[thelist] Site check - with a twist

Simon Perry simon.perry at si-designs.co.uk
Fri Dec 12 05:14:20 CST 2003


Andy Budd wrote:

>
> On Friday, December 12, 2003, at 03:12 AM, Gary McPherson wrote:
>
>> Hey all!
>>
>> This request is a little different from the norm - I'm not asking you 
>> to review my own work. I have a friend who's setting up his own small 
>> business and asked me to do some backend development for the site 
>> he's put together. Anyway, I had a look at what he's done so far 
>> and... well, I think I'll let you see for yourselves.
>>
>> Having shared my own views, I feel that he doesn't take my criticism 
>> as seriously as he needs to due to us being friends, so what I want 
>> is a 2nd (and 3rd, 4th, nth) opinion that I can take back to him, to 
>> show that I'm not just being bitchy about what he's done.
>
>
> With most sites that come up for a site check it's easy to give 
> constructive criticism because they are mostly good but would benefit 
> from some tweaking. In fact in my experience the better the site the 
> more constructive feedback you get.
>
> With truly bad sites it's impossible to know where to begin and this 
> is definitely the category your friends site falls in to. Basically 
> this site does your friend no favours. In fact it would be better for 
> them to have no site at all than what they currently have. People are 
> increasingly web savvy. They know what is good and professional and 
> what is poor and amateurish. They will associate the values and 
> quality of your site with the values and quality of your service. If I 
> were looking for a "whatever it is your friends site is supposed to 
> do" seeing that site would help me out greatly as it would immediately 
> remove them from my list of companies under consideration. If their 
> site is so unprofessional, I'd imagine there services are as well.
>
> Andy Budd

I would like to second Andy's comments above.

Someone else pointed out that the "database" results [0] were slightly 
better presented. Well that is completely undone as the links from the 
graphics do not open the corresponding property page! Not that I would 
have gone any further after seeing the index page. Or that I could have, 
even if I wanted to, without opening the header frame in a new window to 
access the links!

A quick google search shows the standard of the competition [1].

Simon

[0] http://www.propertiesuncovered.com/let.html
[2] http://www.spencers-property.co.uk/search/lettings.html



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