Opinion on my website

[Ivan P]

Hey guys, I've been running a website for about two years now and was wondering what you all thought of it.

http://krustofski.com/bongo

If you're wondering, I used Paint.NET in Windows XP (Boot Camp) to make the design because it's a program that I have experience with.

Now I'm sure the topic of the website won't appeal to anyone, and it barely appeals to me anymore, but it fills a void in the community as it's the only site of its kind (well there is another, but it looks terrible and is a nightmare for anyone using dial-up...all the content is just images, even the text is typed out and then saved as images) and managing and designing this web site is something that I enjoy doing a lot -- you'll probably notice there is only a single update on the homepage, that's because of problems encountered when the host moved to PHP5, and I had to reinstall the news system.

Thanks

 

[SrWebDeveloper]

Sure thing. I'll focus on design and layout.

First off, great looking graphics and all the proper size, colors and just the right touch of shadow effects and proper bordering considering the subject matter (doi!!!!) There are a few broken images, clearly the site is graphic intensive and would not be anywhere close to accessibility compatible. But the layout is well balanced, takes up just the right screen space and correctly draws the eye to the top, center where it should. So in terms of basic layout, niiiiiiice job there.

Issues for you to ponder, my .02 only of course:

• The site failed validation horribly - set a docttype such as XHTML 1.0 transitional or whatever you prefer and make it validate, so its much more cross browser compatible.
• You've got CSS embedded in your head area, which is fine, but may I suggest sticking with external style sheets, simply linking them from the head. The reason is to be consistent, plus during development you can edit the CSS independently and affect the entire site if well planned.
• Would be nice to see CSS/div's instead of tables for layout - with all those intensive graphics the site will load faster (less rendering of tabular cells) and of course the design can be manipulated more easily in the future.
• Not a fan of the location of the login, maybe integrate it into the graphics in the top right area, make it more a part and feel of the site. See what others have to say on this. Also, use CSS to customize your login button in terms of colors, fonts and borders to conform with your other graphics.
• Font size and consistency a little off in the MENUS, I suggest something like comic sans (I said something LIKE, whatever it is is up to you) that conforms to the embedded fonts in your other graphics. Maybe a bit larger too, seems pretty small no matter the site context.

I checked a few other pages after clicking menu items, they seem well formatted and the graphics pleasing, so great job overall. I'll keep my comments general, and allow others to probe more.

-jim