Comments and Critique on my Layout?

Started by Anjoola April 29th, 2010 8:53 PM
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  • 14 replies
United States
Seen April 1st, 2014
Posted August 16th, 2011
61 posts
15.8 Years
Hello, I have been here on and off for a couple of years.

I recently made a new layout for my website (which hopefully some of you guys have heard of.) You can find it at http://anjoola.awardspace.com/

I hope the layout appealing, and works on all browsers? Tell me anything that you think needs to be improved, like the content, for example.

Thanks!
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Yusshin

♪ Yggdrasil ♪

Age 30
Quebec, Canada
Seen May 13th, 2013
Posted May 13th, 2013
2,414 posts
13.8 Years
Chibi :D I like it

I'm not a fan of the font, though. It's a bit too simple, too. I don't know how to make it better XD I just know, from a visitor's point of view, what's not very appealing.


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United States
Seen April 1st, 2014
Posted August 16th, 2011
61 posts
15.8 Years
Chibi :D I like it

I'm not a fan of the font, though. It's a bit too simple, too. I don't know how to make it better XD I just know, from a visitor's point of view, what's not very appealing.
Wow that was a quick response.

Do you prefer fancy ones? Like... er... Script?
Or more elegant ones like Times New Roman?
I used to have the font in some Times New Roman-ish style, but decided to change it to Trebuchet MS because it fits better.
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Yusshin

♪ Yggdrasil ♪

Age 30
Quebec, Canada
Seen May 13th, 2013
Posted May 13th, 2013
2,414 posts
13.8 Years
I like Calibri generally because it's soft on the eyes :s as for the lay-out, I adore that it's fixed-width. Blue's one of my favourite colours, too. I just think it lacks "pizazz", if you know what I mean xD


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Kavii

forever my furret

Seen June 8th, 2015
Posted February 17th, 2011
124 posts
13.1 Years
OVERALL

I really like your site - both in design (layout, aesthetics) and content. Additionally, your artwork, as an aside from the web design and development, is very awesome to look at. :)

To break down my thoughts:

TECHNICALITIES

A major plus here is that your site loads beautifully in very small browsing windows.

I would actually suggest to STAY with the font you have chosen as while 'plain', it is very easy to read. When considering accessibility, easy-to-read fonts (especially on smaller screens) is very important. I personally like Trebuchet because it's an easy to read non-serif font because of its contrast in width and narrowness.

In consideration of font sizing, I would perhaps suggest increasing the font size a bit overall as where everything is all neatly organized, it can get harder to read when a lot of text is in one place. In relation to that, for the navigational blocks, I might also increase the padding/spacing between the text headers and the blocks to increase readability.

As far as fixed width goes, since you're using a table for your layout, you might consider allowing the width to be fluid. The reason I would suggest this is because not everyone is going to be viewing your website from a 1024 x 768 screen. More and more people (especially gamer and artsy types) will be viewing through a larger screen resolution and then you will get a lot of empty space. Coupled with the smallish font, everything might seem to visually 'shrink' even though it actually isn't.

Especially if you want a lot of people to view your site and especially if you're using your site for a portfolio of sorts, you probably want it to be as accessible to people. :)

AESTHETICS

Love the different shades of blues and the aesthetics project a calming sort of feeling.

You seem to have a good eye for composition and I enjoyed clicking through your site to see the various bits of artwork you have posted around. :)

If you're considering ways to 'add a little extra', then a way you might be able to add a bit without altering what is already positive is to add some decor/decorative bordering around the top half layout. Or, you could possibly add a subtly textured background instead of having it be plain blue.

Faltzer

Male
Seen April 19th, 2020
Posted March 22nd, 2017
1,670 posts
17.6 Years
I was about to say this was the best design I've ever seen, but when I saw that you used tables, I gasped.

If in your menu you're going to have links display in blocks (which are pulled off good without it looking awkward,) it's a better idea to make hovering over the link box highlight the entire box, because more people are used to that effect happening in this case. The color-scheme has a light touch to it, and the banner seemingly reminds me of the title screen in Cave Story, which keeps me flashing my eye to it constantly.

I notice you have breadcrumbs; while that's cool because it indicates to a user what hierarchy of your site they're on, if they want to go back from the beginning, then they really can't.

Remove this "stop them from right-clicking" crap. What if, in your Pokemon guides index I want to open multiple guides? Say I want to look at your Natures or IV/EV page? Unless I know how to hold the Ctrl key while clicking a link, then I'm going to have to constantly press the back button. If you're trying to stop them from hoarding your source code, then you're out of luck, because they can either save your page and view it in their editor, or they can directly view the source with Ctrl-U. It's inconvenient.

The font is OK; for the web, a font is never too simple, but there is a high chance that unless you're going to be using said fonts for headings, they are too complicated (huge difference.) I notice that your main font is Trebuchet MS; that's an apt choice; you don't need to take a step further adjusting a client's vision to a font in which they'll be reading 80% of your page in. However, for the sake of compatibility, always spit on a serif font (i.e. sans-serif, serif) as a last resort. Whoever suggested Calibri has zero-idea how fonts work in CSS, and needs to revise ASAP.

I forgot to mention. Don't used fixed-width; this layout looks intensively small on my 1600x1200 screen resolution.


United States
Seen April 1st, 2014
Posted August 16th, 2011
61 posts
15.8 Years
Wow I didn't expect this much response!

So what I'm gathering is that I should make my font size bigger, have a fluid-width layout, have an easier way to navigate, and ...?

I actually have a problem with the font-size and fixed-width layout. The reason it is fixed is because all my blocks of text (which go along with the images) supposedly fit perfectly into the height of the image. If I make the website fluid-width, then the images and text won't match up.

I do realize the website looks small (in fact it looks small on my screen right now), but I don't know an easy way to go about fixing this problem.

For example Serebii.net has a fluid-width, but then all the text is stretched thin and it really doesn't look that good.

EDIT
- So I changed the breadcrumb thing (didn't know that's what it was called!) so that you can click on it to go to the previous page.
- Now you can right click and highlight and all that fun stuff
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donavannj

Age 32
Male
'cause it get cold like Minnesota
Seen 4 Days Ago
Posted 1 Week Ago
22,513 posts
18.2 Years
There are ways for fluid width and universally the same size text... but I can't remember a single one. So I suggest researching it on W3Schools, which is a website designer/programmer's best friend. (b'-')b
whoops
Age 31
Male
Minnesota
Seen February 1st, 2023
Posted August 31st, 2011
504 posts
19.2 Years
I'm by no means an expert on web design or coding, but the one thing I can say is that your banner seems a off, especially in the silhouettes of Lugia and Ho-Oh, while not a major thing, I think if you made them less plxely around their edges and perhaps used a lighter shade of blue instead of a harsh white it'd look a bunch better.

Melody

Banned

Female
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Seen March 4th, 2018
Posted March 2nd, 2018
6,459 posts
18.6 Years
Remove this "stop them from right-clicking" crap. What if, in your Pokemon guides index I want to open multiple guides? Say I want to look at your Natures or IV/EV page? Unless I know how to hold the Ctrl key while clicking a link, then I'm going to have to constantly press the back button. If you're trying to stop them from hoarding your source code, then you're out of luck, because they can either save your page and view it in their editor, or they can directly view the source with Ctrl-U. It's inconvenient.
I pwn these sorts of scripts with a nice little Firefox addon called RightToClick.
With that being said, stopping people from right clicking won't stop a determined person from nabbing your code or images. Adding a script to stop right clicks is just rude and obnoxious.

With all of that being said, I think your site looks pretty good. Like the people who posted before, yeah you could tweak a few things, but for now, it looks nice.

aRedMoon

Wait for me outside the lines

Age 34
Male
Minnesota
Seen April 23rd, 2018
Posted September 10th, 2013
11,126 posts
19.2 Years
Everyone's said everything that might possibly need to be fixed.

Like always, you have a beautiful eye when it comes to design. :)
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United States
Seen April 1st, 2014
Posted August 16th, 2011
61 posts
15.8 Years
Hello, so I'm working on the site with all your suggestions.

About the pixelly-sprites; I think I'm going to keep them, because they are actually images separate from the title bar, and its hard making something smooth and transparent at the same time.

And I have removed the right click thing, just so you know...

But thanks everyone!
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