chrischris on Oct 9, 2005 at 4:13:05 AM (# 0)
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philcha on Oct 10, 2005 at 3:30:40 AM (# 1)
This message has been edited.Good points: - Loads reasonably fast
- Pleasant appearance
- No distracting or annoying features
Things you must change: - Eliminate all typos - there are lots on the schedule page.
- Add info on how to get tickets - I guess you're planning this anyway.
Things I'd change if it was my site: - Change "Navigation" to "Menu" or "Site menu" - more people will understand that.
- Consider using an off-white bg, as pure white bg can become tiring after a while.
- If you use off-white bg, you may need slightly darker main text.
- Drop the bg image for menu items, as it makes the text jump around
- With a light bg, stick to the standard menu colours - red = hover, blue = unvisited, purple = visited. That's what inexperienced Web users are most likely to recognise.
- Don't put an undisguised mailto link on a web page, it's asking for spam. Try searching Google for e.g. "email address web page spam" to get ideas for alternatives.
- Drop the "CSS" and "HTML" graphics - most web users don't understand them, so they increase download time for no benefit.
- Use a larger main text size - many of your potential audience will be middle-aged.
- Drop the mission statement, because it does nothing for visitors. Use the space for announcements which are likely to be of interest to potential audiences - forthcoming concerts, awards won, radio / TV appearances, etc.
- In my opinion some of the info is poorly structured. For example:
- The "about" page contains a mix of mission statement (drop it), material about donations (move to the donations page) and info for current and prospective players (make a separate "players" page.
- Persuade the orchestra to pay up for its own domain name - it's cheap enough, looks more professional and gives the orchestra a more stable web presence (e.g. you might leave the area).
Bottom line: I'd visit the site from time to time if I lived in the area.
Winterwolf on Oct 10, 2005 at 12:01:47 PM (# 2)I dont 100% agree with phichas design advice...plenty of users understand that links can be different colors for instance. This isnt the 90s or even 2k anymore...
But most of his comments seem right on target:
In particular, drop the images concerning CSS and HTML. They are only a matter of interest to very few people. And they do slow the download of the page.
Also the about page should really be the "Guide Page" and the "Player Page".
You can find a number of javascripts or serverside scripts online to help disguise email...in addition you can simply put (for example): blahNOTANEMAIL@blah.com or blahNOTANEMAILATblahdotcom if your users are slightly sophisticated.
Over all a simple and elegant design if you ask me.
Winterwolf on Oct 10, 2005 at 12:02:37 PM (# 3)I dont 100% agree with phichas design advice...plenty of users understand that links can be different colors for instance. This isnt the 90s or even 2k anymore...
But most of his comments seem right on target:
In particular, drop the images concerning CSS and HTML. They are only a matter of interest to very few people. And they do slow the download of the page.
Also the about page should really be the "Guide Page" and the "Player Page".
You can find a number of javascripts or serverside scripts online to help disguise email...in addition you can simply put (for example): blahNOTANEMAIL@blah.com or blahNOTANEMAILATblahdotcom if your users are slightly sophisticated.
Over all a simple and elegant design if you ask me.
Winterwolf on Oct 10, 2005 at 12:03:18 PM (# 4)goals page* not guides page
bgates87 on Oct 10, 2005 at 2:55:24 PM (# 5)About the domain name, they do have their own domain name, but until I complete the site I just put it on my own site for them to look at as progress goes along. When it is completed, it will be moved to nmkso.org, but for now the only people who know its there are me, the clients, and now you.
As for info structure, I agree with what you said, but right now it's just the way the clients asked for it to be. After they see it I'll recommend changing it and see what they think. Like I said, work is still in progress.
Thanks for all the feedback, thinking about it now it is a good idea take off the hover image on the links and the html and css images. I've used an undisguised email address on several sites before without problems, but I'll definitely consider changing that too. Also I'll fix the typos, all the text content was given to me by the clients so I just copy and pasted it into the code and assumed they had checked it, but I guess not. Thanks again.
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