Site theme reviews please folks

[Cabbit]

I am starting to build a new site for a client, once again they seem to think i am a designer after showing a mockup so i guess the extra cash will come in handy though nothing compared to the dev work i am doing to the backend system.

http://cabbit.co.uk/public/demo/index.html

Above is a link to the design, you'll remember if you read a previous post from me this week i had problems with ie6 which was due to a but in the mulit ie software i use on my windows vm. I have now tested the template and it looks mostly the same on every browser though now i am looking for some constructive criticism and suggestions for improvements.

Since i don't do a lot of CSS or design work i would really appreciate it, i hear designers usually use photoshop to mock up a layout but i struggled with that and just wrote the CSS and HTML using CSSEdit.

 

[room271]

Hey - like the look and feel.

Some thoughts:

1. Add a hover effect to the Main Navigation - I always feels this adds an interactive feel/encourages interaction as opposed to the page being just a 'flat surface' (even if it is just to darken the font colour on hover)

2. I like the login dropdown - less sure about the blue/greying out of the main section though.

3. No main content showing but I'm guessing there's none at the moment to show?! Actually - there is content there just realised but it's not appearing. Hmm. Bit of a problem here (I'm using FF4 for info - haven't checked other browsers). If I change some of the CSS your content appears but havent worked out why yet.

***Update*** It's because you've added {overflow: hidden} to your .main class - this is applied to the div within #content which contains the article/aside (actual content). The div itself has no height so hiding the overflow hides all the content. Solutions are: remove the overflow hidden class or add a clear at the bottom of the div.

 

[Cabbit]

Hey - like the look and feel.

Some thoughts:

1. Add a hover effect to the Main Navigation - I always feels this adds an interactive feel/encourages interaction as opposed to the page being just a 'flat surface' (even if it is just to darken the font colour on hover)

2. I like the login dropdown - less sure about the blue/greying out of the main section though.

3. No main content showing but I'm guessing there's none at the moment to show?! Actually - there is content there just realised but it's not appearing. Hmm. Bit of a problem here (I'm using FF4 for info - haven't checked other browsers). If I change some of the CSS your content appears but havent worked out why yet.

***Update*** It's because you've added {overflow: hidden} to your .main class - this is applied to the div within #content which contains the article/aside (actual content). The div itself has no height so hiding the overflow hides all the content. Solutions are: remove the overflow hidden class or add a clear at the bottom of the div.

1. There is a hover on the main nav, perhaps its to subtle. I'll try to make it more visible.

2. My reasoning for the overlay was to put focus to the task of logging in. Do you feel this task is not met or not needed/desired? Perhaps a different coloured overlay would be more visually appealing.

3. On the last point it seems my attempt to fix ie6 has broke firefox >.< give it a try now.

 

[room271]

Hey yeah it works now.

Login overlay was just nitpicking - I am a big fan of the on-page login form (without having to reload).

Re: hover effect, yeah I think it is too subtle as I didn't notice it at all the first time, and not really now apart from the fact that I can see the CSS changing. Maybe my screen is poorer at replicating colours than yours? I still think more of a change though.

Generally I think the site is pretty good.

 

[Cabbit]

Hey yeah it works now.

Login overlay was just nitpicking - I am a big fan of the on-page login form (without having to reload).

Re: hover effect, yeah I think it is too subtle as I didn't notice it at all the first time, and not really now apart from the fact that I can see the CSS changing. Maybe my screen is poorer at replicating colours than yours? I still think more of a change though.

Generally I think the site is pretty good.

Ok i changed the hover to #f5f6e8 with a font colour of #333 this should stand out much better without causing it to detract from my design aim.

I'll think about removing the overlay, it may or may not be better i'll need to ask about.

 

[Cromulent]

Looks good to me. The only thing I will say is on pages with not much content the footer finishes half way down the page leaving the rest of the page white. This looks pretty bad.

There are some nice "sticky footer" tutorials out there which show you how to have your footer permanently at the bottom of the page no matter how much or little content you have and without it overlapping anything either.

This is a good one to use:

http://ryanfait.com/resources/footer-stick-to-bottom-of-page/

 

[Cabbit]

Looks good to me. The only thing I will say is on pages with not much content the footer finishes half way down the page leaving the rest of the page white. This looks pretty bad.

There are some nice "sticky footer" tutorials out there which show you how to have your footer permanently at the bottom of the page no matter how much or little content you have and without it overlapping anything either.

This is a good one to use:

http://ryanfait.com/resources/footer-stick-to-bottom-of-page/

I had though it was working as that was the tutorial i used before, however it seems it was my rather short screen tricking me.