Bored? I am. Critique my website!

[brianellisrules]

www.brianellisrules.com


It's come a long way since the start (coughfrontpagecough)... as far as I know, it's all valid. I validated it all about a week or two ago and everything checked out except for the 2003 Christmas List (because of some lengthy amazon.com links using invalid characters). Anyhoo, check it out and let me know what you think.

Thanks!

[fugeelama]

Not bad. I've found that simplicity = elegance when it comes to web design, so long as it's not "too simple." White and black work, but a tiny splash of color (perhaps for the logo/top bar of the page?) might help.

Oh, and just a thought on the pictures section, you might want to make thumbnails of the images instead of using the full-size ones... while us broadband users don't really mind the minor lag, I pity the person on dial-up that tries to load up one of those pages!

[Versello]

Try adding a 1 pixel horizontal bar between the logo and the navigation.

[brianellisrules]

Originally posted by Versello
Try adding a 1 pixel horizontal bar between the logo and the navigation.

I'm not sure I follow. Is the text overlapping? Or is it too far apart?



As for the "too simple" comment... that's kind of what I was going for I guess. I've thought about adding more logos/images/colors, but nothing jumps out at me so I've kind of blown it off.

And about the thumbnails... the picture gallery is a script I took and butchered to suit my own needs, so I have no clue how to add thumbnail functionality to it.

[rueyeet]

You've gotta have more to offer the rich gals than just being 25, disease/addiction free, and appearance-negotiable. Like top-notch house-cleaning skills, for example. Apply those Six Sigma principles to the laundry room, or something. Financially secure ladies don't have so much time for the ol' housework, y'know?

[brianellisrules]

Originally posted by rueyeet
You've gotta have more to offer the rich gals than just being 25, disease/addiction free, and appearance-negotiable. Like top-notch house-cleaning skills, for example. Apply those Six Sigma principles to the laundry room, or something. Financially secure ladies don't have so much time for the ol' housework, y'know?

Haha, funny you should mention that. When I first got bit by the bug to quit working (about a month or two after I started) I was talking to some co-workers about it. The topic of playing "Mr. Mom" came up and everyone agreed that they'd much rather go to work every day rather than staying home and taking care of the kids. They said things like, "Oh man, my wife has her hands full and we only have one baby!" and "that job requires more work than this one!"

I told them that since we're engineers we could "six sigma the crap outta it" and streamline raising kids to a 2-3 hour a day process and have the rest of the time to hang out and do nothing.

It's probably possible to get it even lower, but I only have my green belt... and there's no way I'm going for my black belt.

[Waluigi]

I know this sounds harsh, but it is directed at your webpage, not the content or you. This is really an amateur page that looks like it was made in 1994.

I'm all for simplicity, however, the page is missing key things in it. You need to separate your content (either subtly or boldly), and differentiate the font more so in the different parts of each blog (date posted, title, text, etc). Also, a splash of color would be healthy too.

Here is a page that I love that I took a few pointers from in my work in terms of simplicity, separation, and introduction of a little color (disregard the top and bottom menus, just the main content).

I'm a professional web designer, who has made a fortune designing web pages that are simple and elegant, yet really useful and practical.

Good luck, and please don't take my criticism the wrong way.

--Waluigi

[brianellisrules]

Originally posted by Waluigi
I know this sounds harsh, but it is directed at your webpage, not the content or you. This is really an amateur page that looks like it was made in 1994.

I'm all for simplicity, however, the page is missing key things in it. You need to separate your content (either subtly or boldly), and differentiate the font more so in the different parts of each blog (date posted, title, text, etc). Also, a splash of color would be healthy too.

Here is a page that I love that I took a few pointers from in my work in terms of simplicity, separation, and introduction of a little color (disregard the top and bottom menus, just the main content).

I'm a professional web designer, who has made a fortune designing web pages that are simple and elegant, yet really useful and practical.

Good luck, and please don't take my criticism the wrong way.

--Waluigi

I'm not sure what the rolled eyes were for at the end, but ok.

I guess that's the difference between you and me. For me, my webpage is something I do in my spare time to get a laugh out of me and my friends, whereas you are a professional web designer who's made a fortune doing this stuff. On top of that, my 3 months of web design experience probably aren't up to par with your X years of experience.

Anyhoo, the comment about adding color has been noted... although I'm not sure what I'm supposed to get from the iChat feedback form. That looks to me a lot like my page - white background with black text, plus a few drop down menus.

I guess my focus is more on my content rather than flashy graphics and stuff. I'm sure as I get more in-tuned with this whole 'web design' thing, I'll add more and more eye candy.

[Waluigi]

Originally posted by brianellisrules
although I'm not sure what I'm supposed to get from the iChat feedback form. That looks to me a lot like my page - white background with black text, plus a few drop down menus.

Exactly! What the iChat feedback page has is a nice faint line that seperates the content of the page from the eternity of empty space on either side. Also, the iChat logo on that page is a great, yet simple introduction of some color. I used that page because it does look like your webpage, and am really trying to give you some good pointers.

I don't know what the eyeroll thing was either, but I guess I felt I was coming across as being a little mean and tried to do something to show otherwise.

--Waluigi

[kettle]

Originally posted by brianellisrules
For me, my webpage is something I do in my spare time to get a laugh out of me and my friends, whereas you are a professional web designer who's made a fortune doing this stuff. On top of that, my 3 months of web design experience probably aren't up to par with your X years of experience.

I love the sentiment of your site. If you prefer the clear text based approach, now may be a good time to look into XHTML and CSS. I think you would like it.
site off the top of my head alistApart
nice one, lack of restraint is the failing of most of the "hot shot" sites.

[Rower_CPU]

Waluigi-
I'm surprised you don't have any links to your work in your sig or profile. You always mention doing web stuff, but I'm always left curious about your work.

Brian-
Here's a thought for some color/fun stuff: your mug as the body background, fixed in the lower right. That would give it some nice character, make it a little more personal, and whatnot.

Here's what I'm envisioning:
http://organicallydigital.com/dev/ber/

[Mike Teezie]

Brian - I think the site is great. You made it very easy to do what the site is there for - read. Its hilarious too, I might add, I'll take some stickers.

I was laughing my $&*$#*$ off when I saw the Odometer Homies.

Excellent work!

EDIT: I like Rower's suggestion a lot.

[mnkeybsness]

i like rower's mockup, but i would like to see just a small bit of color added around the site to make it not so "black-text-on white-background-run-of-the-mill-read-stuff-website"... you've put a lot of work into this site, but something to grab they eye right away, like your mug in the bottom, is nice to keep new visitors interested before they read. that's mostly personal because i'm with half of the people around that see a lot of text and no pictures on a website's index and immediately click the back button.

also, i like that you've included a link the "the real reason why we're here", but i think a shortened summary in a little box somewhere on the main page would be nice, instead of having to click away from that page.

[brianellisrules]

Ah-ha! Now we're getting somewhere!

Robin, I love the suggestion for having the pic on the bottom right. That looks awesome! Hmmm, maybe towelshirt5.jpg...

Mike, I'll gladly send you some stickers... just give me your address and I'll send them out.

Kettle, I'm already using CSS on my site pretty heavily... although I haven't looked into xhtml at all. What are the advantages of that over straight html?

mnkeybsness, good suggestion with the 'mission statement' or whatever... I just need to figure out a way to incorporate that.

Thanks everyone!

[Rower_CPU]

Ha! I considered that pic but I wasn't sure if you were concerned about all the potential stalkers that would create.

As far as XHTML goes, it's just a stricter implementation of HTML and will be replacing it sometime in the future. It's a good idea to get familiar with it, and it does force you to design nice, tight pages.

[vthokienj]

Brian, first off the site is hilarious.
Just wondering, why did you chose PHP to code your site?

Rower_CPU, youve got a pretty cool PHP site going youself. I am just getting into web design and dabbling with ASP.NET and the codebehind stuff with c#.

Being a mac board, i'm sure most of you will say PHP is the way to go, but i'm curious to hear what others think about ASP.NET and how it compares to PHP. If i am starting out, which is the better choice to code in?

Oh, and i love those girl stories. You'd think that guy would learn his lesson after getting shot down so many times.

[Rower_CPU]

I've never dabbled in ASP.NET, so I can't really compare it to PHP in any personal way, but I can give a couple of the reasons why I use PHP over other things.

1) Open-source
2) Works well with Apache
3) Easy to install on OS X
4) Lots of support info online

Ultimately, it's a personal choice. Whatever works best for your situation is what you should use.

[brianellisrules]

Originally posted by vthokienj
Brian, first off the site is hilarious.
Just wondering, why did you chose PHP to code your site?

Rower_CPU, youve got a pretty cool PHP site going youself. I am just getting into web design and dabbling with ASP.NET and the codebehind stuff with c#.

Being a mac board, i'm sure most of you will say PHP is the way to go, but i'm curious to hear what others think about ASP.NET and how it compares to PHP. If i am starting out, which is the better choice to code in?

Oh, and i love those girl stories. You'd think that guy would learn his lesson after getting shot down so many times.

I chose php because it's a man's code. I thought about asp.net and realized it was for chumps and never looked back.


Those girl stories are great... it's too bad I was promised a story a week and have since gotten ~3 of them over the last 3-4 months. Maybe if my source wasn't too busy fighting with asp.net he'd have time to type up more stories!

[arson]

Originally posted by brianellisrules
I chose php because it's a man's code. I thought about asp.net and realized it was for chumps and never looked back.

Greatest reason ever.

Check this site out for more tangible reasons:
http://marty.anstey.ca/programming/php_asp.html