what do you think of my redesign?

Discussion in 'Websites' started by belledumonde, Aug 12, 2006.

  1. #1
    hey DP people!

    i've just redesigned this site, and i was hoping i could get some feedback here about the changes i've made. i'd be really grateful for comments on the markup, load times, browser compatibility, usability, accessibility, on page SEO and general feel.

    also if there is anything wrong like broken links that i've missed, typos, layout errors etc i'd appreciate it if you let me know! :)

    thank you!


    old design

    new design
     
    belledumonde, Aug 12, 2006 IP
  2. cormac

    cormac Peon

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    #2
    Just a thought you may want to change the font colour for the very top links - home - sitemap - contact us, try a darker shade.

    Apart from that it looks ok.
     
    cormac, Aug 12, 2006 IP
  3. 8everything

    8everything Peon

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    #3
    I like the bottom part of the old design and the top part of the new design. Maybe you could mix the two together :)
     
    8everything, Aug 12, 2006 IP
  4. belledumonde

    belledumonde Peon

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    #4
    hello! it was a darker shade before, the same as the townhouse - gallery - area - terms, but then i thought the low contrast would make it difficult to see for those with poorer vision. i'll try a shade a tad darker. see how that goes. thanks!

    hi 8everything! by the bottom part do you mean the text being outside of the main content (the white) and sort of blending with the background color? i could try that! thanks for the comment!
     
    belledumonde, Aug 12, 2006 IP
  5. tonyrocks

    tonyrocks Active Member

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    #5
    You header graphic is showing lots of distortion due to compression. I would try to clean that up. Also, your body text font size is too big.
     
    tonyrocks, Aug 12, 2006 IP
  6. belledumonde

    belledumonde Peon

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    #6
    yeah, about the header graphic, it was originally 55kb and i got it down to 30kb but you can see how that turned out. :p do you know any good image compression freeware? that would be really great. :)

    i purposely made the body font that size so its not so hard to read, and because there the pages are quite short. i think i'll keep it :) unless there's something really wrong with it
     
    belledumonde, Aug 12, 2006 IP
  7. 8everything

    8everything Peon

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    #7
    Do you have photoshop? (it does the trick perfectly, just click "save for web")
     
    8everything, Aug 13, 2006 IP
  8. belledumonde

    belledumonde Peon

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    #8
    i used save for web but that makes it an bigger file believe it or not. i think save for web is best for smaller grahics like icons, banners without much color. i found this thing online, stripfile, and i managed to reduce the file to 21KB, with longer sides mind u and the quality is much better. could you take a look again and tell me what you think? thanks!

    btw, does anyone have dialup here? i was hoping someone could tell me about the loading times, especially for the gallery pages. :)
     
    belledumonde, Aug 13, 2006 IP
  9. tonyrocks

    tonyrocks Active Member

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    #9
    Photoshop's save for web by default does a good job, but ther are also masking techniques you can use in photoshop that tell the program to only comrpess the image areas and leave the text alone (for sharpness) Also, you could save a few bytes by shrinking the Y of the header.
     
    tonyrocks, Aug 13, 2006 IP
  10. NeuroSynapsis

    NeuroSynapsis Peon

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    #10
    Looks clean enough, however the 'align right' that's shown by the text on the left side bar looks pretty bad.

    How does it look aligned left or justified?
     
    NeuroSynapsis, Aug 13, 2006 IP
  11. belledumonde

    belledumonde Peon

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    #11
    yeah, the align right looks particulary bad with the links especially on the area page. even though there is enough space for all the words, the text goes onto the next line. does anyone know how i can fix that?

    is that what you meant though by the align right looking bad? or did you also mean the text on the homepage, coz i kinda like it... hehe...
     
    belledumonde, Aug 13, 2006 IP