SITE REVIEW: What-Is-What?com

I've a new project at What-Is-What?com

Please go through the site and let me know what you think. Feel free to ask questions. Be harsh- I'd like to know what you don't like, what confused you, etc. I'm not looking for empty compliments.

Thanks in advance.

The site was excellent in content. The header could be bright and distinguishing. I would appreciate if more data is in the database and could get answers for everything.

As user s ask more questions, more questions will be answered. Feel free to ask on anything that you see missing!

As for the header design, I may have a professional redo it someday, if the site takes off.

Dont like the message saying IE is not comaptable with your website. Not sure what thats about.
Id say make that dissapear.
Some dont wanna use firfox

@Jerm3462: I have the IE message on the site because I have decided to stop supporting IE <= 6. Two hours of design work turns into 8 if I want to support all of IE 6's bugs and inconsistencies. That's another article that I could have written, which I'm sure that markov would have appreciated. The site content is still accessible in IE 6, however, it does not look nice.

When IE will support standards (IE 7 mostly does) then IE users will see websites that display fine. People who insist on using a broken web browser (IE 6) will see broken webpages. If more developers took this approach then either users would ditch IE, or the IE team would be pressured to support standards.

I really like that dotancohen - it makes sense to me!

very neat and clean

1. I'd make that heading text for each answer a bit smaller - kinda feels like it's for dummies to read!

2. I use Avant Browser, but I'm still seeing that message about "We see you are using Internet Explorer, which is not compatible with this website". But I just checked it in Firefox and I'm seeing it exactly the same way in both...

3. I'd make the header a bit more prominent, maybe change the colour so it stands out a bit - kinda blends in at the mo.

I'm glad to see that there are some valid pages out there like yours ... Nice one ...


I concur ...

Maybe you could disable the link of the page that a user is on, for example if a user is on the "home" page, you could disable the "home" link and make it another colour (or rollover state), so that users know which page they are on , and don't redirect to the same page that they are already on ...

It also feels to me like the "home" link should be in the top of that menu and not at the bottom ...

on the "bookmarking" links on the left hand side, the cursor doesn't change when I hover over them ... Is there a reason for that, or is it my PC that's freaking out? (I'm using FF2) ...

On the "About us" page, the heading says "who are you?" ... it feels to me like it's referring to the user and not "what-is-what" ... maybe it should rather read: "Who are we" ...

Then one last note, who answers all these questions ... ?

Thanks, Apostle and Sunny. I do try to keep the articles easier to understand (and shorter) than Wikipedia. Feel free to ask anything (preferably tech-related) by clicking the Ask A Question link.

@sammahoney:
1) Which heading text? The "What is ***" text?
2) AvantBrowser identifies itself as IE because it is Trident based. Thus, it will have the same layout issues as IE. So far as I know, I've ironed out all the most obvious IE flaws in the design rendering. However, I keep the IE-warning text as I may make changes to the layout in the future, and IE may itself change in unpredictable ways.
3) I actually want the header and the advertisements to blend in as to not distract from the article text. But if I do redesign (very likely) then I will keep that advice in mind. Thanks.

@righteous_trespasser:
1) I don't think that disabling the link is a good idea, and I keep the "home" link at the bottom as it is one of the less important links. As per standard practice, the site logo also returns the user to the home page, which is high up on the page and very prominent.
2) I will fix the Bookmarking links so that they mouse-over. It's a known issue from the abstraction JavaScript that I plan on getting rid of.
3) The "Who are you" text was changed to "who are we". Thanks!
4) That's me, answering all the questions! In between family life (I have a 6 month old daughter), and studies (second year in engineering university), I keep a busy schedule!

Any other criticism, problems found, or other comments are very, very welcome. Thanks.

WOW ... nice one ...

Thanks. I just put up a new one five minutes ago. I didn't know that I was an airplane fan until I started researching the Dreamliner. Wow...

Now off to start my Physics assignment. I've got about 3 hours to do two days work . Then two calculus assignments before the exam tomorrow....

Why are there two search boxes.

your website has good content.
But the menu is below,
Place it in upper-area may be better.

@murcielagossi:
The two search boxes are so that they will be easier to find. Actually, I didn't have much to put up in the top right corner, so a search box it is.

@marblehost:
Thanks. Only in older versions of IE on small-resolution screens does the menu appear below the text. That is one of the reasons that I warn IE users that their browser is not compatible with the website. Note that my code (including CSS) should _not_ have that effect. It is a well-known bug in IE that I refuse to code around. I recommend all users of that particular buggy browser to update to a standards compliant browser such as Firefox, Opera, or even a later version of IE.