SITE REVIEW: Y.F.F.A.

My name is Elliott Giles, League President of the Youngstown Flag Football Association. I reside in Youngstown, OH. I started my website http://www.yffa.net in an attempt to make flag football in Ohio more fun and interactive for the players. I've gotten a lot of compliments over the years about the website from players and visitors cause I implemented video and photos to the site that keeps them coming back. But right now I want to rebuild my website to something the guys have never seen before for a flag football website. So any suggestions or feedback would be greatly appreciated. Keep in mind, I never took a class or any private lessons to learn how to build websites. I learned it all by trial and error.

The site is http://www.yffa.net

Thanks in advance.
"E"

Check this link quickly ... http://www.ozzu.com/website-reviews/site-review-t75057.html ... this has been posted before ... exactly ... If you want more reviews, just post a reply to the original, and it will be sent to the top of the list again ...

Okay, and here goes ...

I would firstly move the table to the middle ... Instead of on the left hand side ... then also make the table border 0. Then I would completely redo the top header ... It seems like you took 5 pics and put them next to each other and put the logo over it ... for good stock images check out ... http://www.sxc.hu

For the coding check out ... http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http% ... epage.html ... there are 69 errors ...

I would also think about getting new buttons in the menu, and if you want to use the same ones, think about preloading the rollover images, because people with slower connections don't see the rollovers instantly if they are not preloaded ...

And then why do you have that initial flash page, I didn't see any flash in it, what does it do? why don't you just take visitors directly to the homepage ...

Also playing music in the background may slow down many people's browsers ... I also think that the red you're using is really overwhelming, it hurts my eyes when I read for too long ...

Most of your pages are really empty, and just have huge images and no information, even the "games of the week" page is empty, are there no games this week? And if there aren't, why not just write something like, "Unfortunately there are no games being played this week, so go home, have a brew, and relax" ...

The photos page is cool, but how about, once again, removing the table border, and just adding some cellpadding ... and maybe using another font throughout, like Arial and making the links another colour than blue, because the blue and the red don't mix to well ...

And maybe on the "photos" page put a back link to the "multimedia" page or a link to the "videos" page ... otherwise it's quite hard to navigate.

Also try to stick to one theme, some of your pages have a white background, and some have a red one, try to conform all your pages to one theme, that's what stylesheets are great for ...

First I have to say that I like the whole idea of the site, but I also don't understand the whole idea of the opening page. It's very hard to figure out where you are supposed to click and it just doesn't make any sense to have that opening page. I would just take folks straight to your main information page. Also, when I looked at this on my laptop, the color looked fine, but on my desktop the red is pretty hard on the eyes. I like the top banner on the opening page. I am assuming that all of those pictures are actually pictures of your league? I would stick with those, if so, instead of getting stock photos. I think it's nice to be able to tie in actual pictures of you guys doing your thing rather than bring in stock photos of other people that you've never met. Overall, I think it looks really great.

I like objects flouting out of other objects. Like in this one some images and perhaps a logo flouts out of the rounded square in the middle and I like that. Good design!

I totally reconstructed my league website. I took a lot of the advice that was given to me and I want to thank yall for being honest. I appreciate it. SO if you guys can take a look at it again and give your opinion I'd appreciate it.


Thanks,
E. Giles
League President

Sorry, the website is http://www.yffa.net.

Thanks,
"E"

Oh boy,

Those borders are not good at all. the bewell, or effect you used, is not consistent at all. The left/right bars have black shadows on the right, to top ones have the black shadows on the bottom etc.

The headings and paragraphs have no indent/margins at all, and the font makes everything look like crap.

What is all about the linebreak? it is dark black, with some tiny logo and a red line through? come on. you`re better without them.

Some links turn to red, some are plain links with no styles, "design" pictures have no borders, action pictures do have borders (which kinda` sucks), and this is just on the home page?

Should I go further? I`m quite interested of how the other pages look like, so yeah.

All the other pages I saw (about 4) are almost empty (like http://www.yffa.net/4manRecreationalPage.html) with Recaps Coming Soon as heading. Don`t link them on your home page before they are done. It looks very bad to the visitor.

And no, I didn`t get too much wine these days.

Not Bad At All.....

The Intro page would look really nice if you added a flash intro.

When I enter the site, your font kinda bugs me, I would change it to a
-- Arial / 12 / Bold --
I would also change your horizontal bars that separate your sections.
Nice high quality photos. Your pages are a little empty. I wouldn't worry about your paragraphs indent.

In that case you should read some stuff about content and content design, maby you`ll find out some interesting things. Have you seen a newspaper or print media with no margins/indent? No. Why? Because they are done 95% by professionals. Websites aren`t.

I relly like the new frontpage. It`s very describing what it is with the to "sporty guys", you`ve shown good who it is with the YFFA logo in the top. And the "ENTER" is for itself and easy to see and therefore peaple knows where they must click. The front page is much better now then before because it is less of EVERYTHING and therefore it`s more space between objects and is much better to look at. good work there!

When you are in on the mainpage there is many picturse that shows that it is american fotball. I like the background at the top where you have used transparency and enlarged the logo. And I like the those peoples running at the top right of the site. I like that movie of the peaple playing on the middle of the side. Could use a bit of cellpadding or something through the site, because the text and images is going a bit to close to the edges (red border).

On the link "4ON4" is not so good. There is one object on the left and 3-4 on the right. It`s not so good balance in it. Try to have only on object in the width and center it, or you could move on of the objects from the right to the left. The same on 8ON8.

The "links" is good. All is centerd and you have that "logo-line" between all the lines. And a logo at the top of each link.

The "messageboard" is good. I like those type of finished forums. The colors you used is similar to the logo and that`s good. On thing you should look at. The logo at the top has a thin border and then it doesn`t glide smooth over to the rest of the page.

RESULT: good work!

Hey,

Thanks to all that replied or commented to my thread. It really didnt matter if you complimented or ripped my website to shreads; I do this for fun and that's all. I put in a lot of work into it and for the guys that actually visit it and play in my league it's more than impressive. Now when I read the posts about my previous site, I agreed with majority of it. There were too many lines, too dark of colors, etc. But I stand by my finished produnt this time. Righteaous Tresspasser, you crack a tough whip homie, but I apprieciate your comments. It's a good thing that I dont make websites for a living huh? Thanks again to all of you.

E. Giles