SITE REVIEW: RyTRiX.com

Please give me a review on http://www.rytrix.com and tell me the positives and negatives.

I am aware of some of the games not working, but other than that...?

Well, as far as the design it is okay. I remember before you didn't have that popup with flash, and I actually liked it better without that. I am not saying it could be good with flash, I just think it might be designed a little bit better. I will be honest though, I have never been a fan of sites which popup their site into a flash console, that is just me though, I know plenty do it, especially Movie and Music sites.

As far as the content on your site, I like it, you have plenty of stuff. I really enjoy all the videos in your video section, some are pretty funny. I think I have checked the majority of them out

So overall you are doing great on content, I just think the overall site design could use a bit of reworking.

very interesting layout for your navigation.

I too once had a pop-up for my site, off a splash screen, the way you have it but it raised a major problem: google will not list sites with splash screens, at least the used to not do so. it's a philosophical thing for them.

I have always wanted to do a navigation similar to that, like a 3D lounge where the user can click on things to open elements of the site, but i never got around to it becaise it would be hard to change.

one comment on usability is this: with all those popups, after a while your site takes up my whole taskbar. you might want to name your windows and make sure all content loads in the same window or something for simplicity.

if it was personal preference i would say that the site in general is difficult to get around in because of the navigation, and you could use a nav bar along the top or bottom of the new windows to provide the site with a uniform navigation system.

i love the content. that gameboy thing is very cool, and the forum is neat as well. keep up the good work on the content, it's very entertaining.

~L

You site looks good. However I noticed a bit of cluster when clicking on the different sections of the site to go into.. Seems like it would look better if the little walking man wasn't on the screen..But other than that, everything is direct and easy to access...Great graphics also..

i love the logo on the entrance screen, definately has the matrix look to it. very cool.. flash is a very hard thing to master so depending on what level you are at i will be modest with my criticizm, but the graphix and animation are a bit weak and frank think it might be cooler with some java rollovers or something similer. the music was very cool... although im usually not fan of music on a website, some people do like it. and the choice of music for your target audience seemed quite fitting.


all in all i would give it a 6 out 10.

Well i mean i'm only 14 years old so gimme a break.

I see you have tweaked PHP-Nuke a little... Looks good the only think I don't like is the logo but that's not to say its not a good logo I just think it is missing something in my eyes. Besides that good job!

hate it

webforums - Please try to keep your comments a little more complete and
constructive, and not simply "nice" or "looks good." This forum is to
provide the site's owner a full review of comments and suggestions, not
with empty posts. Thanks.

Hello RyTrix, I visited your site, I liked the choice of the colors, and the Graphics were cool, but being the kind of site that it is I expected something to jump out of the screen at me... you what would be a little interesting is making your logo animated, but that is just a little idea. It is an excellent website for being 14, i think I had bought my first computer at 14 a 486 Packard Bell 25 Mhz with 4 MB ram Win 3.11, so I am impressed with the work you put into it.

BRAVO!

I am glad you took the Popups down I like the site MUCH better now

Rbeau

Fourteen years old? Not bad at all! I wish I knew what you appear to know when I was 14. I'd be rich by now! *lol

With that in mind, don't view my feedback as criticism, but rather as things to study up on and improve.

I thought the content of the site was very good. I'm not much of a gamer, so I didn't spend a lot of time viewing all of that, but looked more at the over-all "general effect".

The following comments apply primarily to the home page. I didn't look in as much detail at the other pages:

The first thing that is a turn-off to me ALWAYS is pop-up adds. I noted that you said you removed them - perhaps that was in reference to something else that used to be on your site, but I got 3 different pop-ups for dating services when entering your home page in three different browsers. I have to really like a site to go back and visit when there's that many pop-ups upon entrance. I am much less annoyed by ad banners (In fact, if I think the site is well done I will sometimes even click certain ad banners just to give a bit of kudos to the designer - I will never click a pop-up ad out of principle - I simply hate them - they are so distracting). If you choose to continue to use them, there is a problem with the placement of the script for them in the document. Currently, it is placed first before the <html> tag and the document type. It should be in the <head> tags. Where it is now causes a couple problems. Some older browsers (which some still use - God only knows why) will show that script as text on your page. The more serious problem is it prevents the page from displaying at all in Netscape 4.78 (I assume it is the same in all other NS 4.x browsers - 4.78 is the one I happened to look in).

Second thing to note is the width of the page. You are using a specific size of 840 pixels in your <table> widths. This looks great on my 17" monitor at 1024x768 resolution, but when viewing on my other 17" monitor at 800x600 res, you have to scroll to the right to see the whole page. (pixel width for 800x600 res should be more around 770 pixels) - the solution to this is make all the widths for your tables 100% instead of using a fixed pixel setting. This will allow the page to expand or shrink relative to the monitor size and resolution being used by the viewer.

Last thing I'll mention is the graphics. Your logo looks great! Did you create the other graphics, or were they "stock". Specifically I'm refering to the title graphics: Content, Site Visitors, Survey, Shout Box, Links, etc.
The reason I'm asking is that it's obvious that they were created to be displayed on a white or very light colored background. That's why you see the ragged white edge around the curved right hand portions of the graphics. It's a problem referred to as aliasing. It happens because the background of the graphic is blended somewhat with the other colors of the graphic (simply speaking - it sorta alternately merges the dots to give the graphic a smooth soft appearence). When adding tansparency, you then need to use a background color very close to the one used for the image background when it was created. If not you get the aliasing problem you see on the graphics on your page. If you did create the graphics, simply go back and redo them with that grey background (or something close) that you have on your site and that will solve that minor glitch).

Like I said earlier, what you've done is incredible for your age. Keep it up! Hope some of my thoughts give you some things to learn or think about for your future projects. Good luck!

I made a new set of graphics, be sure to check them out.

EXCELLENT! Much improved over the last time I looked. I like your new graphics and your new logo! And Thank you, Thank you for getting rid of all those horrendous pop-up ads!!!

Only one other suggestion for you - the copyright text at the bottom is all squished up and too hard for my old bi-focal eyes to read. I'd suggest adding a few pixels to your footmsg class in your style. It will help an old fart like me read a little easier.

Oh wow, this much much nicer RyTRiX. Looks much more professional compared to before.

Glad you think so!