[thelist] Request for critique, small commercial farm site

H. G. Quinn hgquinn at attglobal.net
Mon Apr 2 18:24:34 CDT 2001


Re my http://www.windyhilldesign.com/farmtransfer/test3 critique request --
summary:

-    not liquid, doesn't fit 640 x ...
-    not enough contrast between nav button texts & their bg color
-    too graphics-intensive (was afraid of that)
-    graphics too sliced (that, too)
-    graphic compressions not tuned/optimized enough
-    content errors ("We raise our animals in a pesticide,...")
-    border around main page is non-integral to page
-    why scan lines on illustrative photos?
-    the contrast between link and text color is not clear

Disclaimer: Several of you liked the "Woolie" logo -- not my work, another
artist's cartoon, it's really great, I agree (but I did animate the
eyelids).

The text is the farmer's, will discuss possible confusion, etc.  Lots of
people saw the dark blue-green of the signboards as navy blue; my monitor is
very saturated, so colors appear more intense to me, even though I've
adjusted the monitor's alpha; will have to bring up the green and lighten
the tone overall, and will reduce the shadows in the small text, or
eliminate them altogether; my monitor's wonderful saturation is the reason
the link/text contrast is clear to me but not to everyone; that needs
adjusting, too.  Why scan lines on photos?  I need better photos, want the
texture the photos will provide to the page, but the quality of what I have
to work with right now is just not there.  Since there's no guarantee I'll
be able to get better source material (farmer was once a photographer, these
are his), maybe I'll use the PS facet filter I used on the main signboard
photomontage for texturing, instead.  The non-integral border -- I agree
100%.  There's something wrong with main page.  The signboards dominate and
are too trompe l'oile, but the farmer is going to have a sign carved from
the signboard layout, so they'll stay for now.  I was trying to provide some
balance w/o adding any more graphics (;->) to the page. I have some thinking
to do on that.

Off-topic reply to aardvark: the only venison recipes I have are the
standard three -- grilled chops, grilled steaks, and the marinate-
shoulder-or-haunch-for-3-days-w/wine-and-juniper-berries-then-
roast-it one -- another area where some future research awaits.  If I come
up with anything new and good, I'll forward it.  (If anyone knows of any
good recipes for lamb, goat or venison and you feel like sharing them, that
would be greatly appreciated -- you'd be credited and your site referenced,
and maybe aardvark can thaw out his block-o-meat.)

Off-topic reply to Morbus: though humane butchering sounds contradictory, it
does exist, and the animal meets its end without pain or fear.  Not only is
it nice for us meat eaters to know that there is a right way for us to get
our food, but also the quality of the meat is better, because the animal's
system was not flooded w/stress hormones at the end.  Sorry for bluntness,
but them's the facts. There are a few specialists who advise on this,
foremost amongst them a woman with functional autism who has a very high
rapport with animals that's apparently a result of her difficulty in
communicating directly with humans; I forget her name; her story is amazing,
I think she was written up in "The New Yorker" a while ago.  She can't bear
being touched, yet needs hugs like everyone else, so she invented herself a
"hug machine" which is a bit like a full-body tanning bed, and...well, she's
really interesting and amazing.

Now back to the keyboard.  Thanks, everyone.  I deeply appreciate the
critiques and your time and thoughtfulness.  Thanks, thanks, thanks.

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






More information about the thelist mailing list