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digitalmac

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 5, 2008
58
0
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I have recently started my blog and I would like to gather more public opinions so that I can turn it into a better site, in turns of appearances, user friendliness and information wise.
My site is http://www.digitalmacliving.com

Thanks in advance!
 
There are very many inconsistencies in your site.

-Why is the content narrower than the banner?

-The search query text box covers up part of the date in the first post.

-Very odd spacing in the left column.

-I don't like the scroll bars in the left column either, although props for not making them look clumsy.

-Footer links are small and definitely look like an afterthought. Make them look nice or eliminate them.
 
everything is laid out terribly. and your coding is absolutely horrendous. i'm assuming you used some crappy html generator for this.
 
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miles01110 said:
There are very many inconsistencies in your site.

-Why is the content narrower than the banner?

-The search query text box covers up part of the date in the first post.

-Very odd spacing in the left column.

-I don't like the scroll bars in the left column either, although props for not making them look clumsy.

-Footer links are small and definitely look like an afterthought. Make them look nice or eliminate them.

Thx for your valuable comment.

May I know which browser are you using?
 
WOW, way to busy, a site like this I would leave immediately, too messy.

Reduce the size of your left column, and make your center column bigger since that is the most important part of the page, otherwise people may get confused as to what to look at when they first come. And when they finally figure it out they are fed up with the site and will leave.

Space out the left column and the center one, too close together, very messy.

Why doesn't your top banner expand all the way to the right?

Otherwise I like the content, stuff I will definitely read and am reading. :)
 
WOW, way to busy, a site like this I would leave immediately, too messy.

Reduce the size of your left column, and make your center column bigger since that is the most important part of the page, otherwise people may get confused as to what to look at when they first come. And when they finally figure it out they are fed up with the site and will leave.

Space out the left column and the center one, too close together, very messy.

Why doesn't your top banner expand all the way to the right?

Otherwise I like the content, stuff I will definitely read and am reading. :)

Thank you for your comment. I will work hard on that and make it better looking.
 
After receiving valuable comments from you all, I have been working hard to revamp the website. Please give me some comments and see if you guys like it or not. Or there are other ways I could improve it.
 
You have much more work to do. I'm using FF 3.5.5, Windows (at work presently).

The theme is plain, and I have no problem with minimalistic - but this is good old fashioned boring. Maybe add in a gray border color or a subtle background color in the dialog boxes. Meanwhile at the bottom it's as if your footer came from a totally different web site theme and you glued them together.

Consistency in design elements, i.e. header/footer/content and so on is more pleasing to the eye and easier for users to navigate. Also, the focus becomes content and not a "heavy" (dark) footer which overpowers things.

Work on proper alignment and spacing of photos and text - add a little space around the photos, make sure fonts are not cut off or collide with other elements and wrap properly. The photos to the left of each blog entry should align in the same position for each.

What *is* Digital Mac Living? Use a little header area to explain the focus of the site, its intended purpose - explained in brief beyond the title alone.

Avoid blocks of large white space between other content (right side, 50% down) - i.e. think of your site as a city, with streets (borders, dialog boxes, horizontal rules, etc.) and buildings (content) --- you've got "unused commercially zoned space" which is doing nothing productive, removing focus from other neighborhoods if you follow the analogy.

The header can be so much more, without really doing much - maybe as simple as a nice background image, a fancier logo.... anything other than plain text on white. Minimalize the footer as noted earlier, but not necessarily the header into nothingness which it is now. BORING.

I'm also not a fan of the font you used for the digital look, although I understand why. But if you're gonna use it - be consistent and use it in all content area headers. Otherwise it looks like a gimmick.


Example of minimalist theme with proper alignment and color palette that you might consider:

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn214/WP-Themes/10/10584-1-1_640_480.jpg


Remember, this is not to say I like the site linked above better, nor am I saying to use those exact colors or layout. I merely provided it to you to inspire you if you wish to make further changes. My .02, of course.

-jim
 
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I had only tested on the Mac and onky realized that some of the fonts were not default on Windows platform. I will need to get a Windows machine to test it out as I only have Mac at home.
Did any others which are using Mac have other issues / comments?
 
Or download and install either Parallels or VM Ware Fusion and install any licensed copy of Windows or at minimum a cheap OEM version of XP Home as a virtual host. Much better than bootcamp (dual boot). Use it for testing the MSIE browser in real time in real Windows while using your Mac. I chose Parallels 5, works great.

As to fonts and the web, we're all waiting to see if the next generation of CSS or HTML handles embedding fonts in a standardized way (i.e. W3C specification supported by ALL modern browsers in the future such as the CSS3 working draft for TTF font support I personally hope to see implemented). Right now no single method of font embedding works on all browsers so best to stick to widely supported cross-platform fonts for text content, i.e. Arial, Verdana, Helvetica and so on.

Great page listing Windows/Mac fonts common to both platforms

-jim
 
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