[thelist] Request for Site Critique - glasshaus

aardvark roselli at earthlink.net
Tue Mar 5 23:34:01 CST 2002


> From: Chris Mills <chrismi at glasshaus.com>
[...]
> Anyway, I work for a new (web developer/designer) publishing company
> called glasshaus. We have got the first release of our web site into
> test stage, so I was wondering if you'd mind giving it a bit of a
> critique for us. You can find it at http://www.glasshaus.com/test.
[...]

ok, finally got some time to sit down and look over this...  i have a bunch of
thingies, so bear with me here...

first off, looks like it was coded in DW... lots of DW leftovers... DW JS (that
should be replaced), no DTD, mix of tables and divs... overall, i'd revisit the
code in the page and try to rebuild it from the ground up...

your meta information looks like it was pasted in from an email... those
brackets can only confuse a search engine, and certainly won't help the
ranking by their presence... and there's no meta on content pages...

using a background image for your left blue navbar can introduce problems if
you care about how it looks on non-CSS-P browsers... for instance, in NN3.x,
the content sits on the blue bar, looking pretty bad...  perhaps a background
color (in CSS or elsewhere) would be a better fit?

the bottom of the curve shows up under the content in NN3.x as well, you
might wanna adjust where that appears in your code... the photo of one book
appears above the welcome text...

there are further linearization issues... in Lynx, that book link sits too high,
making the rest of the image links less likely to be believed (assuming one
could see them, but i'm using Lynx to test linearization)...  the alt, while
handy, could at least name the book, too, so i know what i'm clicking if i'm
linearized and images haven't come down yet -- and since that first one
appears in an odd place...

ooh... linearization falls apart further as you wander deeper into the site...

we've already addressed the absolute positioning...  that's gotta go...  not only
that, you gotta allow those text blocks to adjust width... in both 640x480 and
800x600 i get scrollies...  if they were liquid, i could scale the width to what i
want...  if you don't agree with liquid, make sure you at least choose a size
that doesn't cut out 40% of your audience...

i still don't get the mixing of tables (top banner and nav) with divs... i'll assume
this is because it's how DW coded it...  i'd suggest choosing one or the
other...

the name 'glasshaus' recedes too much in the banner... the logo on the right
doesn't seem prominent enough....

the blues are too... feminine...  deeper or stronger blues would make the site
feel less...apologetic...about the products it offers... something bold, strong,
that conveys confidence...

i'm sure you know the borders on the 'forthcoming' books box are different
across IE (solid white), N6 (beveled), O6 (beveled on each line)...

i see <font> in your bullet lists...  and DW is going <span>-crazy...

no <h#> tags... no meta tags on pages... i'd suggest stuffing some structure
and content into the page -- not only does it benefit search engines, you can
style those headers much more efficiently than what's currently there...

i'd rather see larger body copy and *much* smaller nav copy... then using
relative type units, we can all scale it 'til we're giddy with pleasure...  hell, i'd
relegate privacy policy and terms to the footer... right now it actually makes
the box with upcoming books look like it was stuffed in as an afterthought...

on your book detail pages, the only clue you have that you are viewing one of
the links in the pipe-delimited list next to the book photo is type weight and
underline...  i'd consider making that more nav-ish in look, as i missed it
before... could be because pipe-delimited blocks of nav embedded in copy
never get my attention...

on the code page, uncap the series names...

the main nav of the site in *no* way indicates where i am within the site... i
just sauntered into an interview, and i have no idea where that put me or how i
get out...  try to highlight the nav that corresponds to the section i'm viewing...

oh, just saw the link in the upper right... breadcrumb nav might help... any link
that says "back" is, IMO, a bad idea (what if the user didn't come from
there?)...

About Us is *awfully* light...  what's your street address?  how do i phone
you?  who are the people?  office hours?  anything else to prove you're for
real?  parent companies (oh, hey, that's on privacy policy page, why?)?

while i understand the name is 'glasshaus' (uncapped), it looks funny at the
start of a sentence, makes it feel all fragmenty, like the first part got stuck in
goo under the blue bar...

any excerpts on books pages?  links to buy in the channel?

ok, this whole blue thing is starting to get to me... blue screen caps, blue
links, blue sub-heads, blue banner, blue edge...  what do i have to do to see a
little red?

home page of over 30k is, IMO, too large, but then, that's just my opinion, and
that means nothing...

i know this all seems a bit much, but trying to market books to a cynical
bunch of web slugs is no small task... people as anal-retentive as i will come
along and look for any reason to blast you, your books, and your site to
qualify that they are better than the 'professionals'.... they will take great
pleasure in this...

other things that might help would be the ability to proudly display a valid
HTML/XHTML badge, a valid CSS badge, and (given the book on
accessibility), a triple A WAI badge...

hey, is there a contact form for those of us who don't have email configured, or
don't wanna use it?  you know, those paranoid among us...

ok, done, gotta go find a banana...




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