What do you guys think of my website's design?

My website , it's beautiful I think, I tried my hardest to make it pretty yet professional. I really want people to just like it, and maybe read my blog or something , so tell me, is this theme great? The website is called "the order of the iron phoenix" . The name is bad for seo, I kow. But it's really a personal thing Please give me suggestions

 

My favorite part on this core website is the "news" section, if any of you know how to get an ajax api rss feed with images like that on msn or yahoo, let me know n_n

 

My favorite part of this website is the URL of the website. What is it? You forgot to specify your website link!

 

No, he gave it, but not directly. It's http://theorderoftheironphoenix.com/


I like the overall design, I think you did a good job. However, as a layperson, it was hard for me to figure out right away what the site is about. You have to make it clear what the goal of your site is.

 

The use of media queries is nice, but I'd work on the triggers a bit more so the menu isn't quite so space-wasting on tablets and netbooks.

The color contrasts aren't too bad though I'd probably up them a hair more. Really from a visual standpoint the biggest problem is all the flow text being declared in px metric fonts -- making it an accessiblity wreck leaving one diving for the zoom -- and zoom in most browsers breaks the layout.

I would also suggest losing the ugly pixelated animated gif, and the massive image rotating nonsense that adds NOTHING of value to the page, the latter especially since it pushes anything resembling actual content past the fold.

The code is your typical mix of HTML 5 for nothing bloat with some off the shelf CMS -- a laundry list of bad methodologies ranging from static CSS inlined in the markup, endless pointless javascript for **** only knows what, overstuffed irrelevant META[keywords] (should be 7 or 8 WORDS that actually exist inside BODY as CDATA), endless pointless DIV for nothing, broken flash embed methods, nothing remotely resembling logical heading orders, empty paragraphs doing padding's job, paragraphs around non-paragraph text, paragraphs around non-text elements, pointless classes for nothing, static style inlined in the markup, tags like CENTER that have no business being used on any website written after 1997, etc, etc, etc...

Which is how it ends up 21k of HTML to deliver 1.45k of plaintext and 9 actual content images -- easily two or three times as much HTML as should have been used for such a simple layout. Gets worse when it comes time to watch it actually load since at a whopping 2.6 megabytes in 45 files, it is fifteen times the upper limit I usually allow for an entire page on a site unless it's actually something like a gallery full of thumbs. The eleven 'scripts for nothing' wasting over 200k is a stunning example of how not to use scripting on a site, though that's usually a given once that fat bloated steaming pile of **** known as jQuery is on the table. You figure in all the HTML 5 shiv/polyfill/whateverTheDevilThey'reCallingThatCrapThisWeek and associated HTML 5 bloat/redundancies, and it's a laundry list of how not to build a website.

Content-wise, I have to agree with Qwikad -- it is unclear what the devil the site is even about/for -- I've still not even figured that out! It's sure knee deep in marketspeak and buzzwords, but what the blue blazes any of that means?!?

 

Throw it in the trash and start over. My opinion your site looks 1991 ish. Nobody is using outdated animated running cat gifs on their sites any more. I recommend you browse other social sites and compare their GUI design to yours. Plus you have a large amount of spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes on your site. Maybe I take it you're just fooling around with website design and html/css. If you want users to consider your site trustworthy and sign up as a member on your site then please consider designing a serious well-thought out user interactive social site. just my 2 cents

 

Sorry, but agree with muffet
OLD SCHOOL

 

Hey there, sorry to have to say this but truthfully? your site made me dizzy. Too much going on. Too many colors. No white space. Images that conflict with each other and change way too fast. Ditto on the animated cat gif. Hate to burst your bubble.

Here's what I would do to fix things a bit really quickly. Take out the textured bg. There is enough going on without that adding to it and subtracting from it. Take out the sparkling stars in the header. That's really old and really distracting when there is already so much distraction going on. The color in the header and the colors in the photos so don't work together. I couldn't stay on it to see many of the other images. Tooo Tooo much. keep the top image static? Seriously, it makes me dizzy. What are the top red "tootips?" They are hidden beneath the other bar and you can't read them so just take them out, move them or better still, remove the transparent bar. Too much conflicting stuff going on. Too busy. Under the cat on the top, your own name is all in lower case. Use caps when they should be used; or all lower case if that is your design element.) Keep the caps thing the same throughout though. You used caps in the header; you should use them throughout.

Sorry to give you this tough feedback but I always say, if you don't want honest opinions, we shouldn't be asking. Since I assume you wanted real feedback and not just placations... I am hoping you see this as constructive and not just a slam.

Btw, so you know a bit about me. I am a retired website designer. I am a currently functioning graphic designer and layout professional. Just to give my opinion a tiny bit of credence. good luck on the redesign/major tweaking if you decide to do that. be.

(oh, and triple check text on any site before going live. There are NO excuses for typos, grammatical errors etc. Proof it, upload it, proof it again, then have someone else proof it right away when it's active.)

edit: Oh, man. Just checked your news page. Animated FIRE? Really? Ouch.

 

What is animated fire?

 

Oh, I see, that was for my search engine. Ugh, also, I would appreciate knowing what grammatical mistakes I made. English is not my best language, and I don't have a spellcheck , or grammer check for notepad :/

 

Sorry, but it's quite ugly. Too much is going on, it's not user-friendly whatsoever, it's not simple. Basically, it's everything a website shouldn't be.

 

I think he's referring to this atrocity:

 

Lmao , like google's search engine text is that much better

 

Your website is looking awesome man can't wait to join !
Forum, Games and lot of interesting stuffs ..
Keep up the good work

 

I think you have a pretty good concept going, but personally I'd try to tone it down a little bit, it's really very 'busy' if you know what I mean.

1. Maybe try to tweak your colour-scheme to be more unified, and perhaps more 'Phoenix-like', at the moment the Images of the Bird (on a rotating purple, navyblue, and black background) in the slideshow seem to be at odds with the patterned background colours.
2. Text over a patterned background is always difficult on the eyes in my opinion, using a solid colour for the Wrapper, and keeping the wallpaper to the left and right of it might work for you as well.
3. Maybe 'z-index' the T.O.T.I.P., and Tootip images to be in front of the white/translucent 'The Order of the Iron Phoenix' banner at the top
4. Tie the colour of the top Navigation Bar, the 'Become a Member' and 'Log In' buttons into a more cohesive scheme.

Take it or leave it, like I said, I think you have a good thing going and am only offering constructive criticism as I assume you're asking for. Good Luck!

 

sorry, I noted many errors but I have epilepsy so I can not visit your site more than just that once. Something to also consider when making a site that jumps around a lot. I know notepad does not have spell check, but others do (openlibre, openOffice, word, etc.) Here's what I would suggest if you need help with english grammar and spelling. Do the code in notepad of course, but write the website text in word. once you have corrected the errors they suggest (if the corrections are correct which is not always the case and if they find all the errors - ie. it won't pick up saying 'too' instead of 'two' as an error.

Once it's corrected, take the text and paste it into notepad where you want it. Notepad with removed the terrible, awful and horrid code word etc. will install. NEVER copy text directly from word etc and put it into dreamweaver. the code will also copy.

all else fails, ask someone you know with good english skills to edit it for you for grammar and spelling.

hope this helps. btw, search engine text can be whatever you want it to be. saying we didn't like the fire did not have to be met with "google is not any better" as if we represent or sell google. I doubt a google image would be an animated gif anyhow. That was a pretty hostile response when you came to us looking for thoughts? Just saying...

You could always just copy their logo, the non flaming one, make it smaller if needed and use it as the image on your page with a link to their engine. OR just say "phoenix search" and link that text as the next simplist kind of thing to do? maybe make your own button? take care. be.

is "webdeveloperIndia" a friend? Is that what you really wanted to hear even if it's not true to most of us? just curious.

and also, if you like your website, then use it. all of our opinions are opinions, although all based on professional thoughts? You always have the right to design how you please. just wanted to add that so you don't have to be angry and upset at us for our well-intentioned and time-consuming feedback.

 

you might want to read about meta tags. You used "man takes piss on other mans dog" as a meta tag? yikes. Makes me concerned about how many people would actually search on that phrase?

I also noticed that in your first div "art-main" your links are half on your site and mostly take you off of your site and back on. when you include the whole---http://etc in the link, it takes your visitors back to the server and out again. If you only use say "/freebies.html" the visitor will stay on your page and just move to the next page without reloading your site/the new page. In that div, you have the links done in three different ways. Might want to review, decide on the convention you want to use and keep them all the same. You might want to research how it's done correctly. ok, i'll shut up now.

 

Maybe you should take a little closer look to what you've created and learning from others opinions you will succeed to find your weak points and to make your site even better. Dreamwell

 

You need help. Seriously.

Please quench my thirst.
1 - Why do you create the website?
2 - How old are you?
3 - Since when Order Of The Iron Phoenix is an adult products?
4 - Jacking off. In your about. What's that all about?
5 - Destiny spinner. Why? Why?

However awful, this thread made my day.

 

Lol thank you all , this website is not about jacking off , it was a personal project that I now feel the need to expand , its suppose to be everything, from online video and photo sharing to news , games, forums and I recently began work on integrating a social media exchange script. It has it's own search engine, the adult products are my attempts to make some money ,I dont make a penny using adsence , hmmm what else, the destiny spinner is a personal project that I want to develop further, It's unique and I see it might be worth something to someone if someone knew it existed.
>Im not bashing google, their image is simple , nothing nice like some website logos , but maybe simple is better?
Im not exactly sure if you guys meant that you hate and cant understand the layout, the design , the confusing content, or everything. Perhaps you mean to tell me that something darker is usually not as good as something lighter? Perhaps the dark colour scheme needs to become light like 99% of other websites to become more friendly to the eyes?
I dont know webdeveloperindia, that comment made me laugh.
Uhuh, metatags dont matter to me , if you google phrases and words I tried to rank for , it's not possible. I dont know how to build backlinks, I don't even think I need them.
I will try my hardest to get this all together , and I will try to make one "eye friendly design". Perhaps i need to shorten my codes altogether , and perhaps I need to start using dreamweaver -_-
A good question now would be "where should I start?"