[thelist] YASC (Yet Another Site Check) :)

[Seyon]

Message from Gary McPherson (9/13/2004 09:45 AM)
>Hey all! Would appreciate if I could get feedback on any lingering bugs or
>issues on a site I'm finalising.
>
>Site is available at http://www.raggarobics.com/defaults.aspx

I don't know, the front page doesn't do a good job for me. The constantly 
moving masthead becomes a distraction very quickly. Also it seems as if the 
background image of the sweaty instructor is the most important design 
element on the screen. It's given most prominence in screen real estate and 
the large navigation buttons are built around it. Further, these buttons 
are not connected to the rest of the design in any other way. In other 
words, if you remove the background image, will the site design flow smoothly?

Additionally those highly stylised large navigation buttons clash quite 
horribly with the "boring Arial" tabs, with this effect further exacerbated 
by the fancy tabs and plain, underlined text. Losing the underline might help.

Coming back to screen real estate, while you've got a big old photo of an 
instructor taking up 85% of the design, the news is scrunched up in a tiny 
column with a scroll bar which looks even smaller because the text is 
standard size. It being left-aligned and having very little padding adds to 
the cramped look.

You're really inconsistent with that apostrophe in "Grandmas Corner". On 
the front page alone, you've got it displayed two ways:
- Grandmas Corner
- Grandma's Corner
Then on the actual page you've got a third usage
- Grandmas' Corner
Which is it? Consult a grammarian. Settle on one usage. Be consistent.

You've also got "Hi there mums, dads aunts, uncles, mothers and last but 
not least GRANDMAS'" You don't need an apostrophe on a plural word. You 
don't say "The computers' are working fine" do you? There are other 
spelling and grammar usage errors you might want to have a proofreader find 
and correct for you as well.

"Members" may not be the best choice of title for that section. When I saw 
it I assumed it meant "a section for members", not "click here to find out 
about becoming a member". "Membership" or "Join Now" might be a better 
title. ("Join Now" would get my pick as it's an action phrase.)

Why on earth would people interested in raggarobics care a flying ...fish 
that the site validates. Would they even know what W3C, CSS, and HTML mean? 
Yes the buttons are there as a personal ego trip for the developer, but 
they're of absolutely no use to the average user of the site.

Did you really need to do a whole flash file for the footer? Wouldn't two 
animated fade-in/fade-out gifs plus a text copyright statement have done 
the job just as well?

regards.
-marc

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