SITE REVIEW: Ground-Zerø League

http://gzleague.com

This is an online gaming (e-sports) competition website. It's pretty much a non-profit kind of thing for the moment and not hosting competitions yet but it's open house.

This is basically my hobby site so I can learn how to make websites better and I enjoy working on it. It is a project I've been working at, on and off for a long time. It's still a work in progress but I've decided just to make it live even though I'm still working on it all the time. This is my first real website I've ever made from scratch that was mine and worth anything to me and my first review here at Ozzu that I've made. I realize my design skills aren't spectacular, I'm better with the server-side.

It would be cool if I could get some pointers on how to improve anything or even if any of you have any ideas those are really really appreciated by me. Please be very picky in your reviewing, thanks a lot in advance.

1. Far to much text on that main page, To much to read. This will put many users off your website.

2.Where the username and password box are, There seems to be a lot of tect squeezed together in that top right corner.

3. The links at the top, Are not that easy to see.

4. Change that colour scheme, Its a little dull.

So I should substr() the article data to like 275 characters and then put each article on a seperate page?




Are you in 1024 X 768 or larger? I think I'm gonna make it so for people with resolutions 1024 X 768 or smaller the banner will be less wide. If your resolution is higher and you still said that then I'm screwed cause I have no clue where to put everything and I need all that info on the page.



Do you mean the menu buttons? Or everything? I think I'll make the text on the menu buttons bigger regardless now that you said that though and maybe a little darker. This won't be the first time I've done it.




I'm totally lost there, any recommendations?

Thanks appreciate it.

1. Yes.

2. That was an error on my IE I apologize

3. Mabye make them black or something. Just so they stand out.

4. Mabye add some more colourse or just change the whole colour schemes to something that stands out more.

2. I just redid the banner and added a javascript so it changes width for different resolutions so now in 1024 or less resolution it doesn't cram the stuff all the stuff together.

4. The thing is, I have no idea. I'm horrible at designing stuff. I played around with so many colors. I can't for the life of me figure out what the heck to use. I think it's like the biggest problem with my website.

Once again I appreciate your help.

Could you make the links at the top of your page ( forum , competition, home and organization) Bolder or stand out more?

I made the menu button text darker again. Very dark gray. I tried changing the font-size and weight, but it looked horrible. I think this looks decent though.

Right, it looks better now.

Well, I agree with penguin about the colours - a tab dull. If you need help getting a little more colour in your design, I'd suggest dropping by COLOURlovers or kuler and looking over some of the pallets there for inspiration.

Also, though I think having the links up top in bold is a good thing, you may want to work with the font sizes and weights on the rest of the page as well, as they look a little out of proportion. It's a little hard to find the focal points, as nothing really jumps out. using extra colours could help with this as well.

By the way - your logo is very nifty!

Cool man, thx for the opinions. Yeah the logo is pretty cool. It was made by my gfx designer friend who went to Iraq. George Bush stole my graphic designer! You should see some of the other things this guy did before he left, omg. I'm horrible at design though myself.

I've been to that color site before, never could really figure out how to implement anything in my head. I'll go there and try again though, that's a good idea. Maybe it's the blockiness of my site.

By focal points do you mean the font sizes aren't the same or what? Or they should be bigger/smaller for different things or?

Well, the "Register," "Account Activation," "Bad IP," and "Password Recovery" links are in a large, heavy font, and as such they jumped out at me more than the navigation ("Home," "Forum," and so on) links, which are much smaller and lighter. Similarly, the "Main Site News," "Game Specific News," and other such sections could have more prominent headers, as they are also somewhat overshadowed by the "Register" list of links.

Making the navigation bar and section headers more prominent (using colour or font adjustments, or both) and/or making the "Register" link set less prominent (again with colour or font adjustments, or both) would probably be a good idea. Not that you would want to make the "Register" links unnoticeable, but the eye should be drawn to the section headers and navigation first - at the moment, I get drawn back to the "Register" links a bit too much, and it becomes a little distracting/disorienting.

Well I'm not really sure about the colors because I'm horrible at that, but I see what you mean with the font sizes. One of my main problems is if I make the menu text any bigger on the buttons, it looks horrible. But I think I will make the "register" links smaller and the news titles bigger. Thanks again.

seems like you stole one of my favorite design . just kidding. Very good job. and Especially i admire your whole registration part ,activation and password recovery . it shows that your web is user-friendly / oriented. Sure has put alot of effot i think. ( this is no joke).

Thanks for your opinion man. I feel that my design is too plain though, like everybody else. Just White, Gray & Black

But now that you say that, I think it's a good start, you made me feel better about it. I'm trying to make the rest of the site as user friendly. My site is theme/skin-able though so... maybe someone will help me someday.

Far too much text on the main page again..Would be great if you could cut down on that!