[thelist] Site review

John C Bullas jcbullas at nildram.co.uk
Wed Mar 10 02:02:12 CST 2004


At 06:00 10/03/2004, you wrote
>Hey, I know how it is to work with people who are not computer literate. 
>Simple is better for them. I'm only barely literate. I know less and less 
>each year.
>
>My 2 cents:
>1. I don't like the initial page. It's is not useful, and it is too wide. 
>The page that it redirects to should be the initial page.

OK, trying to convince them, they like it though

>2. Personally, I tend to dislike instructions. "To navigate around the 
>site use the links below..." Using links to navigate is pretty much 
>understood by now.

The users are not very web facing they mostly smell of tar :)

>My personal opinion is that if you have to give instructions, then your 
>web site is broken. In your case, the site is not broken. The instructions 
>are merely unnecessary.
>3. Somebody else said not to use "click here" links and you said you 
>removed them, but I'm not sure anybody told you why. Search engines place 
>a certain weight on the text of a link. If the text of the link says 
>something meaningful about the destination, and matches the destination, 
>it's good for usability and it's good for search engines. It indicates 
>"this is what the destination page is about."

thanks, will work though this....

>4. Not a big fan of centered text. The left navigation might look better 
>left justified.

will try, tried, looks odd , but thanks

>5. Your personal web log appears to have a more polished design. Any 
>chance of borrowing from it?

http://www.soton.ac.uk/~johnb ?  or the blog, the XML? blog is self formatting


>6. Even if the graphic design is not polished, I've been to many sites 
>like yours, with simple (even down-right ugly) designs and if I think 
>about it, those are the sites where I've actually spent money, or come 
>close to it. Sites selling Vespa accessories, parrot diapers and other 
>quirky things aren't going to look like some fancy-schmancy web log. But 
>they are going to have the quirky things I want to buy or learn about that 
>I can't find in my local shopping center.

Thanks for that


>I have to admire you for being able to make web sites for clients.

Thanks, I helps my meagre grant and was once the only source of a small 
amount of income after a quite nasty nervous breakdown

Are you a teacher in any capacity by any chance?

FB

>  If only I had taken that opportunity when I was first offered I might be 
> a "real" web designer like all these other folks instead of twiddling my 
> thumbs in the Dilbert cube farm, doing a little html here, a little JSP 
> there, a little domino designer there a little flash over there, but 
> nothing to any level of greatness.
>
>Diane



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