I'm working on a sort of personal page and would appreciate some feedback.
It's still a work in progress, so now's probably a good time to put it out there for comments, design-wise.
(The only links that go anywhere so far, is the "Me" link, but the others are still there, for the purpase of laying out the page... Please bear with me.)
Anyways, please let me know what you think, what could be improved, and what you like.
http://www.riverweb.frih.net
THanks
Last edited by riv_ on Thu Mar 30, 2006 7:24 pm; edited 1 time in total your site actually looks quite nice. no javascript, too 
i would suggest that you improve the graphics of the header image ( the fishes ), other than that, i think you are ok THe link isn't working for me. 
It did not show up Server's having some troubles... it seems to be down right now. Bad timing.
If you would please try again later...
Do you mean the graphics in the navigation menu, or the banner, or all of the above?
I'm a little limited in what I can do with the navigation menu, as I've done it all with CSS, the fish are actually made with 2 overlapping images. They have to be able to contract and expand with the size of the text inside. But everything else can change.
What are you seeing?
I can't see anything T-T
The page cannot be displayed...
whyyyyy ? T-T
The page aint loading, I think its the server 2 thingy so your site wont work for a while probably. But just be patient and it'll be back up.
Enjoy
NO connection to the server. what so ever. So, cant tell you much. 
Yeah, nice timing. Server's down. It's been off and on for a few days, but is just plain dead for now. I'd appreciate it if you'd try again later, once things are up and running.
Sorry about the crummy timing.
Thanks for trying.
I just saw your site so I guess the server's working already. 
Its actually good but srijit is right, you need to improve the menu fish graphics because they are a little jagged on the edges. Your site is actually very good. Your menu images though, to be frank, suck. They aren't very good quality. You might want to consider re-doing them.
I'm sorry but I have to coment on the fish to, my thinking about this is a meny made in Flash, with moving fish in the background. The menu looks nice but it would be cool if they swam around.
Hi, I was looking your menu, I made something similar,
I think that you can improve the menu if when you put the mouse over it change only the image of one button.
I think is not nice that the menu move from left to right.
Good Luck
It is pretty nice, although it is hard to tell completely as everything isn't in place yet. Here are some things I noticed:
The nav fish: My only beef with them is that when you roll over them they get bigger to accomodate the increased text size. I would prefer that the fish stay the same size.
I'd like to see more links, especially to your web portfolio to the right.
The photo page is neat as you have a gallery of your images right there. However, right now, the images are squished into a square shape which makes them strangely distorted. Also, they are pretty low quality. I'd like to see your wonderful photos as thumbnails that are perhaps a bit smaller with links to the larger images like you have it. I also personnally don't like the large white and orange border around the images. It encloses them and makes everything feel small. Plus the orange border against the blue background really fights against each other.
Prefrably, I would like to see the same header and background on each page to maintain some continuity and unifying them. Also, in my opinion, the header is a little too large not allowing the user enough information "above the fold."
One more thing, you're probably still working on it, but the Projects page pops up with a MySQL error. It looks like in your code, you have the incorrect password entered to logon to your MySQL thing.
I almost forgot: I LOVE that you are utilizing CSS and are thinking about the user experience and designing with standards compliance!
Great start, can't wait to see how you finish!
I don't like the way the fish change when you rollover. I just don't like the fish graphics in general. I think the site is laid out well, it is different than the typical site, which is good. I also don't like the look of your gallery page, it takes away from your photographs, which are very good.
Its nice overall, the banner and fish graphics arnt perfect, but what is? 
Heres the only suggestions I have...
1) The fish expand in size and throw everything below them down when you hover over them, its not the nicest effect...
2) The background the buttons are on - it doesnt look bad, dont get me wrong, it just doesnt fit in the best...
3) Width of the banner - In a bigger window the banner just ends, and there is nothing to the right of it, it doesnt look the best in a bigger window, this could be fixed by having it as a separate image thats shorter, and having it width="100%", or, having a width to the page, so, as an example, 1280 px (The width of your banner, that might be a tad massive, its just an example, though with that you couldnt view the page well on all devices...) and lastly, the banner itself doesnt look the greatest (It does look good, just not the greatest )
I am being as picky as I can and can only come up with three... its good... I aggree that the increasing of size of the fish is really annoying. Other than that, I think your website is fine.
BTW Hey, I almost have the same username as you!
Been away for awhile... thanks for the feedback. For some reason. I'll absolutely change the rollover effect on the fish in the menu. I was never really sure about that in the first place...
Enderwiggin... could you explain some more about the banner. It's set to a width of 1280px... are you using a bigger screen size than that? Could you send me a screen shot?
And I hadn't actually thought about the photos page... I just really liked that picture and wanted to use it somewhere... we'll see... I still have to redo my thumbnails.
I'm expecting some more changes in the next week or two (like something ACTUALLY happening on the projects page!)
So, thanks for the feedback, everyone. It's been really helpful!
It's a cool site but I would prefer smaller header pictures and rollover effects without making other pictures move.
I like the site. It is simple yet cool and does not take forever to load. I think you should just continue working on it without changing it's structure or anything.
It does not have too many annoying colours like some horrible sites I know that are only there to strain your eyes and give you serious terrible headaches and migranes.
if I were you I don't think I would change anything to it except add more links and pages and information.
hope that helped.
Thankyou sparks! Your timing is wonderful.... I just changed the banner and colours around last night!
Hey! I'm really glad that there has been a lot of improvement with your website. But I'm still kind of annoyed with the graphics but your layout now is much better than what it used to be before. Congrats on that! But I was hoping that maybe you can put some dividers or borders? So it will look more organized. I'll start out with a positive note. I REALLY like the design of your content area and how you stuck to simplicity and your excellent use of white space, making the text a bit easier to read. Nice job.
However, I think the header slightly distracts readers from your content just a bit. I know those fish may seem a bit cutesy at first, but for some reason I don't think they appropriately blend with the rest of your page. Experiment with the sizes, colors, and placement of your fish.
Nice.
nice site. but you might consider not using fishes on the Navigation bar. It's the first thing i noticed and it's not the best 
@riv;
Good call! Busted 
Yeah... I know. It's temporary, and I DO care very much. And it will be fixed before I consider the page to be finished.
I do appreciate all the feedback. I'm taking it all quite seriously. But FYI, I'm not sure I'm going to remove the fishes... I still might like them (and they're actually there by request of someone special) The fishes on the rest of the site are ok, but the fishes in the header make the text a little hard to read. Maybe instead of using a realistic photo of a fish behind the menu items, use an idealized fish icon similar to the rest of the site. That would make it easier on the eyes. Another way you could do, is since the banner at the top is like water, you could make the items like a dark blue fish sillihouette shadow, like when you see a fish under water from above the water. Anyway, if the fishes were basically one color, with less detail, it would make it easier on the eyes.
@darthpyro: | Quote: |
| The fishes on the rest of the site are ok, but the fishes in the header make the text a little hard to read. Maybe instead of using a realistic photo of a fish behind the menu items, use an idealized fish icon similar to the rest of the site. That would make it easier on the eyes. Another way you could do, is since the banner at the top is like water, you could make the items like a dark blue fish sillihouette shadow, like when you see a fish under water from above the water. Anyway, if the fishes were basically one color, with less detail, it would make it easier on the eyes. |
Well, that's funny. I actually started with exactly that, and everyone complained. so I switched to the yellow fish, thinking it would draw a little more attention to the menubar and be a little more realistic looking! The comments I got seemed to suggest that people liked the more realistic fish better, but still just don't like them.
Not sure what I'm going to do about the fish. Maybe just drop them. Maybe keep them there. Maybe none of the above. Don't know.
