Alternate looks for my new site; 2¢ requested

nfable · Mar 11, 2010

Site created in iWeb...
After settling on a look; I determined some of my elements looked like poo in IE.

Going for a 'Trust us, we're dependable' feel and recommending people switch to FFox or Safari seemed not to strike confidence for creating websites for other people.

Started tearing stuff down and doing my drop shadows in PS and exporting as PNG-24s to maintain transparency and feel. While I was at it I tried a few looks...

Please, any feedback you care to give is welcome.

Version 1

Version 2

Version 3

Version 4

Version 5

Thanks for the look-see

nf

after some feedback---
Version 6

OzExige · Mar 11, 2010

nfable said:
Site created in iWeb...
After settling on a look; I determined some of my elements looked like poo in IE.

Going for a 'Trust us, we're dependable' feel and recommending people switch to FFox or Safari seemed not to strike confidence for creating websites for other people.

Started tearing stuff down and doing my drop shadows in PS and exporting as PNG-24s to maintain transparency and feel. While I was at it I tried a few looks...

Please, any feedback you care to give is welcome.

Version 1

Version 2

Version 3

Version 4

Version 5

Thanks for the look-see

nf

'Look' is all good, though text 'seems' very large

IMHO version 5 - http://www.representativeslicehosting.com/Home_alt3.html

Good luck

angelwatt · Mar 11, 2010

nfable said:
Going for a 'Trust us, we're dependable' feel and recommending people switch to FFox or Safari seemed not to strike confidence for creating websites for other people.

You lost trust when you chose to use iWeb. I really wouldn't trust a web designer / hoster that has their site created in iWeb.

The site breaks when JavaScript is disabled, can't access any navigation, and that means search engines won't either. At least on one of them the site was much wider than my screen so only saw a portion of the site itself.

ChicoWeb · Mar 11, 2010

Those first few are pretty wide. You might want to watch the width. I had to scroll on my 1920px monitor. Everything Anglewatt said is true. That miscellaneous text box looking thing under the logo looks like a mistake.

nfable · Mar 11, 2010

On iWeb build - that's where I'm at, man. Gotta work with what I have at hand. If it looks good and performs well my target client won't give a hoot if I made it on an Etch-a-Sketch. Think 'Joe Blow in Maybury' - that's my target audience.

On JavaScript disabled... how common is it for the average user to have it disabled? Do you mean search engines won't catalog the navigation? Wouldn't they scrape the other (text) content tho?

On the width, yeah I designed with an advanced gradient background, hoping it would end up being centered vertically; so that's definitely in the redesign.

Thanks guys... that's 6¢ so far...

BillyBobBongo · Mar 11, 2010

It's a bit too blocky for my tastes. I see what you're trying to do but it just seems to lack the polish. This company isn't yours is it?

5 is indeed the better one from the group, but they're all not really to my tastes. I won't reiterate what's been previously said, but I did find two text problems when browsing in Safari. Firefox didn't have them.

angelwatt · Mar 12, 2010

nfable said:
On JavaScript disabled... how common is it for the average user to have it disabled? Do you mean search engines won't catalog the navigation? Wouldn't they scrape the other (text) content tho?

The number of people using the NoScript addon in Firefox is growing. Plus some screen readers that the visually impaired use don't process JavaScript. Search engines are the biggest reason though. Turn off CSS, images, and JavaScript, and what you have left is what a search engine sees. If the navigation is put in place by JavaScript, and search engine will only see the current page on your site, nothing else gets indexed. Essentially, it's very bad SEO.

iWeb sites have a history of issues with working across browsers properly (just check these forums), especially IE, which still has the dominant browser share. How are you going to handle it when your iWeb created sites break on IE for your clients? You'll lose trust very quickly. iWeb is not for professional. It's a personal web design application for people to use who don't have web design experience. Your clients can likely create a site for themselves with it.

nfable · Mar 12, 2010

thanks BBB, some of the text formatting gets blown if the text space doesn't have enough spacing left over from centered text. Yeah, it's mine warts, broken java, and all.

Thanks AW, its good to know the importance of those elements stripped. As for IE, I was going to BootCamp to WIN for testing and tweaking. I realize iWeb is tinker toys, and you're absolutely right - I have no web design experience... baby steps; it may be less than ideal but I can get by in iWeb while I try to learn DW and for the time being its easier for me to bend and tweak iweb to get it where I need than learn DW.

newuser2310 · Mar 12, 2010

tip: DW has a habit of including horrible code if you just use the design view, so make sure you check the code properly.

If your using IWeb your as bad as those companies who just churn out crappy websites based on templates they downloaded, in other words a complete fraud. Still version 5 does look nice though.

dumfweaver · Mar 12, 2010

I'm not sure how much you are tied to the templates in iWeb, but maybe a wider choice of design styles at the concept stage would help ?

All 5 choices were slight variations of the same theme so I had difficulties telling them apart.

nfable · Mar 12, 2010

Okay Captain New User, I come asking for help and advice; if I wanted people to sneer at my current level of abilities I would've attended your local ****** Anonymous meeting.

I don't propose myself to be King of Web Design, if I were I wouldn't be here would I?

btw
your= belongs to you
you're = you are

-nice

...and thanks, I'm liking 5 too.

____

Thx Dumf, yeah they are all variations of the same basic thing. I might hit that drawing board again, but I was going for clean and simple... maybe too much so.

newuser2310 · Mar 12, 2010

nfable said:
Okay Captain New User, I come asking for help and advice; if I wanted people to sneer at my current level of abilities I would've attended your local ****** Anonymous meeting.

I don't propose myself to be King of Web Design, if I were I wouldn't be here would I?

btw
your= belongs to you
you're = you are

-nice

...and thanks, I'm liking 5 too.

____

Thx Dumf, yeah they are all variations of the same basic thing. I might hit that drawing board again, but I was going for clean and simple... maybe too much so.

You wanted an opinion, I gave you mine. I'm not sneering at your abilities or lack there of. I actually really liked your design.

My point still stands though. I just disapprove of people/companies using 'template' style software when people are paying decent money. IMO its cheating.

Maybe you should stop giving me a grammar lesson and learn some html and css.

nfable · Mar 12, 2010

Zang!

I'm too busy ripping off people to actually learn something, man. No, I want to deliver something good. I just see the end justifies the means, I love principles and all that, but at the end of the day the end-user wants something effective and that won't break. I don't care if my plumber fixes my toilet with tools made from Bob Villa's bones dipped in gold and mutters a prayer while doing it or just secures it with a Wal-Mart box of tools made in Indo-China...just so long as it works and doesn't break. I leave the hi-end to the pros.

And with that a redesign...

Version 6

dumfweaver · Mar 12, 2010

I may be completely wrong but from my time on forums I got the impression that the your/you're issue was a US/UK thing. Many people in America use 'your' to mean 'you are'.

But I'm dyslexic so I wouldn't trust me as an authority on grammer (deliberate mis-spell)

v6 has possibilities - could do with y-axis edge or drop shadow to give depth and distinction from the body background. Please take anything I post as constructive criticism from a fellow newbie - and ignore accordingly

BillyBobBongo · Mar 13, 2010

dumfweaver said:
I got the impression that the your/you're issue was a US/UK thing.

Nope it's a right/wrong thing!

'Your' is a possessive pronoun used when something belongs or is related to 'you'.

'You're' is simply a contraction of 'you are'.

It's all English no matter where you're from. It's just that some of us speak it better than others!

Okay...back to the discussion.

I like the fact that you're experimenting with ideas more now. Your first five designs were very similar, version 6 is a totally different approach. I do find it odd that you're using different line height and spacing between words and letters in your text areas. It makes it unrestful.

I also think that you've tried to force the design idea into the area. The text block for hosting is my main issue. It comes far too close to the top of the page/navigation. It's quite obvious that you've had this idea to divide the page in an original manner but the content isn't allowing the design to work.

Recently Mark Boulton's book Designing for the Web has become free as an online version. It's a great read for someone starting out in the world of web design. Take the time to sit and read it, it will help you greatly with your progression.

7031 · Mar 13, 2010

I'm not a huge fan of your designs, but I would definitely go for your design #6 out of all of them. I think less = more when it comes to design, and I definitely like what you're going at here.

Just my 2 cents.

'm too busy ripping off people to actually learn something, man. No, I want to deliver something good. I just see the end justifies the means, I love principles and all that, but at the end of the day the end-user wants something effective and that won't break. I don't care if my plumber fixes my toilet with tools made from Bob Villa's bones dipped in gold and mutters a prayer while doing it or just secures it with a Wal-Mart box of tools made in Indo-China...just so long as it works and doesn't break. I leave the hi-end to the pros.

I agree actually. Truthfully I wouldn't worry too much about design until you're trying to appeal to the mainstream market, but I think a good design will increase your chances of getting customers, as well as having a prominent logo. Don't rip off anything too much though.

maflynn · Mar 13, 2010

One over all criticism you'll be adverting

Need a well built and great looking website? Our local team of web professionals will meet your needs and help represent you in the 21st Century’s Marketplace - the World Wide Web. Let us give you a virtual presence in cyberspace so your customers can find you in the real world, with custom solutions we can have a website for your business in as little as one week.

but you built this site on iWeb? I think if you'll be advertising your website creation abilities you'll need to expand your repertoire of tools.

Plus while I like iWeb, for small personal projects, its not a good tool to run your business off. For instance, it produces such poor spaghetti code that the bots fail to index your site properly. You may be better served with a tool that produces cleaner SEO friendly code

Sun Baked · Mar 13, 2010

You have change for a dime?

7031 · Mar 13, 2010

maflynn said:
One over all criticism you'll be adverting

but you built this site on iWeb? I think if you'll be advertising your website creation abilities you'll need to expand your repertoire of tools.

Plus while I like iWeb, for small personal projects, its not a good tool to run your business off. For instance, it produces such poor spaghetti code that the bots fail to index your site properly. You may be better served with a tool that produces cleaner SEO friendly code

Good point. Perhaps RapidWeaver? Although surely, if you're offering design services you should be able to design your own website? I can't imagine this comes off well with customers.

nfable · Mar 13, 2010

"I need some dudes who speak American god dammit!" -Cody, Tropic Thunder

you've had this idea to divide the page in an original manner but the content content isn't allowing the design to work

I agree, it doesn't quite mesh... like a slight eyeball itch, I knew something was bothering me; I'll look at maybe recasting the bullet points as a paragraph.

http://designingfortheweb.co.uk/

Sweet. Thank you... checking out directly.

Truthfully I wouldn't worry too much about design until you're trying to appeal to the mainstream market

This is something I think about. My target audience are not savvy design people. They are people for whom AOL is their start page on the internet and if shown a Jason Pollock, would want some KilZ primer to clean up the mess; however I do like the unencumbered look of a unique and sparse design. And no ripping off so much as clambering on the shoulders of others.

you'll need to expand your repertoire of tools.

Totally, yes. I'm looking into studying Drupal so I can lay a foundation for a customer in the next week or so.

produces cleaner SEO friendly code

Again, yes. I didn't do this with these test pages but I am going to use RAGE's Web Crusher to strip out messy redundant code and RAGE's iWeb SEO tool for my iWeb limitations now.

you should be able to design your own website? I can't imagine this comes off well with customers.

I am designing my own website. True: I am not opening TextEdit and coding by hand, but I am building an original creation none-the-less.

For is this not an original design:

Despite that it is rendered with frakkin CRAYOLAS?

I'm not going to sit down with a customer and say

"I can build you a functional, aesthetic, and relevant website that'll work cross-browser platforms in a professional manner with a piece of software that is considered tinker-toys among web industry professionals"

no. They don't need to see the sausage made. They just need a barbeque.

And

You have change for a dime?

No... I'm saving up for design school.

Alternate looks for my new site; 2¢ requested

Eh?

V1

V2

V3

V4

V5

...back to the drawing board, dude...

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