Please review my site

Hi I've redesigned my site at www.urbanmonk.net

I can't get it to center, and I know the colours are a bit bland, but I'm trying to keep it below 8 seconds on 56k (given the content, target audience could be as old as 60-70 so I gotta plan for that)

Any suggestions? Thanks!

 

Hello... your page loaded great using my 56k modem. And yes the colors are a little bland..But you said that already. All in all I think it is a good site.

 

thanks mate! what do you recommend I do with the colors? I don't know what to do!

 

Take a look at this. It might help you choose a colour scheme for your site.

www.siteprocentral.com/html_color_code.html

 

The only problem I see, besides the color issue, is that your site is not optimized for all screen resolutions. Some people are still using 800x600 and when I resize my window, I get the horizontal bar at the bottom.

As far as choosing a color scheme, you should decide first what you want the site to say and then maybe do some research on color symbolism. As a general rule, cool colors are calming and warm colors are stimulating. Blues and greens tend to produce a feeling of peace and tranquility.

Here are a couple of resources about color symbolism that I found on the net:

About Desktop Publishing

Symbolism of colors

About Web Design

Hope this helps

Oh here are a couple of my favorite color scheme tools:

WS Color Scheme Generator
Colorschemer

 

Yes, the colors are bland.. but the problem is that there's too much white, try to add a light grey background for your left and right menus, it'll make your site look fine.

 

I was going to mention the size issue too
you're going to alienate many visitors if you design for higher that 800px width
if traffic isn't a concern for you then don't worry too much
but if you're relying on large amounts of traffic do not exceed 800px wide
750px is even better to allow for the side scroll, etc.

eta: I just noticed you're targeting age 60+
DEFINITELY aim for 800px max width as lots of old folks still use this resolution
so they can see the font
it would also be useful to have larger than average fonts for them
I'm sure they'd appreciate it



vanessa.

 

Thanks for all that! It was a hard choice to make to design so big, but I have too much stuff for the sidebars! Any suggestions there as well?

THanks again guys, appreciate all the time you have put in

 

To center it:
wrap it in a div:
<div class="wrapper">
CONTENT
</div>
CSS:
div.wrapper {
width: 800px;
margin: 0 auto;
}

 

thanks for that, I'll try it again...but for some reason this doesn't really work in wordpress. I'll let you know. I appreciate all the time you've taken in answering my Q!

 

Not so Bad

 

thanks guys, i've redesigned the site, please let me know what you think. It's a bit squished I think, removing the 3rd column and fitting everything into 1 sidebar.

 

Stylish & serene... It's perfect. Good job!

 

The color scheme is fine the way I see it now. Maybe you made changes to it since your first post but it does look ok. Very light design and most important, colors don't hurt reading the blog.

Also, smart adsense placement, especially the top ads

 

Looks good, how much traffic do you get? Is there a way to resize explorer window without having to do it in windows properties? I want to know so i can switch to 800 x 600 easily to check my own sites

 

Thanks guys..
yes I made a lot of changes since the first post. Traffic? Hmm..I get about 600-1000 uniques on days and a couple of days after I make new posts, about 200-300 otherwise

deezdrama, try www.anybrowser.com there's a tool in there that does it for you.

 

Hey it is good site but need to work on colors.

 

You might want to consider changing the header. It is to plain.
Also I dont see any use in the shapes at the background as you can hardly even see those.....

 

nice one now..
really

 

thanks everyone!