Blog by Design - Critique Please

Do very very little in my opinion, I love the theme, very simple and clean - Black/white/orange is a winner for me - my only dislike is the bullet symbols, but thats personal preference.

The other note is your 'advertise here' image and your h4 headings are not quite justifying to the left.

I like, what ever changes you make, i hope they're subtle :)
 
@warrengroom
thanks for the compliments! Yeah I'm not a giant fan of the bullets, but I needed something that matched. I actually think I'm going to use my rat for the new ones. Thanks for the suggestions! I think I'm just going to try and tidy everything up.
 
My main problem is I actuall struggle to get it, even reading your tag line and I'm still not 100% sure TBH, maybe I'm just out of touch, lol.

Is it that the site reviews blogs?

Is the about the show section for our benefit critizing or for the user in the finished design?

You have no h1 tag, I would say put that in for the search engines not sure where though, lol.

You could improve your proformance quite a bit but without looking at every page not sure how I could advise, basically try to consolidate your external JavaScript files into as few as possible, this will cut down your http requests down thus speeding up the overal page load.

I do like the look of the site, even if I'm not sure what it's entirely about, :confused:
 
Jazajay said:
My main problem is I actuall struggle to get it, even reading your tag line and I'm still not 100% sure TBH, maybe I'm just out of touch, lol.

Is it that the site reviews blogs?

Is the about the show section for our benefit critizing or for the user in the finished design?

You have no h1 tag, I would say put that in for the search engines not sure where though, lol.

You could improve your proformance quite a bit but without looking at every page not sure how I could advise, basically try to consolidate your external JavaScript files into as few as possible, this will cut down your http requests down thus speeding up the overal page load.

I do like the look of the site, even if I'm not sure what it's entirely about, :confused:

Yes, the site reviews blogs, hence the "blog reviews" in the title and the tagline. And the screencast itself. And there isn't any javascript on the site at all excluding the actual video embed code.

I can probably split up the "about" page into a couple of pages if that would make it less confusing. Not sure what you mean about the criticizing part.
 
And there isn't any javascript on the site at all excluding the actual video embed code.
Heres the JS I found on the home page ~
<script type='text/javascript' src='http://blogbydesign.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.js?ver=1.2.6'></script>

<script type='text/javascript' src='http://blogbydesign.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.form.js?ver=2.02'></script>

<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="http://w.sharethis.com/widget/?wp=2.7&publisher=cabd5e79-7806-4fe6-ba6f-68526d4c3884"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">
/* <![CDATA[ */
var ratings_plugin_url = 'http://blogbydesign.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-postratings';
var ratings_ajax_url = 'http://blogbydesign.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-postratings/wp-postratings.php';
var ratings_text_wait = 'Please rate only 1 post at a time.';
var ratings_image = 'stars';
var ratings_image_ext = 'gif';
var ratings_max = 5;
var ratings_mouseover_image = new Image();
ratings_mouseover_image.src = ratings_plugin_url + "/images/" + ratings_image + "/rating_over.gif";
var ratings_show_loading = 1;
var ratings_show_fading = 1;
var ratings_custom = 0;
/* ]]> */
</script>

<script type='text/javascript' src='http://blogbydesign.com/wp-includes/js/tw-sack.js?ver=1.6.1'></script>

<script type='text/javascript' src='http://blogbydesign.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-postratings/postratings-js-packed.js?ver=1.40'></script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/coop/cse/brand?form=cse-search-box&lang=en"></script>

<script src="http://stats.wordpress.com/e-200801.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">
st_go({blog:'5978189',v:'ext',post:'5'});
var load_cmc = function(){linktracker_init(5978189,5,2);};
if ( typeof addLoadEvent != 'undefined' ) addLoadEvent(load_cmc);
else load_cmc();
</script>

Thats a fair bit of JS on the home page, if thats all just to embed video it can be combined to increase proformance.

The critising bit I read was this bit ~
Blog by Design is a screencast for free blog reviews. I'll go in-depth with usability and design and show you what blogs are and aren't made of.
I was just wondering if that was a note to us or to your actual site visitor?

Sorry it's just that I have never seen a site about reviewing blogs before, sort of though me for some reason.

Key:
Purple ~ JavaScript
 
Jazajay said:
Heres the JS I found on the home page ~
<script type='text/javascript' src='http://blogbydesign.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.js?ver=1.2.6'></script>

<script type='text/javascript' src='http://blogbydesign.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.form.js?ver=2.02'></script>

<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="http://w.sharethis.com/widget/?wp=2.7&publisher=cabd5e79-7806-4fe6-ba6f-68526d4c3884"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">
/* <![CDATA[ */
var ratings_plugin_url = 'http://blogbydesign.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-postratings';
var ratings_ajax_url = 'http://blogbydesign.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-postratings/wp-postratings.php';
var ratings_text_wait = 'Please rate only 1 post at a time.';
var ratings_image = 'stars';
var ratings_image_ext = 'gif';
var ratings_max = 5;
var ratings_mouseover_image = new Image();
ratings_mouseover_image.src = ratings_plugin_url + "/images/" + ratings_image + "/rating_over.gif";
var ratings_show_loading = 1;
var ratings_show_fading = 1;
var ratings_custom = 0;
/* ]]> */
</script>

<script type='text/javascript' src='http://blogbydesign.com/wp-includes/js/tw-sack.js?ver=1.6.1'></script>

<script type='text/javascript' src='http://blogbydesign.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-postratings/postratings-js-packed.js?ver=1.40'></script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/coop/cse/brand?form=cse-search-box&lang=en"></script>

<script src="http://stats.wordpress.com/e-200801.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">
st_go({blog:'5978189',v:'ext',post:'5'});
var load_cmc = function(){linktracker_init(5978189,5,2);};
if ( typeof addLoadEvent != 'undefined' ) addLoadEvent(load_cmc);
else load_cmc();
</script>

Thats a fair bit of JS on the home page, if thats all just to embed video it can be combined to increase proformance.

The critising bit I read was this bit ~

I was just wondering if that was a note to us or to your actual site visitor?

Sorry it's just that I have never seen a site about reviewing blogs before, sort of though me for some reason.

Key:
Purple ~ JavaScript

Ah okay I see. It's for the rating system so that you can rate the blog reviewed. I'll probably get rid of it if it slows the site down so much.

And I'm glad you've never seen a site like that before, because that's what makes it unique. That note is for the actual visitors.
 
Well it doesn't slow it down that much that you should get rid of it, but you could optimize it to make it load a bit faster.
 
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