Would you please critique my site?

It's just my personal space, and I'm hoping to get a few interactions along the way with people who are into the same kinds of things (computers, Windows, etc.).

I want it to be presentable and respectable for a simple guy of my age, and of course usable.

The regulars here know that I'm not a professional, and I simply work on my own site (no one else's). 

I'm also quite a minimalistic kind of person with minimal design skill, so things like colors (colours) are difficult for me to choose and commit to.

Basically let me know what I should address and especially lose and change, please.

(It's the holidays again, although they are coming to a close, so I'm spending quite a bit of time on the PC and happy to get things done.) 

In time, I intend to clean up and more efficiently write the code, especially the CSS. The search function is very basic, with about 300 manually typed in words or phrases, but I'm happy to work on it. The Search results presentation is a priority next, I think, but I'm having to learn a little PHP at the same time to do that. I haven't done much of any keyword work at all for SEO, so I have to find a good way to get keywords off the ground. I appreciate that most people here will hate the text scroller, so that's not a priority right now. I value your advice, and so thanks (and Happy New Year)!

https://www.grantbarker.com

Edit: I'm kind of a kid at heart, so if anything silly needs to be reined in, please don't hesitate to mention it as it will probably help keep me in check.

Edited January 3, 20188 yr by Grant Barker

I only had a quick look but my first impressions are that:

• I don't like the font you've used for headings (sniglet) but that may be personal preference.
• I think you were asking about the icons a while ago and I feel they work well.
• The homepage could do with some sort of introduction rather than just being a list of articles
• I had to search to find the page about you. I guess you are just shy

12 hours ago, Jane B said:

I only had a quick look but my first impressions are that:

• I don't like the font you've used for headings (sniglet) but that may be personal preference.
• I think you were asking about the icons a while ago and I feel they work well.
• The homepage could do with some sort of introduction rather than just being a list of articles
• I had to search to find the page about you. I guess you are just shy

Cheers Jane . Feel free to recommend a font, if one pops up. Maybe the one I have is not manly enough for a female? I like it because it doesn't take itself so seriously, but yes, a better one would be nice. It should be about other people's first impressions, not mine, so thanks.

As for being shy, a little bird told me that you haven't even added a photo to your profile.

I only stalk a little..

I like the way you had to search. You just had to. I'm very flattered by that.

Actually, was that last one a joke? I know my name is on every post which is normal, but it felt like too much self promotion for one's own blog, so I decreased the size of the name font.

Regardless of my useless wit, thank you for your feedback.

Edited January 3, 20188 yr by Grant Barker
To give Jane a smiley face.

I'm still a little unclear about where you are going with the site. It jumps abut all over the place with no real direction. If you just want to publish random topics than that fine, but if you want to be a good source of Windows articles then a bit more order on the homepage would help. Rather than simply listing recent articles, try a category grid to make it easier for users. That way you can bin the RH sidebar and have a much better UX on tablets and phones.

On this page: https://www.grantbarker.com/web-browsers-for-windows

Each of the images should link to the provders page. (the blue links in the content are very difficult to see). But these is so much more you could do with this page. You could have comparison tables. Review the browsers and explain the features (like what Trident, Gecko, and WebKit do) and so on.

And then here: https://www.grantbarker.com/character-map

You could explain how the touch keyboard can access characters by holding down the mouse key. You could help people with maths characters and symbols such as that for degrees. Maybe add a lookup table for common characters. Or links to useful resources like this: http://www.fileformat.info/

But the main problem for me is the organisation.

And I'm not sure about the comic sans type font either.

Thank you fisicx .

I like and appreciate your logical feedback as always. I know that you're all about focusing on results, which is great. I bookmarked aerin.co.uk ages ago, and it has some great tips to focus on to guide people like me.

Next.

I'll think about the organization of everything. I think it's difficult for people to tear themselves away from a design layout. This is why working in a team is so great, where people offer recommendations from different instinctive perspectives. I don't aspire to be a web designer, but I envy design agency team members for this reason.

Why bother?

I enjoy keeping an eye on Windows related news for my personal interest. I like to share news which I and other people can use or enjoy for free right now, so I find myself only writing less than 1% of what I scan ever day. I would like to write more detailed and more deeply about stuff, if I can understand it, it's necessary and it interests me or could benefit others, yes. Of course time can be a factor, and more people visiting the site would boost that motivation and make me feel less like a nutty professor. Hence, why I keep trying to improve presentation and usability, more than writing or updating articles at the moment.

Font.

You and Jane B both mention the font, so thanks to both of you for that. (Seriously, politeness doesn't help at all with this stuff, so long as people know that they are trying to be helped.)

There are so many fonts available, so I'll spend time trying to find a suitable one for this type of topic or content. I'm clearly challenged when it comes to design or making a design related decision. Actually, it will be nice if I can find one that is easier or quicker to load, too. (Google font's create FOUT in Edge when I use Google's recommended 1.6.26/webfont.js, but if I use 1.6.27 it mostly fixes Edge's FOUT but shows an error in Chrome's Dev tools. Whereas 1.6.28 (on GitHub only) fails both.) 

I apologize in advance if I keep updating this thread. I don't want to spam, but I would appreciate at least one channel to share feedback and constructive mentoring.

So, regardless of me waffling here, please keep the criticism coming, and let me know what is good enough, too.

Thanks a lot!

I've just lost that font on the main menu, plus I added a rounder font to the body so it doesn't clash (as much) with the font you guys don't like.

It makes the main menu look a little more grown up. I hadn't realized just how bold the menu text was. I was so used to it. Only problem is the menu font is now much skinnier than the heading one..

Edited January 4, 20188 yr by Grant Barker
typo

I only looked at the homepage as I didn't want to delve too deep. Simply put it is chaotic, there is a lack of structure and flow to the homepage. I think you need to concentrate on dedicated sections for your content and show the latest/popular atricles from each on the homepage. What is the difference between the 'News' and 'Blog' menu items?

I guess most of your traffic will come from various searches so users will end up directly on the article they want thus avoiding the need to sift through the vast jumble of content. If this is the case then you should improve the SEO, the meta descriptions and title tags are lacking in structure also.

An Ajax search would be nice also considering the amount of content you have.

On ‎1‎/‎19‎/‎2018 at 11:56 AM, Lm. said:

I only looked at the homepage as I didn't want to delve too deep. Simply put it is chaotic, there is a lack of structure and flow to the homepage. I think you need to concentrate on dedicated sections for your content and show the latest/popular atricles from each on the homepage. What is the difference between the 'News' and 'Blog' menu items?

I guess most of your traffic will come from various searches so users will end up directly on the article they want thus avoiding the need to sift through the vast jumble of content. If this is the case then you should improve the SEO, the meta descriptions and title tags are lacking in structure also.

An Ajax search would be nice also considering the amount of content you have.

Thanks Lm. That's good feedback. Much appreciated.

I didn't know anything about Ajax search before, so I'll look into that further.
What do you mean by structure for the meta descriptions and title tags? Could you be more specific with an example, please? (My old ROM pages seemed to be found easily enough by people, with the meta stuff as is for those pages.)

I understand what you mean by Blog and News, thank you. Ideally, I want the News (News you can use) to be just stuff people can update, download, or enjoy right now (for free).
The blog is more for other thoughts and things going forward.

I realize the site needs work and UI structure, and I probably need design help from a pro, but I'm happy to keep building it from the content perspective, and thank you very much for your advice.  Much appreciated.

 

ps. (I like the look of the image on your profile. Is there an ideal image pixel size to choose for that?)

Edited January 21, 20188 yr by Grant Barker
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