SITE REVIEW: Maroon Central

I have done a major updating to my website. Any Critism, Suggestions, Comments, or anything else is welcome. Feel free to sign-up if you wish too.

Here is the Link:
http://www.skizzers.org/maroon/

What do you want a review on? There's hardly anything there. If the majority of your site isn't online, don't ask for a review of it.

The actual design of the site is fairly bland, and could do with the introduction of some graphics and perhaps a banner. Also, the colours used in the nav bar don't really complement the colours of the main components. There's also a line connecting the main content box to the nav bar - I'm not sure if that's meant to be there or not.

You've got a CSS file for your nav bar, but I suggest you use one for the main content of your site too, as all your elements are styled inline, i.e. using the "style" attribute. Replacing these with an actual stylesheet will make updating the site a lot easier.

It's clearly unfinished, and as I said above, there's very little there to actually review. I would have suggested holding off until you've got more content before asking for a review. Also, what exactly is the site about? What will it be used for? There's nothing there to tell the user what the site is actually about.

hey i checked your site thoruout... but could not got an idea that for what purpose you have made the site... thereis nothing of interest of anyone... on every click the page opens of HTTP Error which claims that the page is not available....
and if the site is only for registered member then u should have mention it......

Not too keen on the color scheme. You should also fill the big empty space at the top of the window with a header/logo or description of your website. I found a lot of 404 errors while viewing the links on your site. I would rework your colors, and graphics and make sure all links verify.

The large green area at the top is a little boring. I would suggest using that area for some sort of banner with a site logo etc.

The gray area that contains the content of the site is the only thing I don't really like. I would use the same shade of green you used in the large empty area at the top, and I would probably use a dark yellow text (not brown, just a darker yellow).

Other than that, I think it's very excellent work. Very easy navigation. I hope to see some more content soon.

You have a good start for a website but are lacking in many areas. As stated above, the color is really bland. I cant tell what all is supposed to be ther becasue there isnt much. Try adding some content and maybe pics to spice it up. There seems to be alot of space that needs to be filled.Looking forward to the completed site.

Ok... I've done a major updating. The colour scheme is still the same though.

I'm going to have to agree that the site isn't complete enough to do a worthwhile review on it.

But I gather what you're trying to do is have an all-in-one site where you can showcase Flash toons and create a forum community all at once. Sounds like a good idea, but you have a lot of work to do.

Also - regarding some of the text on your home page, I would remove the following: "We are not paid to do this, we do this at our own free will, so do not expect to much of us." This will just turn people away. It communicates the message that the site won't be updated frequently, and that you don't necessarily know what you're doing. Just consider if you yourself came along a site that said "Don't expect much here!" Would YOU enter the site or would you move on?

One last picky thing: in the banner "Free Viewable Flash Clips" the "Viewable" is kind of redundant, since Flash clips are by definition viewable.

But you still have a lot of work to do. Keep up with it!

I wasn't able to come up with any other better text for my banner. It's rather hard to think of anything better for it. and the text...?

"We are not paid to do this, we do this at our own free will, so do not expect to much of us."

Well... I can't think of any other better things (After spending about 10 min on it) Any help? But thanks for your review

Sorry, 1 star for me too. You need to work it all since there's little to review. Just finish it and add contend and perhaps an image-two. Bland and empty right now, but I'm sure you'll make it so that I'll give 5 stars

1 star right now. Still pretty bland and quite a few colors going on. I would love to see it when you make some more changes to it.

Yeah, I guess there is a lot of work to do. I work on it when ever I have any spare time. You're both probably right about it. Thanks for the reviews!

Some further comments - current site::
Do you find that visitors do not progress past your intro page, and could it be because they take your appology/ direction as a system generated error message at first sight without really reading it (especially with the "/" in the text?). Could be an idea to change the font to make it more obvious?

The facts that the site is incomplete, make you uncertain about what to expect and when you click menu item clips, and find "stick figures" underlined, it does not look like a link, but like an underlined heading. Do you click it, or is it that the clips are not yet there? Some users do not go that far.
(Love the clips.)

Thanks! About the clips though - it's like that because I have a rollover script. But if I put in a code, such as: <font color="blue">Text</font> It will stop the rollover script from working.

As far as the intro goes... well, red text will make it to straining for eyes | black, won't stand out | green, once again is too straining, but blue works fine, the only problem is that it doesn't stand out enough (Which is why I put it in the middle).

Question: "Do you find that visitors do not progress past your intro page"

Answer: 17/20 do, but 3/20 don't. So, I'm still trying to improve it whenever I can.

As mostly everyone touched up on whats wrong with your site, I thought I'd add a little more for you to think about. Definitely change that index and dont apologize for anything, just put something in its place. You apologize for your server being down. You apologize for your site being down for maintainance. You can apologize for a lot of things, but not the things you can fix directly, and in a short period of time. If you simply put "Welcome to Maroon Central" and some sort of image to go along with it, I would'nt have cared/noticed you didnt had an intro. Its not even a necessity for your site. So I'd fix that up.

Your actual site look good. Not a bad colour scheme. Not a lot of people can pull off green and brown in the same layout, I think you did a pretty good job of that. The first section I checked out was About. You dont need to display your name 3 times (graphics created by, website created by, games created by...) you already explain you developed the site, we get it, you created all the stuff. Ooh, you're validated by w3c....... then why do you have 14 errors on your main page? (http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.skizzers.org%2Fmaroon%2FMain.php). I'm one of those guys that actually checks up on supposedly validated sites.

The 'Link to me' link is dead. I'd imagine that to be an important feature. Forums dead. Updates page looks good. In your credits page, its really not necessary to include notepad, IE and MM Flash. Notepad and IE especially dont deserve credit for anything, ever! In the cartoons section, I think it was already mentioned, you link to stick figures looks like a title. I didnt even notice it until I hovered over it by mistake. Toons link is dead. Login link takes me a white page and I have no idea if I'm still on your site. Incorporate this into your website theme. Exactly like how your Join page is. Btw, on the join page, what exactly do you expect people to put in "Anything else I need to know"? Why is that necessary to register for your site?

The rest of the site seems ok. I should've also mention your mouseover javascript, when you hover a link it shows "Go to the ..... page" at the top menu bar, its kind of redundant. Obviously if I click a menu option, I'll go to that page, I dont need your javascript to re-inforce that. Maybe you can find a better use for the mouseover effect, like telling me what I'll find in that section. You're missing meta description/keywords tags, alt tags for images and I just noticed your css is all over the place. First you reference a .css file, then include a new style below for links and in your code you include more styles within (<a style="text-decoration: none"...) including a repetetive one (style="border-left-style: none; border-left-width:.....). Include ALL of it within your .css file, its so much easier and would've saved you so much time. Definitely a few things for you to work on, but you're off to a promising start.