Hi there,

 

I posted this on another section and got some great feedback from a member.

 

No I'm looking for feedback, if possible, from a wider audience.

 

The site in question is at Visit Islay

 

At present this is for a University module with hoping to turn it into a small commercial site in the future.

 

I've been learning HTML and CSS, plus a little JS for a few months now. The learning curve has been steep but more than rewarding! I love how each day there is more and more to learn and to discover along the way.

 

Any feedback..good and bad would be really appreciated!

Well it is a very simple design, but is nice and clean, fast loading. Kind of 90s style though if you ask me.

Thanks for the feedback, if a little simple! hehe As I've only started learning html and css I thought it best to start of with simple designs and focus on the basics, clean designs that work properly with quick loading times. I'll probably sound crazy with this, but for certain types of websites I think clean and simple is best. Feedback from people I have asked points to the fact that too many websites try to be flashy and get stuffed with content and to many visuals that result in a webpage taking what I call too long to load.

 

For my own site I am going to try and create a responsive more modern design to teach myself more advanced techniques and coding.

 

Thanks again and thanks to anyone for any future responses.

Drop the green background!

 

For a start it's HUGE, nearly 1.9 MB (which is 66% of the total size of the page) and takes about 3.6 seconds to load fully. So that ruins the whole idea of quick loading times.

 

Also, it looks out of place compared to the rest of the colour scheme and makes the site look messy. I reckon it would be much cleaner if you just the current light blue background instead.

Simplicity and clarity are always a good starting point in design. However, I'd change your colour scheme, at the moment it's a bit sickly and dull (especially that green/brown/yellow/whatever background colour. I also think changing the background colour on the content (the one that's currently blue) to either an off-white or a pure #ffffff white would be a good decision. It's all a bit dull at the moment.

 

Also - get rid of Lucida Handwriting for the subheading, it's an awful typeface. And the graphic on your logo needs work, it looks very low quality at the moment.

Edited April 3, 201214 yr by JumpJump

P.S. Forgot to add - your site is way too wide (unnecessarily), it has a horizontal scrollbar that scrolls to nothing.

Edited April 3, 201214 yr by JumpJump

Drop the green background!

 

For a start it's HUGE, nearly 1.9 MB (which is 66% of the total size of the page) and takes about 3.6 seconds to load fully. So that ruins the whole idea of quick loading times.

 

Also, it looks out of place compared to the rest of the colour scheme and makes the site look messy. I reckon it would be much cleaner if you just the current light blue background instead.

 

Thanks for the response. I certainly will try and bring down the file size, never knew as it loaded up pretty quick on different computers in my home.

 

I'll take onboard your suggestions regarding the colour scheme, though I may stick with it. Purely because it looks nothing like the competition in that area, an example of a main site from this area is http://www.islayinfo.com/

I know this site gets alot of traffic as there a no alternatives.

 

Thanks again for your advice!

Simplicity and clarity are always a good starting point in design. However, I'd change your colour scheme, at the moment it's a bit sickly and dull (especially that green/brown/yellow/whatever background colour. I also think changing the background colour on the content (the one that's currently blue) to either an off-white or a pure #ffffff white would be a good decision. It's all a bit dull at the moment.

 

Also - get rid of Lucida Handwriting for the subheading, it's an awful typeface. And the graphic on your logo needs work, it looks very low quality at the moment.

 

Hi there, also thanks for the response.

 

I've had a think and I'm going to stick with the colours as they are, I'm maybe being brave but sometimes you have to be. I must disagree with you that it is dull. If anything white is dull at times as sooo many websites concentrate on white. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all sites should be coloured in the same way as mine. Its just for this particular site it works. Again if you take a second to look at the competition for this area then you will see that mine stands out from the rest...in design anyway. Honest people, not designers or anything, have all said that it looks cool and that they would remember this site after visiting it.

 

I do appreciate you feedback, just don't agree with it! I'm still bemused that you think its dull! In regards with the logo man, yeah he's not finished as of yet, I've only spent about 15 mins on him.

Hi there, also thanks for the response.

 

I've had a think and I'm going to stick with the colours as they are, I'm maybe being brave but sometimes you have to be. I must disagree with you that it is dull. If anything white is dull at times as sooo many websites concentrate on white. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all sites should be coloured in the same way as mine. Its just for this particular site it works. Again if you take a second to look at the competition for this area then you will see that mine stands out from the rest...in design anyway. Honest people, not designers or anything, have all said that it looks cool and that they would remember this site after visiting it.

 

I do appreciate you feedback, just don't agree with it! I'm still bemused that you think its dull! In regards with the logo man, yeah he's not finished as of yet, I've only spent about 15 mins on him.

 

What I mean is that the background colour is a dull colour (not dull as in 'boring', Google dull colours). Me and another person are telling you the background colour doesn't work - just because it's different from a competitor doesn't mean it's good. That site you linked to isn't up to much so I wouldn't worry too much about that. Perhaps take a look at higher end sites for examples of effective design in a similar area (for example - http://www.darasgarden.com/). I'd work with colour in the photography and the typography rather than the backgrounds (especially the background for the content). And again - lose the Lucida Handwriting. But of course, the decision is yours, use the advice as you wish.

Edited April 3, 201214 yr by JumpJump

What I mean is that the background colour is a dull colour (not dull as in 'boring', Google dull colours). Me and another person are telling you the background colour doesn't work - just because it's different from a competitor doesn't mean it's good. That site you linked to isn't up to much so I wouldn't worry too much about that. Perhaps take a look at higher end sites for examples of effective design in a similar area (for example - http://www.darasgarden.com/). I'd work with colour in the photography and the typography rather than the backgrounds (especially the background for the content). And again - lose the Lucida Handwriting. But of course, the decision is yours, use the advice as you wish.

 

Thanks again for the advice. My apologies if I sounded a bit defensive, I blame the lack of coffee this morning!

 

I really the like the link that you posted, I'd love to get to the point that I could design work to that standard! Its a good job that I don't stop learning or working. Now I shall indeed have a look at the background colour and see how it looks with the everything. Oh no your right about the font issue, I haven't spent much time on fonts and is an area that I'm needing to look at it.

 

Do you have any sites yourself, I'm always looking to see how other people are developing sites themselves.

 

Also I'm not sure how to fix the scrolling problem, to the right of the screen, any help would be uber appreciated!

Thanks again for the advice. My apologies if I sounded a bit defensive, I blame the lack of coffee this morning!

Not at all! That's the best way to engage in constructive criticism. To have meaningful conversations about what works and what doesn't.

 

I always advise to start with typography relatively early in the process. Along with layout, it is the most important part of web design imo. Pick two typefaces that work well together (preferably a serif and a sans serif), one for headlines and one for body text. Choose the size of your heading 1, then heading 2 etc down to the smallest text element. This will establish a visual hierarchy in your design. Use this with a solid grid layout (Google 960 grid for the most common web design grid) and you have a good starting point.

Edited April 3, 201214 yr by JumpJump

Oh, and to fix the scrolling problem, add 'width: 100%;' to your .facebook class.

Edited April 3, 201214 yr by JumpJump

Not at all! That's the best way to engage in constructive criticism. To have meaningful conversations about what works and what doesn't.

 

I always advise to start with typography relatively early in the process. Along with layout, it is the most important part of web design imo. Pick two typefaces that work well together (preferably a serif and a sans serif), one for headlines and one for body text. Choose the size of your heading 1, then heading 2 etc down to the smallest text element. This will establish a visual hierarchy in your design. Use this with a solid grid layout (Google 960 grid for the most common web design grid) and you have a good starting point.

 

Some recent projects of mine (remove the spaces after the 'www', I'll probably delete these pretty soon since I don't want this showing up in Google):

 

http://www'>http://www'>http://www'>http://www .theatreclub.ie

http://www .sixnations.be

http://www .europegaa.eu

http://www .innovationsbedesigns.ca

 

 

Wow..thanks very much, you have been very kind with all this advice!

 

Now I've done some work I would agree that I should be starting off with typography and layouts. I honestly haven't used grids yet, though I was planning on it for my own site to try and take my designs to the next level. I'm trying to learn as much as possible from the basics up which is helping my learning process.

 

I've changed some colours now on the site if you have the time to take a quick look.

 

Once again thank you for all your advice and to everyone else!

Drop the green background!

 

For a start it's HUGE, nearly 1.9 MB (which is 66% of the total size of the page) and takes about 3.6 seconds to load fully. So that ruins the whole idea of quick loading times.

 

Also, it looks out of place compared to the rest of the colour scheme and makes the site look messy. I reckon it would be much cleaner if you just the current light blue background instead.

 

Background dropped and some other stuff changed!