I am at the last stage of building a largish site and would like any suggestions/criticisms before we put the job to bed. I am not really a graphic designer, so go gentle on that part of it! Just waiting on last bits of content, otherwise ready to go. Site built with CMS Made Simple 1.5.2

 

Welsh Black Cattle Society

Yer I agree with you there Char, the rounded boxes would probably look better if they just held a couple of spots on the page, for important info, the other thing that does not sit right is the marque, the horizontal one is a bit juddery and the vertical one is competing with it for the viewers eyes,

 

Your site also has some validation errors, 43 of them, which will effect your accessibility and SEO.

 

You also have a mailto link on your contact page which will invite spam by the bucket load.

 

On the plus side the header looks nice, very fitting, the site also appears to be well written. In all honesty your content pages are better than your home page, they are nice and simple and use highlighted boxes here and there to inject colour and break up the topics, personnaly think you should carry this theme over to your home page.

Hi

 

You have been busy, and the kind opinions’ of others have outlined the boxes.

 

Why don’t you make some simple links - under those in place and reduce their clutter?

 

Once things are tidied up the website will look super.

 

The header is stunning and I know a lot about those bulls.

 

If you get stuck for a graphic designer, then please PM me, because my friend is truly incredible!

 

Good luck

Ok, im going to try and be as nice as possible... Possibly one of the worst websites ive ever seen i just cant comment,

 

sorry.

 

 

 

 

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DP Online

Thanks all for your comments.

 

Generally, I agree about the boxes on the homepage. Initially, I had 3, and the client decided that he wanted 7 of them! I am going to have a shot at doing a page following the general theme, but with 3 columns - and have all the peripherals on the right and left and the content in the middle. He is quite adamant that all this information is required on the homepage

 

@T Break, I have used a tag that is meant to obfuscate the email address link and is difficult for spambots to parse, unless they understand Javascript. If this doesn't work, I will have to try an email address mangler!

 

@Daniel, I have looked at your sites and they are stunning. However, I read that you are a graphic design graduate with 4 years commercial design experience. As I pointed out, I am not really a graphic designer.

 

Thanks all for your comments

Thanks all for your comments.

 

Generally, I agree about the boxes on the homepage. Initially, I had 3, and the client decided that he wanted 7 of them! I am going to have a shot at doing a page following the general theme, but with 3 columns - and have all the peripherals on the right and left and the content in the middle. He is quite adamant that all this information is required on the homepage

 

@T Break, I have used a tag that is meant to obfuscate the email address link and is difficult for spambots to parse, unless they understand Javascript. If this doesn't work, I will have to try an email address mangler!

 

@Daniel, I have looked at your sites and they are stunning. However, I read that you are a graphic design graduate with 4 years commercial design experience. As I pointed out, I am not really a graphic designer.

 

Thanks all for your comments

 

 

 

I understand this but on a non-graphic designer note, your probably better off without the website than with it.

A website speaks a million words a bout a company/individual. Basically your trying to explain the quality of the meat through a portal where someone would not second glance at.

For an easy £100 you can buy a template which would some what look a thousand times better than this.

 

 

 

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DP Online

Hi

The homepage is really really bad.As others have pointed do something with those boxes.

But the other pages look prety nice!Much much better.You made good use of that nice green and they look good.

 

Maybe remove the white top gradient stripe.I think it would look better if it was just blue at the top.

It's not a bad website just do something with the homepage.

Hi

 

I am sorry you have basically been slated although most people have added some sound advice. If some helpful advice can not be given I would suggest maybe certain ppl shouldn't reply.

 

Anyway, in my humble opinion, if design is not your forte, simplify it right down. I agree the boxes are too much. The header I think is good- maybe play around a bit with the opacity using an image editor to soften it a touch? Make your nav bar more obvious and cut your body right down to maybe 2 or 3 areas. Take away the background images and the scrolling marquee. Make it look a bit cleaner and crisper.

 

This is by no means the worst website i have seen!

 

I hope this helps. Otherwise maybe see if one of these 'graphic designers' could help you wth that side of things?

Here we are again! I have changed the layout to match the theme of the rest of the site. The client is adamant that all this information has to go on the homepage, so I am working to some constraints in this respect. As regards the marquee, I managed to cut down from 3 to 2 (the client likes them), and this morning I have just the one marquee and the updates fading in and out of view rather than scrolling. Thanks for all your replies - they really have helped!

In my humble opinion its a vast improvement. looks 100% better.

 

The only thing I would suggest is making the green panel a lighter green so it contrasts a bit more with the green in the welsh meat logo.

A lot better!

nice bit of bovine action going on there.

 

just found the black text/image background combination a little hard on the eye. they seem to fight each other a bit.

 

you're probably fed up with fiddling by now, but if you fancy trying it might be worth seeing if it makes a difference with the black text slightly more grey, and having the background image fade in from the trees at the top to the cows.

 

you've done well dealing with a lot of content, nice one.

My client has approved the design and he is happy with it! It is now getting launched to the members and hopefully they will be happy with it. I am not doing any more on it until I start getting feedback from the members. I have found your input on here priceless and it has really improved the homepage!

 

Thanks a lot to all that helped me

Ok, im going to try and be as nice as possible... Possibly one of the worst websites ive ever seen ohmy.gif i just cant comment,

 

sorry.

 

Wow. Some nice constructive criticism there... If you're not going to give a reason why it's the worst you've ever seen, then whats the point of posting...

 

I've only just looked at the site, so I don't know what it was like before. To me, it looks fine.

The main thing I'd change is the background image where all the content is. It makes the text a bit more difficult to read. Maybe less opacity on the image?

 

Dan.

I didn't see what it was like before either but looking at it in its current state all i would say that you need to do is add a bit more contrast between the text and the background image of the main body of the page. It can get a little hard to read at some stages. Other than that if your client is happy with it then the site is good, not to my taste but nonetheless still good.

I tried to get away with just a simple hoempage with a green left sidebar and blue right sidebar, but the client liked the idea of the image background. He is happy with it and it is now live, even though some of the content is not yet finished. I am going to leave it for a few days, but I need to increase the height of the homepage background at some point - I will reduce the opacity a little at the same time.