Site redesign, any thoughts?

http://www.must-have-software.net/site2.html

What things in your opinions should be done? Besides making the header not as tall...

Thanks in advance,
Philip

 

The site looks good to me but maybe something like a different color scheme or new logo will help change the look around on the site.

 

IMO, you could remove the spacing in the header and footer so that the "mesh" is flush with the page borders.

 

Intsecure: Color scheme and logo were the 2 things that had to stay the same lol. It's so people recognize it etc...

ResaleBroker: Yah that'll all change around, I'm taking off some space from the header and the footer. It'll be hard to keep the borders flush with the 'mesh' though because the adding of content will just throw that off...

Thanks guys. Anything else?

 

Hello there Phillip,

I'll offer my two cents but take it all with a grain of salt because it's just one man's opinion.

I might recommend adding a little more detail to the software list on the front page. It's hard to tell what type of software you're looking at from the title alone. Perhaps you could come up with some categories and display them in an additional column. i.e. Music Software,...P2P,..etc.

The word "Navigation" looks a little off-centered and is likely redundant anyway. I think most web users can assume that the links on the left are the navigation system.

I like the rounded corners, that's a great look.

I agree on the height of the header being too tall. That's some prime real estate so make the most of it.

This is sure to sound nit-picky; but I wouldn't refer to somebody as "Our coder". I feel that you build more confidence by saying "We've added this feature" as opposed to "That guy we hired to code some stuff did this and that".

The "Software and Freeware-Reviews and Downloads"--should stand out a little more. When you have a BG image with alot of whites and white text over the top it doesn't jump out as it should considering it defines your site. You might want to see how spacing out the characters a little more looks too.

I wasnt a big fan of the generic black text on the Top 5 sections. I'd liven it up a little with some color and/or bold.

The upper nav system looks great, I personally wouldn't change a thing. Cool buttons and well distinguished colors.

My props for putting Fruity Loops on the front page! That is one fine piece of software.

Best of luck, this is an aspiring project. Let us know when she's live.

 

I agree that the most important thing is to put things into categories. That it the thing my eyes were looking for when i go to a site that offers softwares.

I think that's the crucial one. I love the look and the way you blend the ads at the bottom

 

Thanks Mixposure, lots of good stuff there!

About the software categories. When you click on Software or Freeware, everything is put into a category. But, for the homepage, its just the most recently added reviews out of everything on the site, so I can't really put those into categories.

About the "our coder" part, thats a news section that was just thrown in. I have a poll made that I'm going to add, just never got the chance to do it lol.

Maybe an orange with a white stroke will make it look better, I'll play around with that text some.

I'll either make those links bold/blue/orange, just whatever looks best there.

Well thanks again everyone. She should be up in no more then 1 week

 

Also 2 more questions before the final version comes out;

1) Do you think I should keep that part with the globe on everypage of the site, or just the homepage? I was thinking just have it on the homepage and nothing else...?

2) Would you guys put a banner somewhere in the header? I was either gonna do it in the header or right on top the featured program in the content area...

 

Thanks Shannon. It actually does have a white border, just there is a shadow around the whole site to make it sort of look like it's floating on top of the page...

 

Are you talking about those dots? Those are going to be along all of the dark grey, just thats an image and thats why I don't have them on the rest of the grey ATM...

 

i have a 1024 x 768 screen.

I would put the Search MHS box to a place where it's needless to scroll down to access.

my 2 cent

 

Yah. It'll sit higher when the header is made smaller...