Hi

 

I work as an teacher and find that I am continually updating departmental web sites etc for colleagues. I hasten to add I have no formal training and am self taught in what i do.

 

Although I thought do I know enough to run a small web design business??

 

So can you check out my homepage and let me know what you think please (its not fully populated) - www.muckycow.co.uk

 

I am wondering whether a more traditional html page would be better!??

 

and

 

this site which is for a friend (I know there's no buttons on it!) - www.muckycow.co.uk/enso/index.html

 

Any feedback on either would be great - could you tell me which one you're talking about though!!!!

 

Thanks

 

MCow

The header graphic is quite fuzzy and you can see a white line between the two rounded boxes.

 

I'm not sure about the full width of the main content area because this produces wildly varying line lengths depending on the users screen resolution and browser window width. At 1440x900 most of the lines stretch right across the screen making it hard to read. Equally a very low browser width (or low screen res) the line length could be too short - also being hard to read. The text might also be a little too small.

 

I don't like that you've used frames because depending on how much content is shown in the accordian it causes scrolling within just the content section (for example when 'Special Offers' is open). Also in the offers section why have you got 2 mailto: links on the same line?

 

The site doesn't hold up that well when disabling styles - everything pretty much stays where it is and that table stays in the centre. Or when increasing text size from the browser - resulting in a bit of a scrolling nightmare.

 

 

For the Enso one...

There's something wrong because the text is about 200px to the left of where it should be (in those gray boxes?). I'm using Firefox 3 by the way. It looks like you're using absolute positioning on all the divs. That might look alright on your screen but even the smallest variation in screen res (which will happen) will mess this up.

Hi

 

Thanks for that - regarding the Absolute Referencing issue on the Enso page - what's the best way to get round this issue?

 

The background is a layered png file (maybe jpeg) - should I make the text part that file in Fireworks and insert all as an image?

 

Any advice would be great! I made the page in Dreamweaver CS3 if that helps!

 

Thanks

 

Jeff

I'm going to say I don't think you're ready, code-wise, to run that small web design business.

 

Your homepage is made using iFrames, therefore you probably don't understand SEO what so ever.

The background is a layered png file (maybe jpeg) - should I make the text part that file in Fireworks and insert all as an image?

 

Any advice would be great! I made the page in Dreamweaver CS3 if that helps!

 

I don't mean to be harsh - but it's good that you know what's wrong and can hinder your sites. I'm about to put up some sites for review soon so feel free to rip me apart!

 

No, you shouldn't make the text part of an image. You have to think about accessibility - people hard of sight for example will use a screen reader or other users may have images turned off for whatever reason - your text will disappear for them and search engines will not like the site either.

 

There is a tutorials section on this very forum - check that out for some layouts. I usually float divs with fixed size and have a footer that clears at the bottom.

 

I think Dreamweaver may be a problem - if you are using the WYSIWIG part (ie. not coding by hand). Dreamweaver is good to get your first site out and when you're starting it may seem strange to want to code everything by hand, but it's worth it for a million reasons that are well documented (some mentioned by me in this thread). One of the main reasons is to have well structured, semantic, optimised code that will validate with the W3C. There are many programs that help speed things up when you're coding by hand too - like Coda (which is what I use).

Hi

 

I work as an teacher and find that I am continually updating departmental web sites etc for colleagues. I hasten to add I have no formal training and am self taught in what i do.

 

Although I thought do I know enough to run a small web design business??

 

So can you check out my homepage and let me know what you think please (its not fully populated) - www.muckycow.co.uk

 

I am wondering whether a more traditional html page would be better!??

 

and

 

this site which is for a friend (I know there's no buttons on it!) - www.muckycow.co.uk/enso/index.html

 

Any feedback on either would be great - could you tell me which one you're talking about though!!!!

 

Thanks

 

MCow

I agree with all that's been said below/above - keep the words away from the edges and check your spelling - if I was going for a designer/webdesigner. Personally I would be put off by any wrong spellings - stationery is the one you want. The Enso one is better design - once the coding is sorted. Still who am I to talk - only built two websites!!!

Thanks everybody for the advice - my spelling pretty good - but admit that I copied and pasted the text from the person who sent it to me and I should have checked it!

 

Its good to know where the issues are and to research what I need to do to improve!

 

Thanks!

Sorry meant to add - for grumpykate.

 

I agree that spelling is an issue and I do appreciate your comments even though you say you have only made two sites; all criticism is good!

 

Be careful though when commenting on people's spelling when your grammar isn't great - incorrect spelling is the one you want!

 

Thanks again though for your comments.

 

I will certainly be reviewing what I have done so far and look forward to any comments in the future.