SITE REVIEW: The Matrix

After working in php for sometime i recoded my site which was previously in asp. Every thing on the site is 100% from scratch even the forum, poll, etc. I wanted to wait after it was 100% done to submit it here for review but then i decided to submit it now and get some comments and suggestions, which I would gratefully accept.

Located at: The Matrix (http://www.dematrix.net)

The first thing that hit me when I viewed the site was the colors. I think they are pretty good until you get to the neon blue which in my opinion is distasteful. You might try to throw some colors in there that to break up the blue color monotony that you currently have. You have an underwater effect going. If thats what you want though, then you have it.

I also noticed that your links in your right navigation menu hover to black. you might consider changing that to a brighter color instead of a darker color like an orange or yellow.

It also took me a while to figure out what the site was about, in fact I was utterly confused for a minute or two until I went to the about section. The description there isn't real good, but I got the jist.

I do really like the curves and dimensions to your site however, so I think just a little brushing up on the colors and descriptions would make the site that much better.

Hope I'm not being too harsh ? It's really done quite well.

no you are not being harsh in fact i think that you gave some very constructive comments. i have been looking at the blue part because it doesn't really fit into the theme. concerning what the site is about i had a little message at the top of the news but then i thought that it was really redundant for people to be viewing the same welcome message all the time so i removed it, however i will put it back. so i think that you gave some very good suggestions and i agree with them. thank you very much.

i will also work on the about pages and so on. the truth is that i wrote those things very fast just to get some content up since i changed my interface. in the future what i will do is to create and use a template system that will allow me to effectively change the interface easily.

You know, you don't even necessarily need to put a description on the first page. I clever slogan or something might do the trick, just make it descriptive. If your worried about redundance you might go this route.

I figured the about page would be improved as it seemed half implemented, so I think your on the right track. Just keep gnawing on it.

yea i think the slogan is a good idea. the interesting thing is that my header was flash before and it had some informative messages. What i will do i to put a small flash box to the right of the header where the colour of the header is solid.

I think that looks good, BUT... u could use a little more colors than what you have..

Really good clear design and mouse overs.

Try this:

@ Left navigation options as bold
@ Topic box titls as bold
@ Change the neon Blue to #2396A6 or #79A2BD

This site looks nice but I felt it was a bit disjointed and lacked consistancy. The bright blue on the front page is a bit distasteful, but more significantly - the entire page outside the blue fades away into the background. If you are going to have a dark site keep it all dark other than the text. It's also bizare because the rest of the site is done without the bright blue....

That and the green hover colour on the links seems a bit strange because you haven't used it anywhere else.

That is a very clean layout. The 'green' roll over effects is a little weird and doesnt go with the layout. The title glow is a little off adn doesnt match the layout either. But other than that, I like the site.

Overall you've got a good layout, but could improve on a few minor details. The biggest thing that hit me was the "window" bars in the center of the page. Why not have them match the rest of the bars on the site? They are very bright, and fairly hard on the eyes. They also take away from the rest of the site and focus attention on it, which isn't always a good thing.

i changed the news bar title to a gradient (i'm not sure if i really like the way it fits in the site). sorry about the titles that have to be written on the title bars (i have to put that in). i changed the mouseover colour in the menu. the title bars don't look bright on my monitor (don't know if its the brightness/contrast) sorry about that smith_zach89. the comments are very helpful.

Is this PHPNuke ???
Design is good, but site is under construction i guess???
Text "Next" on the bottom of page is default font, this is propably bug, just fix it up, and try to add little white colour...

Poz.

Neo_Matrix you are the second person to ask me if that site is phpnuke. the answer is no. i designed everything from scratch and it is still under construction. by the way what influenced you to think that it had some resemblance to phpnuke. I have to replace the next (text) link with a button (image) link. once i get the time to do some more work in photoshop everything will be fine-tuned.

lol it is a nice site tho

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