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RE: FN-FORUM ADS - site, Nit Picking.
date posted 21st January 2003 23:26
Nik, ignore Sam.
Sam, don't be nasty, and please don't be quick to judge others' work
harshly.
Nik, first of all, it's a good first site:
- The home page gives a broad summary of where you are, and what ADS do
- Major nav items are in conventional places, which is important
- Text footer-nav is good
- Nav is simple and self-explanatory
- The main canvas is white, which is good for reading, and trustworthy
- It looks like a computer company's site
Follows a list of pointers of where you could improve this piece of work.
The quickest way to increase your skill is to be honest about your own work,
and to try changes. Never be afraid to check something else out, and develop
the ability to step outside of your own skin, take a break from the screen,
come back fresh and compare designs objectively. Do that, and you will start
being a better designer. Keep doing it, and you'll keep getting better.
Main nav:
Red on blue is a strain to read. Colourblind people could struggle even
more. You should always have high tonal contrast.
The text is too small. You're losing half the horizontal space you've got
with the button/control panel graphics, making the resulting links fiddlier
than they need to be. In fact, your bottom text navigation is more useful
(better) than the side nav.
Use "Home" instead of "Main" (it's the convention: you don't have teams of
architects brainstorming new names for "arrivals" and "departures" when
designing a new airport terminal :-)
You don't need to duplicate the company logo on the nav. Keep it once, good
and bold, preferably in the conventional top-left (but top-center is OK).
The flash movie is not a logo, see below.
Why is the pricing strategy link below and separate from the others on the
left hand side? If it's because it wouldn't fit your design, change your
design to fit the site's needs.
Put the flash ad below the main navigation. Having it above the nav suggests
either that it is more important than the links, or that it summarises them
in some way. It's not adding much, so I'd move it below the navbar,
separated by enough space to indicate that it's a separate object.
Services section:
The navigation mechanic is odd here. It's not obvious that the content is
going to appear in the frame on the right. The mechanic you use in the About
section is actually much more effective (page anchors).
You don't need to say "Click the links on the left to browse..." Or if you
think you *do*, that's indicating a mistake somewhere else. Navigation
should be obvious, because "users spend 99.9% of their time on other sites"
(Nielsen, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000206.html).
Think about having the content below the titles. Keep thinking in terms of a
strict visual hierarchy on the page: what's above what, what contains what,
etc. In this example, the "Browse" box is actually higher up the screen than
the titles/links used to populate it, which suggests that it does not belong
to the links, which is false: it does. The highest the box should go would
be level with the top link, and absolutely should not go above the link
title "Home user solutions...", which is actually the parent of its parent.
The red serif text is very hard to read, because:
a) serif fonts are designed for hi-res output (print); sans-serif for lo-res
(screen) (in general)
b) it's too small
c) red on white says "alert", rather than "main content"
d) it's in a box and there is not enough white space (guttering) around the
text, separating it from the keyline of the box. Text needs whitespace to be
readable. Often, the more whitespace the better.
Design:
The fact that the side nav links are clearly buttons is good. Buttons are
good signs to say "Click me to...". You should always find a way to say
"Click here" without ever saying "Click here". Clicking here is implicit.
Hyperlinks should say either:
- where they'll take you
- what you want to do
- what you want to get
- a command you want to give
The design collapses well to lower resolutions. Good job.
Avoid gradients where possible. They're old hat in design terms. There are
lots of ways to use them effectively, but generally a straight gradient,
particularly between two very different colours, is likely to look cheap.
The computer image in the top right does a good job of telling us that we're
looking at a computer site. However, it's pointing up and right, which leads
the eye off the side of the screen. Other options include: a zoom-in on a
computer which fills the space; having the "computer" image (good to have)
in a different place, such as in the main body; having the computer image in
the top somewhere, but not going too near the edge of the canvas (it's okay
for it to be overlapped by the inner white content area.
The text in the Services section is good (well, I have my default font set
to Verdana). On the Home page, and other areas, you specify Times New Roman.
Now, that's a nasty font, unless it's viewed in high-res. The only way you
can view it at high resolution on a monitor is to have it very big. So, I
have a general rule only to use serif fonts like Times for big, bold titles.
The best practice is: let the user choose his own fonts, so not to set your
own styles.
-- I hope this is useful.
Best regards,
Ben
http://benhunt.topcities.com
>About a tenner... :)
>
>Sam Morgan
>
>WIREDEYES
>t : +44 (0)20 8568 5303
>e : [EMAIL REMOVED] [EMAIL REMOVED]
>w : http://www.wiredeyes.com
>
>Lo peeps,
>
>My first complete web site... www.ads-services.co.uk not much just a basic
>site. but would appreciate any comments on design, code, layout, etc. BUT
>ONLY if you have time, I dont want to be evil eyed for wasting yer time :)
>
>Any comments on how much you would charge a client for this site would also
>be of benefit.
>
>Thank-you in advance.
>
>NiK..
>
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