http://www.dsauk.org/

 

 

Hi,

 

I'd be happy to read any feedback anyone's got for this site that I've been working on for the last few months.

 

I have tried to make it completely responsive and as accessible as possible.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Daniel Land

I think you have a load of information presented in a way that is easy to follow, which is good. The main purpose of the site is easy to see at a glance.

 

I'd be inclined to get rid of the text shadows and box shadows to give it a cleaner, more modern look. I might make the whole background white (or a plain colour ??) rather than having a box in the centre with a dark background and I might try some different fonts, although the font you have is simple and easy to read. I'm not sure about those two points though. It'll be interesting to see what everyone else thinks.

 

The photos seemed to take quite a while to load - I'm not sure if they may be a bit large.

 

Perhaps you could have a look at the colour scheme - you have a lot of different colours in there.

Edited January 3, 201412 yr by Jane B

i don't really have much to add to what Jane B says (what happened to Jane A? alpha only ?)

 

i like the purple blue but i would get rid of all the other colours, use that purple/blue sparingly against a just off-white background and the complementray colour to the purple/blue as a highlight/link colour/hover colour

 

 

woah ! too many colours - try more muted colours and stick to a colour scheme (have a look at adobe kuler for example) or put in the purple #313493 as your base colour and go from there - the analagous colours (to #313493) would work nicely and then the complement of that.

 

the logo is a bit small to read easily - small is good for logos but this could be bigger (it's not the best quality either - starting from vector version would be good for resizing then exporting as png)

 

i recognise you've worked pretty on this and i came and trashed (oops meant postivily criticised) the design but i think as it is it looks dated and not a) sporty clean and modern and inviting.

 

and those drop shadows really hurt

i don't really have much to add to what Jane B says (what happened to Jane A? alpha only ?)

 

 

I gave someone a whole load of colour scheme links yesterday - including the kuler site among others: http://www.webdesignerforum.co.uk/topic/73019-good-evening/?p=458104

i don't really have much to add to what Jane B says (what happened to Jane A? alpha only ?)

 

i like the purple blue but i would get rid of all the other colours, use that purple/blue sparingly against a just off-white background and the complementray colour to the purple/blue as a highlight/link colour/hover colour

 

 

woah ! too many colours - try more muted colours and stick to a colour scheme (have a look at adobe kuler for example) or put in the purple #313493 as your base colour and go from there - the analagous colours (to #313493) would work nicely and then the complement of that.

 

the logo is a bit small to read easily - small is good for logos but this could be bigger (it's not the best quality either - starting from vector version would be good for resizing then exporting as png)

 

i recognise you've worked pretty on this and i came and trashed (oops meant postivily criticised) the design but i think as it is it looks dated and not a) sporty clean and modern and inviting.

 

and those drop shadows really hurt

Wow, I wished I'd never asked. You've highlighted all the things that the client likes and that everybody I've spoken to likes about the site.

 

 

i don't really have much to add to what Jane B says (what happened to Jane A? alpha only ?)

 

i like the purple blue but i would get rid of all the other colours, use that purple/blue sparingly against a just off-white background and the complementray colour to the purple/blue as a highlight/link colour/hover colour

 

 

woah ! too many colours - try more muted colours and stick to a colour scheme (have a look at adobe kuler for example) or put in the purple #313493 as your base colour and go from there - the analagous colours (to #313493) would work nicely and then the complement of that.

 

the logo is a bit small to read easily - small is good for logos but this could be bigger (it's not the best quality either - starting from vector version would be good for resizing then exporting as png)

 

i recognise you've worked pretty on this and i came and trashed (oops meant postivily criticised) the design but i think as it is it looks dated and not a) sporty clean and modern and inviting.

 

and those drop shadows really hurt

thanks for your input, I don't agree with any of it, but thanks for your time anyway.

well fair enough but you DO need to optimise the images to about a quarter of their current filesize or less and consider reducing the number of dropshadows, and where you have used them then make them a little more subtle (on a yellow background in fairly strong light those boxes wouldn't cast a completely black shadow! have a play with here for e.g. http://css3gen.com/box-shadow/ the text shadow is muddy on the small text. you might consider open sans or ubuntu as a font. on the image slider/carousel you have a tpyo in where was it now "suite all ..." i think it was boxes could do with some more white space and #333 or thereabouts is recommended for text instead of pure black which can be a bit heavy... few minor tweaks you might consider

edit: save your carasoul images as jpegs not png

 

 

an example using Ubuntu font (free), in #333 (not black), reduced the drop shadows, softened the site a little

http://gekkoweb.com/stuff/d1.jpg

 

Edited January 4, 201412 yr by dap

I was going to say that I really like all the colors. It makes for a very bold and exciting page, it really works for the material being presented. I can see why some people are saying to move away from that, seems the trend is for more white and simpler colors. At that point it comes down to what your client is asking for. And it sounds like they are asking for the bright colors, so you are giving them what they have said - which is awesome.

 

My only thought is on the home page and news page, the boxes seem to be of different sizes and I was wondering if making them the same size would balance it out better. Not realy a crucial need on the page, but I figured I would throw it out there.

I'm sorry you have spent the last few months working on this because dap is right.

 

If you were going for a 90's web2.0 look then you have excelled, but I'm guessing that isn't what was intended.

 

The colours are all over the place to start, why the black background with a butter background on the container - and all the other colours of the rainbow thrown in? The rounded containers and drop shadows look like you got inspiration from Targets redesign which is a step back into 2007.

 

The sad things is your code is actually fairly well written, you could do with compressing and combining the css and deferring the js but all in all the code is good. You really need to go back to the drawing board on the design though.

 

A little guided inspiration: http://www.paralympics.org.uk/

Wow, I wished I'd never asked. You've highlighted all the things that the client likes and that everybody I've spoken to likes about the site.

 

 

thanks for your input, I don't agree with any of it, but thanks for your time anyway.

 

I have to agree with Jane..

i wonder if the OP is coming back at all ... gues we (I?) frightened him away

i wonder if the OP is coming back at all ... gues we (I?) frightened him away

 

I doubt he'll be back, some people don't take feedback well. I'd rather people are honest on here, rather than sugarcoat everything.