazz.com/ Running Firefox 1.5, at 1024x768 (on a 1280x1024 desktop) Crowded. That's the first thing that comes to mind. It doesn't seem like there's any space between the content. My first inclination was to maximize my browser, hoping that the content would expand so I could see some open space. Second, you've got borders for your (left-side) navigation, but elsewhere you're quite borderless (which is good). Kick the navigation out of tables - put it in divs instead. While you're at it, tell me what these links are. Based on conditioning from other sites, I'm expecting these to go to other, external, sites. But, hovering, it looks like I'll be sticking around on this domain. Are these the artists? Are these photographers? In other words, can you give us a heading for what this collection of links is? Third, you've got a number of 404s, but I'm guessing that this is because you're working on it. Kill the links, but leave the text - visitors will have an idea of what you'll be adding. Fourth, check those image sizes. 313 KB for a 400x300 image is way excessive. Fifth, I'm seeing the Google ads, and I'm skipping right over them. You've got ad overkill. Since you could take ~ 8 ad units and have as much space filled as you've currently got filled (if that makes sense), and since you have 3 ads already, that means that over 33% of what I see is ads. Giving us some space might help, but I'd say remove one or two of the ad units, and maybe swap in a different type (like one of very wide and very short link units). Sixth, pick a colour style for your links and stick with it. Either make the nav items blue, or make them red. Finally, a contact link. Every site should have a quick way for the visitor to contact the owner. I see a forum link, but since that probably means I'd have to register, I either won't contact, or I'll do a search on the domain - neither one probably sounds good to you. That's what I think. I won't view or comment on the other site, just in case you hate me about now On the bright side, there doesn't seem to be too much wrong with the code itself. A couple proprietary attributes, and a number of tables, which, if you're using XHTML, you might want to move away from. First and foremost, give me some more white space and I'd be quite happy. ~Jk
Hi there Thanks for your detailed feedback. I will add one Reputation for you. I will get round to changes soon. I however did not understand the above. Care to share? Best wishes and thanks once again.
Glad to provide it I'll take a look at the other one tonight and provide some additional feedback. Regarding the text you quote, basically just group things together, if you can. Otherwise, I'm not sure what to make of all the navigation links - are they all of equal importance, or, if I'm interested in the content on one page, am I more likely to be interested in content on a similar page? Perhaps a bad example, but something like (text in quotes are comments): --- Malaysian Jazz (is this necessary on the front page? Typically, they say that you shouldn't have a link to the page that you're on - causes confusion) The Places ---Penang Jazz Festival The Artists ---JaJa JP ---David Gomes MY ---Ruby Rozells MY ---Mr. Gambus SG ---Chie Hanawa JP ---Randy Bernsen US ---Greg Lyons UK ---Lewis Pragasam MY ---Andy Peterson MY ---Lazy Monday KR ---Zainal Abidin MY ---Mark David MY MY Music Forum Faces in the Crowd (maybe keep this together with Penang Jazz Festival, and place it under 'The Places') Jazz Workshops AllDatJazz.com Email Us (I'd move this to the end, or out of the navigation / to the end of the page) --- And doing this, I semi-withdraw my "where's the contact link" comment. The headings are completely off the top of my head, but hopefully that shows you what I mean. You know the content, since you're posting it - help me, a visitor, understand at a glance why the navigation is how it is. If that doesn't clear things up, let me know - I'll do a quick mock-up tonight - I'll look for some real-world examples of this as well. ~Jk
As per my previous comment, comments on http://alldatjazz.com/ 1) Much better file size on the images for this page. However, there is a number of images on this page. I wonder if it would make sense to provide thumbnails that link to a larger size of the image? About 1/2 size might work perfectly with what you've got. However, this is definitely something that you'd have to do and look at - perhaps this is the right size ... 2) If your posts are continually going to be very long, I might shorten the number of days on the front page. You've got about 7 now, it looks like - I'd almost cut that down to three. If people are coming to your site on a regular basis, it doesn't make sense for all of that content to load each time. If people are coming to your site on a semi-regular, or irregular basis, you'll break up the content into nice readable chunks, that aren't so daunting. Besides, you've got the calendar. Otherwise, they'd just have to scroll through all that content ... 3) "The Secrets to Playing Piano By Ear": Is that an advertisement, or an endorsement? Either way, I'd make this block of content stand out as a block. Surround this content with a div with a very small grey border. This isn't blind, contextualized content of the ordinary sort, this is an actual review - treat it as you would content of substance. Overall, this site is very slim and trim. Nice colour scheme, etcetera. Very nice.