Hey,

 

First things first, the URL is http://www.langwithonline.com

 

I've been running this site since...Christmas (roughly), since when it has had a total redesign (old site was ugly). The graphics aren't mine, the structure and design are. The content is all done through a simple CMS I made (on reflection, something like Wordpress would have been a better idea...however changing it all now would be a serious project and I'm quite proud of the end result). I think all the content has been written by other people.

 

I've consistently failed to have the menus working properly in IE6...but then again, also had no complaints.

 

It's not that pretty, so any suggestions to improve would be much appreciated.

I hate the menu on the left, but the rest of the site is very nice.

I'd like it more if the menu was static and did not change as I moved the mouse over it, and you would not get the problem with IE6 then either

 

The reason I hate the menu is because if I move down to say "Sport", as I move down I move over "Welfare" last and this opens up the Welfare tab, but I'm expecting it to open up Sport. It takes me a couple of seconds to realise. Then I have to try hard to get it to open up the right thing. It's not good.

Yeah I'm not a fan of the menu either. It's a bit like holding a slippery eel trying to get to the bit you actually want to get to.

OK...any suggestions of how to tidy up the menu? Its fairly important that it links to all the pages, and there are...a lot of them. Having a long list of links is just as bad, since its hard to find the one you want (view the page with JS off or in IE6 and you'll see what I mean)

How about having the submenu slide out to the right instead of underneath?

I agree the menu is a problem, but I think the header is the part that I find the hardest to sit with. The way you have set the text looks at a glance like

angwith C

It took a really close look to see what you had done there, and I think it's letting the site down somewhat.

I think the reason why the right menu looks so much better than the left one is to do with colour. Because the left menu is partly black, there is a lack of definition right down the side of the page which is unueasy on the eye. If you had the links in the black boxes as on the right menu, and had a white to red gradient, it could be much improved IMO.

I don't think the menu would be so bad if there was some kind of slide animation of some sort. At the moment, the way the sub menu's appear is too harsh. If you're going to keep them revealing vertically then you'll need to think about using some sort of animation to soften things a little. I don't know if that makes any sense, but yeah.

Like said before your menu isn't really working.

 

You have a rather crowded header, draws a lot of attention. And your menu's with odd rows having totally diifrent colors also draw a lot of attention. There's almost no calm part on your website, every bit is screaming for attention. This makes it very tiring to view. Red and yellow are color's mostly used to warn people and you've used them all over your website. This also adds to the chaotic feel of the website. It's ok to have extreme stuff goin on on your site, but you've put it everywhere. it's a bit overwhelming.

I would suggest to try to calm the site down a bit, make it a bit easier on the eyes.

Sadly, yellow (well, technically gold) and black are supposed to be the college colours. Incredibly ugly colour scheme to work with!

 

The "angwith C" issue on the header has been pointed out, however we figured that anyone visiting the site (more or less every user is a student of the college) would know what it said anyway. I will get my graphics guy on it though.

 

Calming it down...hmm. OK, will look into it. Cheers!