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Vanilla 1.1.10 is a product of Lussumo. More Information: Documentation, Community Support.
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Hi Guys,
Whipped this up for my business's website, I want to make it obvious I trade as a freelancer under the name Koki Studio and have tried to get that across as well as get across the fact I try and design elegantly etc, could I have some thoughts on what I could do better: http://www.kokistudio.com/
I refuse to support IE6 anymore however will be looking at turning the website into a one-page website which is typography focused just for IE6.
Thoughts always appreciated,
Regards,
David. -
I refuse to support IE6 anymore however will be looking at turning the website into a one-page website which is typography focused just for IE6.
Don't worry, it's becoming harder and harder to make a case to directly support IE6. I have a friend who does work with Microsoft and even he was told by the higher ups not to worry about IE6 support.
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Right, I've had a chance to look over the site and here are my thoughts:
Design and Usability:
- It's good, I like the colors thought it's a bit of a common palette in the web world.
- I'm not sure about the trees in the background of the home page. I think you're right in that it needs some texture but the trees clash with the rather digital feel of the rest of the design.
- In recent work you put the emphasis in your layout on the text instead of the images, which feels a bit reversed priorities for me. When I look at someone's work I only care what they have to say about it after I've had a good look at it, if ever.
- This one is just personal preference but I feel it can be a bit dangerous to rely on a link to the website in your portfolio. You loose so much control and I personally feel it's only safe to do when you're just linking to them to say, "This is my client, learn more about them," rather than, "This is the site I made for my client," which runs risks if they make drastic changes to either the design or copy. Remember, you can get blamed if the text look horrible because they didn't listen to you about the design.
- The client testimonials don't pop as much as the info text does. I think that's a reversal of priorities as customer testimonials say more about your work than you ever could.
- On the home page you need some form of navigation for the carousel. Right now you have no idea how many slides there are and no way to move amongst them.
- Is it imagination or do you have a number of weights going on with your body text? Sometimes it looks like it's a normal weight, then light, then thin... Maybe it's something with your stylesheets.
- You're using justified on the web, which is fine and something I do regularly, but you're using it in tight columns which doesn't work due to the web's continued lack of hyphenation. See the rivers in the bio text on the about page?
- Don't do a banner warning for IE6 and older users. They know their browser is old and out of date and your site is hardly going to convince them to switch. :P
- Login should not be a main feature in your nav or at the very least it should not come before contact.
Code:
- You have a javascript error for your PNG fix since you didn't link to a file for the function.
- In your footer you're using H4's. Don't do that. There's no H1–H3 proceeding it so you're breaking semantics. It's also unnecessary as you could just use a strong tag and be done with it.
- No alt attributes on your images... My son, this is a grievous sin.
- Thou shalt not use the target attribute on links. If you have to force users to open a link in a new window (there are a number of usability reasons why you shouldn't do that) do so with javascript and not a depreciated attribute.
- I'd also recommend working on your semantics. You use DIVs like some people use tables. For example, on your portfolio site that's a prime example of when to use an unordered list. It adds semantics and gives you control over your layout.
- In fact, you use DIVs for just about everything... Your accessibility is going to really suffer for that.
- This is another best practice thing, you shouldn't have class names like "left" and "right". They should be content-descriptive.
The site is good, but you need to make some improvements, especially with that code... -
Doug,
Thank you so much for taking the time to go through my work. You've provided some absolutely spectacular feedback which will help me progress as a designer and developer, can't thank you enough.
I have a lot to read up on to improve it seems, would be interested in finding some books which cover these topics.
Thank you very much again, I will be looking to improve the website with everything you have mentioned.
David. -
Think nothing of it. One of the reasons I always come back to this forum is it's an easy place to find and give constructive feedback two those new to the trade and old hands alike.
As for books, there are a number of great ones listed all over the site but a quick list would look like this:
- Designing With Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman (this is also known as the web Bible.)
- Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
- Transcending CSS by Andy Clarke
- Bulletproof Web Design by Dan Cederholm
- Handcrafted CSS by Dan Cederholm
- The Website Owners Manual by Señior Boag
There are, of course, dozens more but these are the ones that are on my short list of required reading for web designers.
Later this month I'm going to get my copy of HTML5 for Designers and that may join the list as well, but time will tell on that one.
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