[CreativeShelf]

Hello Guys,

Would any of you skilled and talented creatives and/or linguistics please help me with my website to remove any margin of error?

If you could visit designwebuk.co.uk and provide me with any feedback to design or grammar or any general feedback, it would be much appreciated.

Many thanks,
Jake

This post has been edited by CreativeShelf: 02 January 2012 - 07:42 PM

[MikeChipshop]

[moved to reviews]

[CreativeShelf]

Please? Has anyone got any feedback?

[brightonmike]

Design

Initial impressions are good but on closer inspection there's a lot of tidying up to be done. I like the blue but I don't like the texture, I think it muddies and dirties the blue header. Crack open your PSD, remove the texture, let's see how it looks then.

Your CTA is very small and I'm not sure having it on the left hand side is the best placement. They generally go on the right hand side as this is where people most expect them to be.

Below the blue, it starts to get a little cluttered. I would have three boxes, not four, but keep them roughly the same size but more spaced out. I would give these three boxes more vertical spacing above and below.

Overall it's really not a bad attempt, it just suffers a bit by being a little too tight. Don't get too paranoid about squeezing everything in above the fold or whatever, scrolling is what people expect to do and the site would look a lot nicer if there was more vertical space between

Code

This is where you're clearly struggling. Your front end code is a complete shambles, there's no other way to put it.

For a start, you're using tables where you don't need to. If you want to be a forward-thinking designer and developer creating truly up to date websites then stop using tables.

Further, you're using inline styles. The only time you should ever do this is for styling emails. Put ALL your styling in your stylesheet - that's what it's there for.

To be honest, your front end code is so messy and so out of date I'd strongly advise you re-write all of it and switch to more up to date technologies such as HTML5. It's not hard, and you could probably re-code the whole site in a day.

Sure, it may not make much of a difference to the site to the end user, but if you're going to be selling websites, you need to make sure you did your own properly.

Good luck!

[CreativeShelf]

Thank you very much for your feedback. It's much appreciated.

I agree the code is extremely messy and have thought about HTML5; however the code is not compatible with all browsers and a lot of people are still using browsers that don't support it. I will learn it so thank you. I know it will benefit me.

I see what you mean about more vertical spacing. It would look a lot better now i visualize it so I will get on with that.

It's really appreciated and any other feedback is definitely welcome.

[J.P]

I like the colour scheme, its a shame that it's not been used much throughout the website. Im not too sure about the texture and light effects used though.

I would put 'We create Google-compliant, affordable websites that will keep your visitors returning.' underneath 'We are Lincoln-based website designers providing bespoke design solutions.'

The homepage gets very plain after the header, I would introduce more colour into the services section and perhaps also on the contact bar directly below.

Make the 'Free Quote' link a call to action as it doesn't visually stand out at the moment.

Page URL's could do with a slight update E.G /about-2 could be updated to /who-we-are or /about-design-web-uk.

Im slightly confused by 'We offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you’re not happy with your website design after it’s launched, we’ll offer to completely re-design it or give you your money back.' - Surely once a design has been signed off by the client there is minimal room for negotiation once the website has been live for a month. I would just be a bit skeptical, you don't want to double your workload.

[J.P]

CreativeShelf, on 04 January 2012 - 09:14 AM, said:

I agree the code is extremely messy and have thought about HTML5; however the code is not compatible with all browsers and a lot of people are still using browsers that don't support it. I will learn it so thank you. I know it will benefit me.

Not true im afraid, whereas some HTML5 tags are not supported cross-browser, the standard layout tags can still be interpreted by older browsers.

HTML5 Boilerplate is a good place to start.

[brightonmike]

As JP says, it isn't true what you're saying. The only browser you need to worry about with regards to compatibility is IE8. IE6/7 usage is pretty much negligible now.

You can add old IE8 support for HTML5 using a small script called a HTML5 shim. The shim allows IE8 to recognise and interpret HTML5 tags. I build all my sites in HTML5 and they all work flawlessly in old IE.

http://code.google.com/p/html5shim/

For things like videos, there are plenty of options out there that include fallbacks for older browsers. For a lot of new HTML5 code, older browsers will automatically default back to old code anyway. For example, if you use the new input types, in IE8 if it doesn't recognise the new HTML5 input type it will simply revert back to the old default.

All good web developers now code in HTML5, there's little/no exception to this.

[CreativeShelf]

Hi Guys,

So what's the HTML5 boilerplate? I've looked on the website but is it a template or a code library?

Both of you have provided fantastic feedback, thank you.

[brightonmike]

It's a frame work. It's sort of a template, but minus any styling/layout.

I guess you could call it a "code template".

[CreativeShelf]

Is it better to have a prices page or just a contact/free quote/enquiry page? This is something major that's bothering me.

WHat design software are you both using?

This post has been edited by CreativeShelf: 04 January 2012 - 11:21 AM

[roothost]

CreativeShelf, on 04 January 2012 - 11:04 AM, said:

Is it better to have a prices page or just a contact/free quote/enquiry page? This is something major that's bothering me.

WHat design software are you both using?

I don't think you can genuinely offer prices online, each project is different and, as such, requires a different way of thinking, different features, different time-scales and therefore will all be differently priced. Fine to say "..starting from £££" but I wouldn't give package prices or limit yourself to a set price as you could run in to problems further on down the line.

[J.P]

CreativeShelf, on 04 January 2012 - 11:04 AM, said:

Is it better to have a prices page or just a contact/free quote/enquiry page? This is something major that's bothering me.

WHat design software are you both using?

Its very much dependent on how you want to charge clients. Are you offering a fixed fee for something like a website package or are you going down the bespoke route, where each project needs to be quoted for based on the desired functionality?

We have tonnes of threads on pricing, just do a quick search above.

Regarding software, below is my current setup.

Design & Graphics

Photoshop CS5
Illustrator CS5

Editor

Textmate (but I will be making the switch to Sublime Text 2 at some point this year, purely for multi-platform purposes.)

[OwenONeill]

The highlighting in red hurts my eyes.

You got a good starting point - just take the advice that these people have set and make it more simple, set up a CSS sheet, clean up the code and get on with it buddy

[brightonmike]

Notepad++ for all coding.

I don't use any kind of visual designer, I prefer to design first by hand, second in browser. No PS for me!