[thelist] Site check, please?

[Toby]

Hi there,

Seems you have done a good job, I guess my 5 cents are;

1) Adjust the menu so that it uses background images and a HTML font instead
of full-out images, my friend sent me this link the other day;

http://www.kayskreations.net/fonts/fonttb.html (no mac fonts tho, slightly
annoying)

and for styling there is always this which is handy;

http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/

I think the css rule that they may not include here that would help you is
'letter-spacing: 1.6px;' and 'text-transform: uppercase;'... you can play
with this and get some interesting results.

You should do this as your menu relies on too many images each with a
rollover and it is just too heavy, its slow on my 24mb connection and FF
here in London... this is to be avoided at all costs, and no offence, but
the font chosen in my opinion conflicts with almost everything on the page.
I heard a rule once which I don't follow as I'm not a designer, but still,
its no more than 3 font types per page.

2) From an optimisation angle you need to re-size and re-compress the images
you are using in the background.

3) Avoid using the import rule unless you are doing it for a specific
reason. It also gives you the FOUC bug >
http://www.bluerobot.com/web/css/fouc.asp/ 

4) If you want more detailed feedback from other people you will need to
structure your HTML so it is more readable... indenting is a little skew-if
(if you know what I mean!).

5) Again with your css, you may want to comment it in a few places just to
help yourself in a few months, or even a few weeks.

Hope that helps!
Toby

email at tobybrancher.net 


-----Original Message-----
From: thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org
[mailto:thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of Matthew Bernhardt
Sent: 05 February 2007 03:04
To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
Subject: [thelist] Site check, please?

Hello everyone,
  I'd like to ask interested folks to take a look at this site and offer
feedback:

http://benedikt.knowlton.ohio-state.edu

This is a re-launch of the web presence for the school where I work - you
can see our current site here:

http://knowlton.osu.edu

Notes about the new site and my priorities:

* Generally speaking, I'm interested in critiques from a usability/clarity
perspective first, before aesthetic concerns. The internal stakeholders can
(and have) given me quite a bit of feedback about the "look" of the site.

* The menu system is currently not what I'd choose if I had complete freedom
- as inferred above, I'd rather do this with CSS and background colors.
However, the design perspective needs greater control over the letters,
spacing, and font than I can currently achieve with CSS and
normally-available fonts. Am I missing something? I would -love- to ditch
the images here.

* Thoughts on the utility of the breadcrumbs at the top of the content div?
I'm getting some pushback internaly about why they're necessary, and the
literature I've reviewed so far has been equivocal about how often
breadcrumbs are used.

* Anything else I'm missing or is critical to fix? Opportunities that I'm
neglecting?

Thanks in advance,
Matt Bernhardt
bernhardt.7 at osu.edu

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