[thelist] Site Review - http://wizardev.ca/

[Michele Foster - WizarDev]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "M. Seyon" <evoltlist at delime.com>
> >
> >So, here it is ... http://wizardev.ca/
>
> A bit more indepth from me now.

Hi Marc,

Thanks taking the time to go through my site and provide comments.  Greatly
appreciated!!!  :)

>
> First off, the compliments, that it's a lovely site, great use of colour.
> Purples really are unusual, so it does stand out. And the flowers in the
> header are a wonderful touch. I like how you carried the concept through
> with the little four-coloured flower icon in your headers too.

Thanks!!  :)  I'm happy with it ... even if it does give the impression of
being "girly" and "springy" .. more later. :)

>
> I think some people may wonder why the flower image at the top wasn't put
> into the background instead. I'm rather indifferent to the implementation.

Hmm .. never thought about it .. Would there be any advantages to doing
that, from a server resources point of view?  The code could probably use
with a clean up, it's been a long time since I wrote the template for the
site.  When I create the style changer, one year :), I'll look at cleaning
up the code at the same time; I'm sure there are improvements to be made.


> As others have said, the site is clearly very well thought out so most of
> the comments I can make are more suggestions than blatant errors or
> inadequacies.
>
> The biggest issue for me, which is largely a personal one, is that I think
> there's just too much text. Maybe you are a naturally verbose person, and
> you want that to come across, but especially on the front page I think
> there's just too much to read. You call it the "Introduction" but it's
more
> of a detailed executive summary. That said, I can't immediately see how it
> can be trimmed down without losing the details. On some of the inner pages
> though, especially the ones describing your projects, you could probably
> tighten up the language and throw in some bullet points or something if
you
> wanted to.

Ok, point taken.  I'll clean it up some, especially on the front page. Thaks
for the feedback.

>
> I wonder whether you'd want to drop "Web Development" from the title of
the
> sidebar box. There may come a time when you want to highlight a non-web
> solution. Visually, the padding at the sides should match the padding at
> the bottom of the box. Right now it's slightly narrower below.

Good catch, I'll fix the padding on the side box.  I'm not sure I'll remove
the "web development" from the title there, as I wanted to get the key words
in "one more time" :).  Solutions does work well on it's own too though.
I'll actually be adding one more project to the side there, so I may need
the space gained from shortening the title.

>
> Also a small caption on the screenshots might not hurt. Without that
> they're pretty meaningless.

Could you clarify what you mean please.  What sort of caption would you
expect to see there?  Maybe I just need to rename the title, to "Recent
Projects" or something like that?

>
> In the footer, it wasn't immediately apparent (read "didn't notice it tell
> your privacy statement mentioned 'restricted areas' and i went looking for
> links to such") that "Web Resources", "Personal and Archived Sites" and
> "Privacy Statement" were links.

Hmm.. perhaps they need to be underlined then.  Thanks for the suggestion.


> I agree with others about the 'Resume' thing. But I see no harm in keeping
> it handy for inquiring minds.


Yeah, I too agree with the other suggestions.  I'll move it somewhere else.

>
> Not being a fan of spam, I think having an email address posted out in the
> open on a website, like yours is on the contact page, is just a plain bad
> idea. I'd just stick with the form. I'd probably put the form up top too,
> since it is a *web page* and you probably want people contacting you via
> the web rather than by phone or post.


The email address is obfuscated, and I've had that address out in plain text
for a year and 1/2 now, and get very little spam on that account (I get a
few, recently, but I used it accidentally on an open forum .. duh!).

Intersting other comment you've made.  In fact, I'd prefer if people
contacted me by phone.  It's been my personal experience, that those that
call me, are more serious and interested in getting a site done... they've
made that committment and are ready to enter into discussions with possible
developers.  Whereas, those that contact me using the contact form, or even
by email out of the blue, just want to know the price, without even
discussing the details. Could be an interesting conversation to hear others
point of view and experiences.  :)


>
> I wonder whether the Site Map link doesn't belong in the footer, rather
> than the header. It's not actually a main section of your site. More of a
> meta agglomeration of links.

Yeah, it was there before .. there's a section missing from the site that I
haven't written yet.  It'll go at the top.  I'm also working on a custom
photo album, which may (or may not) go at the top too.  It too probably
belongs at the bottom, since it's not related to my professional
services/experience.  We'll see.  :)

>
> On the Resume page it's odd that the security clearance line isn't
indented
> as everything else is. And this is a real nitpick, but those little purple
> triangles you use a bullet points sit just fractionally higher than the
> line of text (in Opera 7.5). Not a biggie really but most noticeable on
the
> Resume page.


Yeah, the bullets are a bit off in IE too ... compared to FF.  I'll work on
getting them aligned a bit better.


>
> On the SEO page (web-marketing.asp) I don't like the use of code samples.
I
> can see businesspeople's eyes glazing over. Rather than showing what
should
> be done, or perhaps in addition to that, say how it helps. "Alt tags give
> the reader/robot/blind person something else to work with rather than a
> collection of pretty pixels.", for example.

Good idea, thanks!

>
> Also your grammar slides around in those bullet points. If you start with
> "proper use of..." then your next points should probably be "providing..."
> and "using the...". And the last one is just totally different.

Yeah, as others have pointed out, I need to fix the content some.  I'll
print it out and work on it that way.  It's easier to find errors by reading
it away from the computer.

>
> Hmm... how come your title says "Search Engine Marketing and Optimization"
> but you address the topics in reverse order?

Probably because I moved something around and forgot to change the title?
:)  I'll fix it, thanks.

Thanks again ... :)

Mich