My sites had a Facelift!

jaykay · 20-12-06

Hi everyone,
I really appreciated all the reviews I received when I recently asked for your opinions on my site http://www.homeworking4me.co.uk. I've taken all you've said onboard and have been working hard to produce something new. I know it's almost Christmas and so many of you are busy but if you get the chance to have a look and let me know what you think it'd be very much appreciated. I must point out that I've got a problem with the heading banner. On my PC it looks immaculate, yet when I published it, it seems to look rather blurry and of poor quality. I created it in Photoshop. Any ideas of how to fix this would be great.
Jaykay

Snigster · 20-12-06

The site looks nice and clean and is easy to use. Good work :-)

As for your banner, have you tried saving it in a different format? I find PNG are generally much cleaner images.

Bionic · 20-12-06

In Photoshop you can "Save for the web" from the file menu. When you do that you can divide the preview up into 4 panes. You need to look at the quality number next the image move it higher for better quality. It looks like you are exporting a low quality jpg.

I agree about the clarity of your site, but...

I would dump the big image over your navigation, or make it smaller, or, bring it into the main part of tour site.

I would also dump the standard table border as it spoils the site and looks a bit home-made. Same with the header image raised thing.

However they are just my opinions. Doesnt mean I am right!

vertage · 20-12-06

Good work Jaykay

I also think layout is clean and information is clear. But if you allow constructive criticism than I must say your site needs bit more face-lifting in terms of design. Few suggestions: try to reduce white spaces between the text blocks, if I would you I didn’t use 100% page width and restrict the width to 800 px or so. Right now I am looking at your site at 1280x1024px resolution and it seems floating everywhere. In this way you will be able to use standard banner on top of each page within reasonable scale.

Regards

AJ

jaykay · 20-12-06

Snigster: Thank you very much for your comments, much appreicated. So pleased you like my new design. I will try PNG - thanks.

Bionic: Thanks so much. I will look at 'save for web' option. When you say dump big image over nav bar or reduce in size, do you mean the main homeworking4me header? And when you say standard table border, do you mean on nav bar or on main body? Really appreciate your comments - thanks again.

Vertage: Yes, I do allow constructive criticism and thanks a million for taking the time to review my site. Reduce white spaces: do you mean in main body or the ads on the left? And yes, I will def look into removing the 100% width, I can definitely see your point.

Thanks once again to all of you for your very much valued constructive critcisms - really helpful. Will try all out.
Jaykay

jaykay · 20-12-06

Okay - have saved header in PNG and guess what? Perfect! Thanks a million for the tip Snigster. Might take a bit longer to load but worth it. Will update rest of site when I make some more amendments.
Jaykay

Bionic · 21-12-06

Hi there,

no, I mean the keyboard image - it is sitting in the same column as your navigation and looks messy, especially as you can see the border round the cells that your navigation is in. It is making the column too wide. The table has the parameter border="1" and would be better at 0. If you really wanted to see a border between the columns, then you could do a better job using CSS - but that is a whole different ballgame - but worth looking up. You are using a wysiwig editor aren't you?

DomainsUnlimited · 21-12-06

Hey Jaykay
Had a quick nosie. Some of the pages have some content and merchant logos and look OK but you need to remove the boxy/table effect on the home page as you could lose users straight away as that is not currently your best page

csn · 21-12-06

In Firefox 2, it looks very odd indeed. There are boxes that go across the page but do not line up with any text. Just loaded it in IE and it is a bit better but not much.

It is quite difficult to use. If I had landed on that page, I'm afraid I would have clicked the back button.

The top part of the page is OK, it is just the main content area that needs working on.

I have attached a screenshot of what I see. It's easier to visualise a problem than try to write about it!

skywalker · 21-12-06

Hey JK - got the same thing as above - check your css.

jaykay · 21-12-06

Thanks Skywalker and Csn - why is that happening!!!!! Panic!!! It's not showing like that in my browser so I can't see the problem to fix it. Any ideas? I am using CSS for the first time, as advised, I must've done something wrong. Wonder if it's showing like this in all browsers?
A very worried Jakay