Hello!

First, I'd like to thank everyone again for the first round of testing. All of your suggestions really helped me improve the design! I've got a bunch more done on the website now, and I hope to go live within the next month.

torontorabbits.com

I'd really appreciate your feedback! Thank you so much

Known issues / Next steps:

• Some of the internal links under "About Rabbits" aren't pointing anywhere yet because I have a bunch of PDFs to upload and a couple more html pages to write.
  
• "Local Listings" is a Wordpress blog, on wordpress.com for now but I plan to migrate it to an installation. That's a whole other kettle of fish.
  

It's nice. Simple and easy to use. It's hard to tell what you should improve, because you didn't add any unnecessary and crapy features

I'd say update these button as they aren't the best looking. I like the website though.

Thank you both, I appreciate it

 

I'd say update these button as they aren't the best looking.

 

Thanks for the suggestion!

 

To be honest I've always struggled with social icons. Does anyone have any tips/know any good resources that might help me??

 

Thank you!!

Thank you both, I appreciate it

 

 

Thanks for the suggestion!

 

To be honest I've always struggled with social icons. Does anyone have any tips/know any good resources that might help me??

 

Thank you!!

 

Sometimes I use www.iconarchive.com for icons or I make them myself.

 

Your other alternative is to just copy really nice ones from www.dribbble.com

Edited July 13, 201313 yr by Panda

The design is nice, however I think it will be nicer if you replace those green borders with black and also make them thinner. That green color... with that light blue... I don't know

I'd say update these button as they aren't the best looking. I like the website though.

I agree these need to change, I really like the top half, the main body of content i cant say it works, as the top half looks modern and fresh and the bottom half looks really dated where the pictures are, I think you need to sort the pictures out with slightly smaller thumbnails, put some descpriptions next to the images, make them look like listings name, age, breed. etc...

 

Have a look at this website, I'm not tooo keen on it, BUT it exlpains what i have been trying to explain in the first paragraph http://www.petmd.com/ take note of the header where it Health, Strange but true, summer safety, can you see how they are listed going down, you should do something smilar, but you can leave small icons in each box a contact icon, wishlist icon, quick preview button etc...

 

The color scheme of that green with light cyan i don't think will work across your site... Have a look around for inspiration, there are not too many good pet website out there, but i like wag.com they have a nicer colour scheme but may have over done it with TOO many colours.

 

hope this helps

Hi nicolasks. Personally, I'm not too fond of the cyan blue colour, it's a bit too in-your-face for my liking and doesn't echo "professional", but that could just be my stubbornness towards this colour on websites in general. The links bottom-left in the footer aren't consistent - 'About Us' seems to want to stand out more, being capitalised and bold, which lets down the entire row in my mind. Other than that, I think once it's developed a bit more we can add a bit more guidance.

 

Oh, also - too many rabbits. You tryin' to start a rabbit invasion and doom the human race or somethin'?!

Hi nicolasks. Personally, I'm not too fond of the cyan blue colour, it's a bit too in-your-face for my liking and doesn't echo "professional", but that could just be my stubbornness towards this colour on websites in general. The links bottom-left in the footer aren't consistent - 'About Us' seems to want to stand out more, being capitalised and bold, which lets down the entire row in my mind. Other than that, I think once it's developed a bit more we can add a bit more guidance.

 

Oh, also - too many rabbits. You tryin' to start a rabbit invasion and doom the human race or somethin'?!

But they are sooooooooooooooooooooooo cute and fluffy.....

But they are sooooooooooooooooooooooo cute and fluffy.....

 

http://www.vegansoapbox.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/squirrel_with_machine_gun.jpg

 

Our allies the squirrels will defend us against the impending rabbit onslaught. The cuteness is just a front.

 

(...slightly off-topic. )

rabbits have poop bombs which can destroy the grey squirrels, I hate the squirrels they run up and down my tree and sometimes branches are broken which then fall on the car.... this makes me angry....

The basics are good. The website is quite easy to navigate and the design albeit not spectacular does its job.

 

There's a few things that might get you started on making the page look a lot better.

 

1.) Not much time has been spent on typography.

The choice of font, Helvetica doesn't do it justice. Don't get me wrong, I love Helvetica when it's used correctly. But maybe have a look on http://www.google.com/fonts/ (There's plenty of tutorials on how to make them work, but the process offered by Google is so ridiculously simple that I don't think you'll need them.) to pick something more appealing. Do not go overboard though. Keep it simple, typography is one of the most difficult aspects but can make or break a website. Perhaps Open Sans would be a safe bet.

 

Also, the color of the font is full black everywhere which comes out a bit too strong and doesn't really 'guide' the visitor through the various parts of the page. Perhaps make it a little bit lighter and pick some different colours for parts of the page that deserve attention. Play with it. A greyish colour will go very well with the greens on the page.

 

Last thing for the typography. Play a little with the letter spacing. Especially in the header.

 

 

2.) Whitespace...

 

The rabbit pictures on the frontpage seem a little crammed together. Perhaps give them a little more space from each other? Also I see what you tried to achieve with the white border around the photos. Unfortunately the border is barely visible with the light blue background. One nice trick would be to give the photos a white background and a 5px padding on all sides. Then add a 1px border that, in lightness, is either slightly in between the white and blue or just a little darker than the blue. You could play even more by adding subtle CSS3 box shadow. Tutorials for that are easy to find.

 

 

3.) White background outside wrapper

 

Have a look at http://subtlepatterns.com/ and pick a nice subtle whiteish pattern to replace the full white body background and then maybe add a subtle 1px border to your wrapper?

 

 

 

This perhaps seems like a lot of critique, but it's really just meant to encourage you to play with some properties you might not have thought of yet. I haven't tried any of them with an in--browser css editor but it's the first things I would start messing around with if somebody gave me an hour to make some improvements.

I'd say update these button as they aren't the best looking. I like the website though.

personaly these would look better then glossy tiles i would keep the style but change the colors

Thank you everyone so much! I really appreciate all the constructive criticism I may have more questions as I work through your advice but for now just two things --

 

The links bottom-left in the footer aren't consistent - 'About Us' seems to want to stand out more, being capitalised and bold, which lets down the entire row in my mind.

 

I wanted "About Us" to stand out on purpose because it's a heading, with Contact and Copyright as subpages, but I can see that's unclear so I'll play around with it, thank you! If you have any suggestions for that I'd love to hear them

[it] looks really dated where the pictures are, I think you need to sort the pictures out with slightly smaller thumbnails, put some descpriptions next to the images, make them look like listings name, age, breed. etc...

Have a look at this website, I'm not tooo keen on it, BUT it exlpains what i have been trying to explain in the first paragraph http://www.petmd.com/ take note of the header where it Health, Strange but true, summer safety, can you see how they are listed going down, you should do something smilar, but you can leave small icons in each box a contact icon, wishlist icon, quick preview button etc...

 

I don't really want the rabbit pictures to look like listings, I'm going for more of a photo gallery feel (these are our pets, not animals up for adoption, and this is the only "social" part of the website so it's not like the photos represent profiles that have more info or anything like that), but I get you're saying it looks dated so I'll play around with the design, thank you!! Could you recommend a photo gallery style I could use as inspiration?

I really like the top half, the main body of content i cant say it works, as the top half looks modern and fresh and the bottom half looks really dated where the pictures are...

 

Just out of curiosity, do you feel the same about the rest of the website? I mean, below the header, on the other pages, does the content fit more or do you still feel this break between the top and bottom?

 

THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE!!

Sometimes I use www.iconarchive.com for icons...

 

I agree these [icons] need to change...

 

I checked out iconarchive.com (thanks for the suggestion!) and I have three top runners.

 

What do y'all think? Any preferences???

I would say number 3 icons look very good

3

2

1

I would say (1) they are clean and flat. fitting in with the theme of your site....

So still going ahead with that green/cyan design lol

For the images, maybe have them going the full width of your site so end to end, there are some scripts out there similar to this http://wdf.co/yU ?

I would say (1) they are clean and flat. fitting in with the theme of your site....

 

For the images, maybe have them going the full width of your site so end to end, there are some scripts out there similar to this http://wdf.co/yU ?

 

Thank you! I will check that out.

 

 

So still going ahead with that green/cyan design lol

 

Hey there's a lot of feedback here! Like I said, I'm working through it -- haven't got to the colour scheme yet

 

 

EDIT -- 1:30pm

 

Okay, been working on colours/patterns...

 

Is this (attached) any improvement? (I've changed the blue.) Or is it the combo of blue with green that people dislike?? I'm also working on a blue/brown but it's not coming together smoothly. (That green is continued throughout my website in links and a few other decorative elements so it's not an easy switch out!)

 

What about the patterned background? Does it take away from the clean/open look I'm going for?

 

PS I haven't settled on social networking icons yet, those are just placeholders.

 

PPS I tried replacing the green with black as suggested and it looked okay but drab -- before this I had a blue and black colour scheme and a repeated feedback on that was not enough colour...

 

EDIT -- 4pm

 

Been working on the brown/blue design I mentioned. What do you guys think?

 

Only two pages right now, the internal links don't work --

page one

page two

 

This includes work on the colours, background, and footer content. I haven't gotten around to typography yet or the photo gallery.

 

I'm having a problem with this layout though. The last layout, I know, was not mobile-friendly, but it was fine with small laptop screens, or normal screens set to a high zoom (accessibility), but this one's not: DIV#new, the wrapper with the white background, doesn't contain its contents, and the footer is pretty messed up too. Any advice would be appreciated!

Okay, latest version. I've looked at colour, background, typography... obviously not the photo gallery yet. Whatcha think?

 

I'm still having trouble with small laptop screens/high zoom, where content overflows its container. Suggestions? (I know the trouble with the footer is its defined height, but I don't know how else to do a sticky footer? Edit: And I guess the trouble with the white wrapper is because I've defined the width. But I don't know what to do about it )

 

And here are the other social networking icons. Let's say the one online is #2.

 

THANK YOU everyone so much for your help!!!

 

Edit 21 July 3:01pm

 

Been playing around with the photo gallery. Thoughts?

 

There are some scripts out there similar to this http://wdf.co/yU ?

 

That is awesome. Could you help me find those scripts?

Hey Nicolasks!

 

Nice to see that you used some of my advice. Especially concerning the typography and the borders around the pictures. You've made quite some progress!

 

Maybe go a little easier on the dropshadows though. Most of the time a 1px offset and blur is already sufficient. A good rule of thumb is that when you think it's barely visible it's exactly right. Give it a try and keep up the good work!

Thank you everyone once again for all your help. I took your advice seriously and my website came out the better for it (in my opinion, anyway ha ha). It's all set up now, if you're curious: http://torontorabbits.org. I've got tons of plans to add to it but basically the design side is "done." Thanks again!!!

nice and simple! we had our rabiit for only a few months before it just died - the day our boys started school and they were really upset. luckily we have a pet cemetery just down the road and we took it there and they painted some little gravestones.

 

anyway, nice site - clean and simple.

 

your logo should be sized properly and saved as an 8-bit png, not a jpeg

 

also i wonder whether it might look better in brown? feels a bit cold in blue

What an adorable website. It's clean and easy to navigate.

 

What did spring to mind was the loading of some of the images. Closer inspection showed that you are displaying scaled down images. Even thought the main logo is showing 115px x 115px, you are still downloading 400px x 400px images - it's best to use native sized images, preferably ones ran through an image compressor (there are loads online and free).

 

This would cut down dramatically on bandwidth.

 

Hope the helps.

 

Paul

your logo should be sized properly and saved as an 8-bit png, not a jpeg

 

also i wonder whether it might look better in brown? feels a bit cold in blue

 

What did spring to mind was the loading of some of the images. Closer inspection showed that you are displaying scaled down images. Even thought the main logo is showing 115px x 115px, you are still downloading 400px x 400px images - it's best to use native sized images, preferably ones ran through an image compressor (there are loads online and free).

 

This would cut down dramatically on bandwidth.

 

Thank you both for your suggestions! I agree, it's on my to-do list now to fix the images. dap, your brown bunny did look good... I like the blue but you've convinced me to play around with it

 

the site is simple and nice. But i think if you will use slider to show images rather than showing them all at once will look more good. Also, there is no proper navigation.

 

Thank you! I'm pretty wedded to the wall of photos thing, but I think I will play around with a slider or something - I don't want to look dated.

 

But what do you mean there's no proper navigation?

Your website is simple and easy to navigate.One thing I would like to suggest you is to add content on the home page in point of view of SEO.

• Navigation is way to close to the logo.
• The "SUBMIT YOUR RABBIT TO THE BUNWALL!" text could be better placed above the rabbit images, to provide a bit more context.
• There's a bit of a mixture in the colour and size of your links. The black links don't look clickable.
• I would prefer a sidebar with all the related content in, it's difficult to read the text when it spans that far across the page.
• The tag index could be presented a lot better, whilst it's grouped nicely it's a bit all over the place. Perhaps put the description on the same line as the link and give it more padding between each item.

 

• Navigation is way to close to the logo.
• The "SUBMIT YOUR RABBIT TO THE BUNWALL!" text could be better placed above the rabbit images, to provide a bit more context.
• There's a bit of a mixture in the colour and size of your links. The black links don't look clickable.
• I would prefer a sidebar with all the related content in, it's difficult to read the text when it spans that far across the page.
• The tag index could be presented a lot better, whilst it's grouped nicely it's a bit all over the place. Perhaps put the description on the same line as the link and give it more padding between each item.

 

Oof, Jack, those are hefty suggestions! Like I said, I'm basically done the design and layout -- the website is launched :s I appreciate your attention, though, and I've been thinking about what you've said... your comments have been logged ha ha.

 

I understand where you're coming from about the text spanning too far across the page, I'd already worried about this myself. I'm not sure a sidebar would work well, though, as I already have some pages split into a two-column layout. I'm thinking of making the entire page narrower.

 

When you say the navigation is way too close to the logo, do you mean it just needs to be moved over a bit?

 

And you're absolutely right about the tag index -- it's terrible, really, and already close to the top of my to do list. Question -- Is it possible in a DL to make DDs inline with their DTs?

 

Thanks for your help!

My first attempts at this have resulted in slight colour change. Is there a remedy for that? Thanks again!

 

your logo should be sized properly and saved as an 8-bit png, not a jpeg

improving the menu will make it better

Hi nicolasks. Personally, I'm not too fond of the cyan blue colour, it's a bit too in-your-face for my liking and doesn't echo "professional", but that could just be my stubbornness towards this colour on websites in general. The links bottom-left in the footer aren't consistent - 'About Us' seems to want to stand out more, being capitalised and bold, which lets down the entire row in my mind. Other than that, I think once it's developed a bit more we can add a bit more guidance.

 

Oh, also - too many rabbits. You tryin' to start a rabbit invasion and doom the human race or somethin'?!

 

I have to agree, that the cyan blue doesn't work too well. Other than that nice clean design, but could use a bit more text on the homepage to explain about the service being offered.