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

[Richard Bennett]

Hi,
As others have been slow to pick up on this one, I'll spend 10 minutes to
give you some random thoughts:

I checked this one: http://www.rci-nv.com/public/default.asp - first
impression was - "that looks nice".

Then:
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>
Doesn't tell me anything really, if RCI are investors, that's not the "feel"
the site gives. - they are consultants, yes - but that can cover a lot.
Why not have a short paragraph on the splash-page, saying what you do,
something like:
"Use our know-how to guide your engineering project in a profitable, and
environmentally friendly way" or something.

As always, what's the splash-page for? Ok, it looks a lot better than the
inside pages, but there's too much design difference now - it looks like you
redirect to another site. Why not drop the splash-page, and display it's
graphic, and the four buttons, as the first page of the main site, but using
the site's navigation, instead of the little orange boxes?

The rollover-state for the four round buttons isn't nice, - you flip the
shadow up, which doesn't look right, and normally buttons light-up, instead
of becoming darker when moused over. + the olive green doesn't fit with the
other colors.

It's not immediately clear which menu system to use, the orange things, or
the four buttons...  If you keep the splash-page, I'd try to make it clearer
that the left part is the site-navigation, and the four buttons are
case-studies.

Inside the site it wasn't so clear that the top menu were the main sections,
and the left was subsections. It would be nice if I clicked the RCI logo,
that a home-page was shown, with the normal site nav, but also the five
major sections to choose from in the middle, instead of returning to the
splash-page.

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.

As the site validates XHTML, why not display the validation logo at the
bottom of the left nav?

Cheers,
Richard.





----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Schrantz" <scotts at computer-vet.com>
Good Morning Evolters!

This is my first time asking for a site critique, and I'd like it
harsh and spicy please!