Topic: Critique of Design and Layout

[steviewdr]

Hi All,

I would very grateful to hear any comments and/or suggestions etc. on this site I have designed:

http://pf.csn.ul.ie/images/redesign/redesignK.jpg

Note: There is no text as of yet. The layout, graphics and design is present.

It will be a fluid layout with minimun resolution at 800 x 600.

The horizontal Nav is the primary one. On certain pages the Vertical Nav will be the "sub navigation".

XHTML VERSION = http://skycon.csn.ul.ie/newsite/skynet/

Thanks,
Steve

[redbullmarky]

it's very clean, very nice - so far. it's hard to critique more than that obviously due to the lack of content, but i have a few suggestions from where you go from here:

- i love the colours. light & cool. i think a few "icons" on their respective sections would be great, in pastel colours.
- the font and font colour could really screw things up, if you decide the wrong size, wrong font, or 'black' as the colour. a dark(ish) grey colour would work quite well, apart from areas that are already grey.

i'm thinking along the lines of a couple of similar 'modern', 'pastel' sites i've seen recently. if i remember the links, i'll throw them over as it might make my points seem a little more valid.

be very interesting to see what you do with it. even if you change the layout, the use of colour is very good so worth keeping.

[jcombs_31]

Well, it's ok, but I don't like it too much.  I think you went too far with the gradients.  Gradients are nice when used properly. The menu is too faded on the right side.  I think the colors are too light in general and I'm not into the "pastel" colors too much. I have the same problem with the gradient in the search box.  Sometimes solid seperation is better. The top menu drop shadows are a little big.  Why two menus?  Doesn't seem user friendly.

[cmgmyr]

I like it a lot, it looks good to me.

The only thing that I noticed is with your top tab buttons. You need to move then down about 5-10px because on the bottom left of all of them you can see the shadow curve which at first glance looks like buttons but the bottoms are cut off.

Little icons would work well on both nav areas.

-Chris

[steviewdr]

Thanks for the constructive comments. Any more or further claifications would be appreciated.

Mark - thanks, do send on/post etc. any nice links etc. to icons and/or other sites.

Jeff - I indeed see where you are coming from. The gradient on the Vertical Nav is a little extreme, and the gradient on the Search area isn't really required. However, with regards to been "user friendly" - I would have put this as a primary aim. Let me explain: The Vertical Nav menu will only appear on certain pages. I know with its shape and look - it seems like a main Nav menu. I may reduce the size of it a bit so it appears/blends in as a been "Sub Navigation".

Chris - Thanks, I see exactly what you are saying re the 5px at the bottom of the horizontal tabx and the shadow. Icons would be nice, but a lot of work. Im only doing the css and xhtml for this project. ,-) I will see how much I can get out of the photoshop person.

As for pastel colours - well it seems to be coming more fashionable IMO.
I will have a xhtml version ready later on.

Thanks,
Steve

[steviewdr]

The XHTML and CSS version of the site is here:

http://skycon.csn.ul.ie/newsite/skynet/

I think that the Vertical Nav and the Search button needs work yet.

Thoughts anyone?

-Steve

[cmgmyr]

The top nave still needs to come down some. With the left nav the top and bottom rollovers to not match up to the original image, the first on is rounded and the rollover is square. The text on the links should be a little lighter and maybe turn to white or a light grey on the hover. Other then that it looks like its getting there.

-Chris

[steviewdr]

Hi All,

The site is finished - well as much as Im going to do 

The Home and Services pages work fine. It will have to be integrated with server side code at this stage.

Anyways, just to let ye know what it ended up as -> http://skycon.csn.ul.ie/newsite/skynet/

Other ppl in the society suggested various changes.

Thanks for your comments, feel free to mention any more here.

Rgds,
Steve

[cmgmyr]

Very nice, I like it a lot. Good job.

[Daniel0]

Looks really nice. I can't think of anything to improve it.

[yana]

I would decrease the font size for the general content to maybe 10px.

The left menu, I would suggest switching the background header image with the background footer image. (This way the left menu would fit better into the header banner.)