[thelist] Site Critique Please

[H. G. Quinn]

Win 98, NN 4.7, fast loading, nothing that appears broken.  Altogether, a very
good job.  The illustrations and icons are super.  What follows is nitpicking,
except for the comments on proofing the text (towards the end).

The yellow links on white bg might be easier to read if the yellow were a
little deeper or darker.  The font works fine with the illustration style.  I
agree that the animated illustrations are overkill -- you have lots that's
ingenious going on with your nav icons and hints.  The same illustrations,
non-animated, would work better.

I would avoid capitalizing "Cowboys".  I might put quotes around it, to show
it's being used in the ironic sense.

Given how precise the illustrations are, and how they have a light source
coming from the top left, why not use the same light source to throw a
realistic-looking shadow from your title bar?  This gets away from blur for the
sake of blur, feeds into the site's message of precision, high levels of skill,
professionalism, etc., and carries through the visual metaphor of precise
models.

Also on the precision front, your nav hints' cables do not line up precisely
with the block-and-tackle hooks.  They're maybe 2 pixels too far to the left
and 4 or 5 pixels too high (it varies, depending on the particular rollover).
But since the effect is so unique, and works so well, you may as well go the
distance and make it absolutely perfect.

In the US, "Checkout" means to go through a cashier's line, while "Check out"
means to take a look at something, but don't know if this point applies in the
UK.

Larger margins within tables that have text would be good.  I'd stay away from
centering anything except page titles.

Someone needs to proof the textual content, as I saw things that a spell
checker would pass, but a human wouldn't, like "We have used these
foundation...", where the word foundation should be plural, and "Our expertise
covers all disciplines within the building industry and we have spent our lives
working on projects of all sizes from small house extensions through to large
scale industrial constructions." which should have commas between clauses, as
in: "Our expertise covers all disciplines within the building industry, and we
have spent our lives working on projects of all sizes, from small house
extensions through to large scale industrial constructions." or even better,
could be broken out into two sentences, as in: "Our expertise covers all
disciplines within the building industry.  We have spent our lives working on
projects of all sizes, ranging from small house extensions through to large
scale industrial constructions."  Not only is this easier to read, it has more
impact.  The original reads like a nervous, breathy person speaking.  Here's a
URL for the Gunning Fog Index calculation, which lets your content person
assess the approximate age level of a text, to make sure it hits the
educational level of the expected audience:

       http://lfa.atu.edu/english/Brucker/Fog.html


Finally, will the client allow you to use your company's "designed by" gif on
its main page?  It's quite spiffy, and IMO, a link on the first page would be
more effective than the copyright notice.

John Scoot wrote:

> Would you please critique the following site www.buildingadvice.co.uk...
> John Scoot

Cheers,
--
Heather Quinn
hgquinn at attglobal.net
http://pws.prserv.net/windyhill