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Site Design/Layout Critique

stoid

stoid

macrumors 601
Original poster
Feb 17, 2002
4,312
29
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
After two design layouts that I could only describe as hideous and clunky, I have finally come up with a design that I feel worthy of a critique. My own website that will someday feature a collection of all of my work in a resume type format. As for right now, the content is rather limited, but the design is in place. It's been featured in my signature, and has received quite a few hits redirected from the forums. So now I officially open it to critique. I'm not going to have much time to adjust it until later this week, but I figured I'd get the process started.

Thanks for your suggestions and opinions!
 
One suggestion, When I click on an image to view it and then click the back button it takes me back to the main screen. This is counterintuitive because the picture appears to opena new screen as it replaces all the previous content. I know you have a link to return on the page, but a lot of people (like me) prefer to use the back button (especially if you have a multi-button mouse that you have programmed with a back and forward action).
 
kgarner said:
One suggestion, When I click on an image to view it and then click the back button it takes me back to the main screen. This is counterintuitive because the picture appears to opena new screen as it replaces all the previous content. I know you have a link to return on the page, but a lot of people (like me) prefer to use the back button (especially if you have a multi-button mouse that you have programmed with a back and forward action).
Click to expand...

I'm assuming you are refering to the That is a result of the pictures being run completely within a Flash system, so you aren't actually loading any new pages. I'm thinking that there may not be around this without redisgning it without Flash, or at least in a different format. I think that the best solution would be to redesign the flash so that the pictures are lined up at the top, and the picture displays below so that there is no need to go back. Simpler. Thanks for pointing this out, and I've added it to my list of changes. To be honest, the Flash formatting of those images was a hob-job done at the very beginning just so I could get some content on the site, and was scheduled for a retooling anyway.
 
YOu understood me correctly. I like the idea to put the larger version below the thumbnails. That would clear up the confusion. As far as retooling the Flash, I have no idea as I am a Flash virgin. Never touched it before myself so good luck with that. I really like the design though, very nice color scheme and graphics.
 
alright, I know that you guys are reading this thread, and I know that many of you are exploring my site. Why don't you guys respond? Either the design is flawless so there is nothing to critique (this is utterly impossible, as I know it's not nearly that good), or it's so terrible that you don't know where to start. The later of the two is more likely, but also more heartbreaking if true. It's only more frustrating that I'm getting no responses, so I don't even know what you all think.
 
I like the overall design. But I agree about the back button. It is a little confusing, but I don't have any suggestions around it.

Other than that, I liked everything I saw.
Great work!
 
Hi Stoid -- I think the site looks great overall. I might just suggest a few things from the perspective of a first-time visitor to the site:

- I wanted to know what all the were before picking a link to follow. In order to see the names of the links, though, I had to mouse over each drawing. So, it took me a little while before I knew what kinds of pages I could view. Some pictures hinted at the type of page I could see, like the "News" picture; I liked that. Others, though, weren't as apparent.

- I think the burgundy / navy blue color scheme might be a little too dark. It looks like much of the art on the site is colorful and lively, so maybe a lighter-colored background would make a better fit.

- When I went to the "Flash" page and saw the hamster picture, I sat there waiting for it to do something. :) I didn't realize I was supposed to click on it ... I thought the page was just having trouble loading. You might want to consider making it apparent, somehow, that the user is supposed to click on the image.

- Not that big of a deal, but I didn't understand the reasoning behind having the "Site News" in its own window while still in the browser? It just seems like unnecessary complexity, but I'm not sure if you had a specific reason for doing that.

Anyway, very nice overall ... your artwork and the site. :)
 
First of all, nice site! :)

And now for the critique!

-the first page is a bit too plain. I don't mean graphic wise but for the user there is no indication to what the website is about. A first time visitor to the website would just be completely confused as to the purpose of the website, the content and how to navigate.
-following on from the above, the graphic buttons, whilst very cool, don't really hint at their function. Consequently the site just looks a little bit like a splash page. I know it's pretty obvious for the computer savvy people like the people here at MR ;) but for some it could be pretty confusing.
-the back button has already been mentioned.
-for site news, I'm not a big fan of the window within the window. I just think it would be easier to scroll down through the Safari window, rather than through the site as it were.

I like the site and the colour scheme works well (perhaps a little bit dark) but I think you need to be clearer on the layout, content and purpose of the site. If you're going to be hosting your resume/work for people to visit, you're going to need to make it easier to navigate.

I really do like the site and think it's very promising, so forgive me if I come across sounding like a sanctimonious a*hole! :)

Edit: looks like Dotina beat me to the punch! Curse me and my proof reading ways! :p
 
Munkle, we must be twins! :eek:

(Or at least, we're similar in our assessments of websites ;))
 
dotnina said:
Munkle, we must be twins! :eek:

(Or at least, we're similar in our assessments of websites ;))
Click to expand...

I bow down to your impeccable taste, in websites at least! ;) :p

Edit: Reading back through the posts I really think we are twins!
 
Yes, I was wondering if the 'mystery meat' navigation system would be too confusing, and I guess that's proven now. I guess it will be best to just switch the rollover positions so that up is down and down is up. As for the hamster dance on the flash page, I think that once I get the rest of my flash online, it will be more like the digital media page, and more obvious that you have to click on one of them to view it. I'm not too worried about actual content, as it is only about 20% of the work that will be up there, will the backlist of work growing longer as I am continuing to create more. I've gotten numerous comments about the color scheme now, here, and from others I've shown the site to off of iChat, so that will go on the list now too of things to mess with. I agree that the first page is a bit lacking. In the works is a quick Flash Intro that will have a brief description of the web site purpose and why I've chosen 'pure entropy' for a design website.

I think that I'm going to have to take down the higher quality videos because the are getting downloaded far more often than I expected, and have eaten up over 40% of my bandwidth that has to last me through the end of November.

Thanks again for your help, I wish I had time to actually sit down and fiddle with these excellent suggestions. As it is just a side task/hobby my goal is that by the end of next month I will have everything running and online.
 
nice site

i feel it sits a bit too close to the top of the browser... my mind wants it to touch or be a bit further away.

the 'back button dilema' could be solved by using 'named anchors' in your Flash movie though i have yet to use it in practice... supposedly it works.

nice ills.



peace.
 
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