[thelist] Site Critique - www.rci-nv.com/public/

Scott Schrantz scotts at rci-nv.com
Wed Jan 30 17:29:00 CST 2002


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Bennett [mailto:richard.bennett at skynet.be]

	Thanks for the input. Based on this and other responses I've gotten,
I think I'll try to push hard to get the splash page taken out. It was
originally a concession to the visual designer, but there was always that
little voice in the back of my head screaming "Splash pages are bad! Splash
pages are bad!" I think it's time to put my foot down. This is her first web
project anyway, and protests of usability were usually greeted by "But it
looks good..."
	It's good to have some ammo.

> I cannot immediately see what the site is about, is it
> tourism, or a mining
> company... and the text in "about RCI" contains to much jargon:
> <quote>
> Resource Concepts, Inc. (RCI), is a multidisciplinary consulting firm,
> integrating expertise from such diverse disciplines as engineering,
> environmental services and natural resources.
> </quote>
	I'm trying to get them to rewrite some of the text, but I'm going
about it tactfully, so I don't insult the people who wrote it. Maybe I'll
leave a copy of Cluetrain laying around. Pretty much everything on the site
was pulled from our paper brochures, and we haven't started to tackle the
content yet. But a "multidisciplinary consulting firm" is what we advertise
ourselves as. It may be jargon but at least it's industry jargon. Our
clients will understand it, I guess; speaking from IT it's hard to tell. I
have trouble describing it to people myself.

> Inside the site it wasn't so clear that the top menu were the
> main sections, and the left was subsections.
	Not subsections, exactly, but two different topics. The top nav is
company info and the left is about our services. I used to have them both on
the left, but separating them seemed a better chioce. We're still trying to
pin down things like that.

> There is something funny about the left-nav in the site, when
> I move my mouse over it, I can get my CPU up to 100%, and the
> mouse doesn't move freely. (IE5.5 win2000) The top nav works
> fine. Maybe the  left one is more deeply nested, or something.
	Actually, the top nav is nested more deeply (two tables deep,
opposed to one on the left). Those are <a href="">, set to display:block
with CSS margins, padding and a: effects. I tested it on IE5.01 and IE6, but
not 5.5. I hope I'm not going to crash anybody's browser with them.

> As the site validates XHTML, why not display the validation
> logo at the bottom of the left nav?
	I've gone back and forth on that one. The fact that the code
validates really is irrelevant to the content of the site or the work that
we do. I can't see a project manager at a local GID looking at our site:
"XHTML! Gosh, let's hire them!" Validation is a point of pride for me, but
it's enough for me to know it in my heart. Advertising it would just confuse
people.
Plus I'm always afraid of making one little change, ruining the validation,
not realizing it, and getting caught with my pants down.

Thanks for everything!
Scott



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