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Posted by: thefireball Oct 15 2010, 11:52 PM

As the site progresses, you will see more and more added. This site I'm working on is for my Web Page Development webclass. It's really fun! You are to apply what you've learned throughout the semester and add more as the semester progresses. It's coming along pretty well. It used to look very simplistic, but I'm starting to dress it up. I used GIMP 2.6 for making the graphics.

So click on this link anytime to see my progress!
Any feedback is welcome! Then I'll have my teacher and you guys telling me how it's going.
Maybe you guys can help me get a better grade!

http://bburch32.pspwebdesign.com/final_website/

Posted by: Azzaboi Oct 16 2010, 04:16 AM

Great work, looks clean. Must be a fun final exam... there's some words I thought would never cross my mouth together.

It depends what areas your getting marked on but I can offer you tips and help if needed. I love web design.

I think it's a good start, but will rip it up to help you get some good marks...

I would suggest wrapping it in a div and centering the lot on the page.

If your getting marked on website performance, you might want to use an appropriate level of compression on those images. Optimize for the web - smaller size without visible lose in quality.

Make sure the contrast is very high using background images / colours.
I would also suggest sticking with the same background overall.
Stick with an overall theme and feeling which doesn't change and flows page to page.
Page Compression or caching images (if needed)?

Ensure using correct xhtml like Alt Tags on all images as well as the Height and width tags (matched to the actual image size - never use them to resize the image).

Good use of header tags, I like the layout of the inner pages. Homepage might be a bit crowd.

Maybe work on a large logo rather than just a text title to stand out more. Then wrap A tag around it and make it link to the homepage (all pages) - don't forgot title/alt tags and size.

Rule of thumb never say 'Welcome!' instead say the title of the website or what's it about.
I suggest getting rid of those little smiles ☺, they might not show up correctly for ever visitor?
Remember to check all grammer and spelling too.

I don't really like the top navigation buttons, they look like they are floating around a bit. A navigation bar might be better - something to link them together as a whole?

Clicking, ensure all webpages are just one or two clicks away. Something there would be two sets of navigation to get there (top and side) - make it as easy and clean as possible for the visitor to find what they're after or return home instantly.

Scrolling, don't have too much on a page they have to scroll a lot. Navigation at the bottom if long is a plus, looks like your got that!

Try stick with web safe colours and it's actually good to keeping it a bit simplistic (over doing a page can look nasty).
Ensure white space, this makes it look more professional. Easy reading - people glace rather than read unless interested.

Check multiple web browsers cross compatiblility, might look great on one and be thrown off on another (FF and IE hate each other).
Check for colour blind / text sizing / usability (can be a bonus).
Create a favicon (optional) - but it's easy and looks good.

Hope that helps somewhat. Good luck with your exam and have fun!

Posted by: thefireball Oct 16 2010, 04:55 AM

Haha! Wow! Great feedback! I gave my teacher the link to this forum, so she can tell me about what she's looking for and stuff. Yeah, a lot of brainstorming going on in my head. I wish I could concentrate on this class, but I have others to worry about as well.

Thanks!

Posted by: kahall Oct 16 2010, 05:04 AM

I like the way the class is teaching you. It is a good to start with the basics. I hope your teacher stops by and checks out someone laying down some tasty licks.

Posted by: thefireball Oct 16 2010, 05:32 AM

Haha! that would be funny! I wonder what music she is into..... I could point her to some awesome lessons to listen to!

Anyway, yes this class is really fun! And my teacher has been a great teacher this semester. She has helped me with so much.

Posted by: Lian Gerbino Oct 16 2010, 02:13 PM

this only show us what are you thinking in class dude!!! LOL
I like it man!
I'd go for a dark background, 'cause too much white hurts my eyes, but may it's just me.

Posted by: thefireball Oct 16 2010, 04:08 PM

Haha! Thanks for the feedback! I'm seriously considering all of the feedback you guys give me. After all, you guys are the users - and this is great practice for when I get my own website for REAL!
I was so anxious to start my own website at the beginning of the semester. My teacher said it was up to me, but she recommended I wait until after this class because I will learn so much about webpage development. I said, Okay I'll wait. Besides, I want to create the site from scratch. I don't wanna use templates from other people. ew.

Posted by: Bogdan Radovic Oct 17 2010, 10:43 PM

I like the feel of it so far. Its clean which is great. Azzaboi gave you great tips. For start I would definitely recommend centering the page and having universal background image/color.

Posted by: thefireball Oct 18 2010, 01:32 AM

Hey guys! My instructor agrees with your posts. And Azzaboi, she also said you had a great list of suggestions.

She told me, "I tried to post a reply, but they wanted $29 a month before I could get an account to post."

Posted by: maharzan Oct 18 2010, 06:08 AM

Hey fireball,

I have been a web designer for like 10 years now and it is definitely fun to create the 'first' of the websites. While I appreciate your work and you have things going pretty good, I have to the say the design looks really classy. I don't know if you meant to design like that but it looks very 1990s, like the first websites that came out after the internet boom. I think it would be really great if you can design it to fit the more post web 2.0 designs like clean black and white stuff. You might not be the designer (more of a programmer?), but thats what I feel as a designer. The first impression is the last impression for most of the people. Designing clean site looks super easy but might be really hard as well as a beginner when you want to throw in all the flashy stuff, I did too.

Anyway, just my thought.

Thanks,
Chandra

Here are some http://spyrestudios.com/light-clean-designs-using-minimalist-color-scheme/ if you are wondering...

Posted by: thefireball Oct 18 2010, 03:12 PM

Haha, yeah, I haven't learned any of that flashy stuff yet. I'm still in the very basic stuff.

Posted by: thefireball Oct 22 2010, 03:43 AM

Well, I updated the site.

I put a universal, dark background. Maybe it won't hurt your eyes, Lian.

Please know that I am learning all the basics right now. I am learning how to code. It was only since August that I started designing webpages.

http://bburch32.pspwebdesign.com/final_website/

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Nov 14 2010, 06:27 PM

Looks very good man, you did a very nice job with this! I would mostly use templates these days, coding is not what I like. But while I was on studies, the ability to code and do sites from scratch was awesome. I hope you become leading expert in this field one day!

Posted by: thefireball Nov 14 2010, 10:30 PM

Thanks Ivan! I hope so too! I want to have a REAL website of my own one day!