Please Critique My Website

DesignMyBox

DesignMyBox

Member
Hey DF

I have come up with a new website design. I would really appreciate it if you all could please review the website and my portfolio. All critics are most welcome. My aim is to improve upon the site design and portfolio in whichever fields required.
Also, let me know in case you are facing any problem viewing the site or any errors pop up.
Click to Visit The Website

Thanks a lot.
 
Sunburn said:
Why have you used tables for layout?
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I wanted to restrict the constraints of the website so that's why I used tables. I know the current trend is of table-less website designs but I found it easier with tables.

Is the website loading slowly on your end because of the tables?
 
Just finished my lunch.. ok the following is my personal opinion.

I find the graphic elements to be clunky and 8 years out of date with the current trends. The use of beveling of the text just screams amateurish in your main showcase area, in addition to this, your logo wording when combined with scantly dressed women makes some interesting connotations.
I would also pay a little more attention to the white space around the navigation, and navigation drop down, its a little to close to the feature area, so its looks very cramped.

Within your body content, you section heading styling is a little hit and miss, on one section there is a clean separation of header versus content where as the next section down there isn't. Also the spacing and alignment throughout the home page and footer needs to be double checked, and finally whats quite ironic, heheh, making me smile just thinking about it, is you offering the "23 essentials to perfect design" should I sign up to your site. lol i would suggest reading that ebook and then applying those essentials to your site.

On the topic of tables for layout in the website medium its just wrong, tables should be used for tabular data not presentation and layout.
Regarding the speed issue, although not an issue for me on my connection, its quite possible that it would be an issue for those individuals in the world browsing your site on less capable connections though, so something worth thinking about.

To conclude, If you re look at the navigation, the elements in the feature box and is there suitability and also the general alignment and spacing, I think it will be passable as a solution for joe public. I'm sure some of the pro graphic guys will soon be in to give you a more in depth assessment, and will highlight a lot of areas i have missed. I'm sure if you take heed of the advice given you can make a real polished product, your not the first and I'm sure you wont be the last.

Good Luck.
 
It wont load slowly because of tables, it's just you should not use tables to structure a site. You need to restructure that with CSS and the use of DIV's

Edit: WOW I take that back, the site loads reallllllyyyy slow!
 
Sorry Glen. your misinformed, using tables for layout does have a quantifiable effect on page load times, although not to noticeable on small scale deployments, large complex table based pages will measurably slow down your page load, as the full structure of the table needs to be parsed before the browser will write the output to the screen.

:)
 
Personally I think it feels cluttered, cramped in places and generally needs to be streamlined. Keep at it mate.
 
God that is a slow site... some of it doesn't even load every time for me. Page titles are missing on some pages too.

Not sure I'd want all the 'adverts' on the right side of the home page and some of the text being used is inaccurate, specifically 'product mocks' (an area I work in due to my cad renderings) where you say they're not photo's, some are photo's and they're just touched up in photoshop etc, not all are computer generated as you are implying. You are even saying they can upload an image, meaning you're basically retouching a photo which is different to the mock up you're implying at the beginning (cad rendering, high res illustration etc)
 
Levi, I agree that the product we have on our Product Mocks page is recreated in Photoshop but that is just to give the client an idea of what we can do with their product & how it will look as a final product. The actual product will be made in CAD or Photoshop, depending upon the client's requirements.

The upload option is for clients and the product they want a mock of. We will look at the image & give him/her a quotation of the product mock & he/she will understand the scope of the work.

As for the slow site, a lot of people are facing the problem and we are working on resolving the issue.

Thank you for your review. Looking forward to hear more from you (positive or negative :p)
 
DesignMyBox said:
Levi, I agree that the product we have on our Product Mocks page is recreated in Photoshop but that is just to give the client an idea of what we can do with their product & how it will look as a final product. The actual product will be made in CAD or Photoshop, depending upon the client's requirements.

The upload option is for clients and the product they want a mock of. We will look at the image & give him/her a quotation of the product mock & he/she will understand the scope of the work.

As for the slow site, a lot of people are facing the problem and we are working on resolving the issue.

Thank you for your review. Looking forward to hear more from you (positive or negative :p)
Click to expand...

wording is everything, I wasn't complaining about the service being offered, just the way you were advertising it, it wasn't right and clarity goes a long way :)
As to the image, it wasn't there the first few times I tried to load the page and now I've seen it, did you do the htc phone image and permission to use the phone and it's applied images?


Berry said:
I'm not saying anything...I'm in a happy place today.
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Now that just isn't right, can we have the old Berry back please :up:
 
Hay dude glad you can take the crit makes a better designer in the long run as you can all ways improve no matter how good you are at one area. I know I have taken loads from this forum and the expertise of its members so here's mine:

Saying for the size of the page it is it should be loading a lot faster, I haven't checked the code, but if you want let me know and I'll give you help in getting it to load much faster.

It's not obvious you are an ecommerce site to me and what you are selling so thats your first major issue you need to rectify.

The next area that stands out is your logo in comparsion to some of your others your current one is weak. Look in to getting this much stronger.

The JS carasel you have chosen is a good one I like the effect however the background gradients and all the other gradients are two strong try making the lighter side of it a darker shade but a lighter shade of the current darker side if that makes sense.

The nav needs work doesn't look right in my eyes, try not rounding the edges off so much and giving more padding to the top and bottom and reverse the gradient. All your other gradients are light to dark thats dark to light keep it consistent.

Sort out your header it seems cluttered which makes the page look cluttered. Move the need help submit a ticket, live chat and contact us to the left next to the login and checkout and reduce the size to match the other login etc.. section this will help to declutter the top section a bit.

Personallly I would remove the second large gradient, add via position:absolute the 100% money back garentee to the top slideshow top right corner, the other 4 I would put in thier own "boxes"/areas in a line under the slideshow, same size. This again I feel will help to declutter the page and provide the user to see what you offer quicker.

The google translation select bar is not in the right place and seems like an after thought as a result. It needs to be in the header IMO maybe under the call us now/where it is now maybe, I wouldn't have it at all TBH but if you must.

Remove the clip art bannana and the other either add these as another row of boxes or improve that section or make them wider and improve them.

The footer just doesn't go, at least move the grey line at the bottom to be the same height as the top of the footer area as it will flow a bit better I feel.

Also improve your favicon.

Nice start but keep at it. :)

Just my thoughts and I really hope it helps.
Jaz :)
 
Hey Jazajay
Thanks a lot for actively reviewing my site. Very much appreciated. Will take me sometime to read & note down everything you said. But thank you so much. Keep them coming because I am going to redesign my entire site now, soon. And I will keep in mind everything what was said here.

Funny thing is, when I asked my site to be reviewed, I was speaking more in terms of a customer's point of view, as in how does the site look to you at a first glance, look & feel wise. But I got got technical reviews haha. That's great too. Rectifying these would make my customers' experience even better.
Looking forward to hear more from you & other DFians. :)

Thanks, DMB
 
Greg said:
Gentlemen, please let me know at which post I should seperate this discussion into its own thread, and any thread title suggestions please, I feel that whilst the debate is very interesting and engaging it's spun off topic from the original posters request :)

Thanks,
Greg
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Hi Greg.

Thanks for coming over. Even I realised that the posts went far away from what this thread was all about. DFians started debating on web standards & codes. If you'd like to shift this thread to somewhere else, that is fine by me.
I got a LOT of reviews on my website, which I am grateful to all. I have thought of redesigning my website & will consider each suggestion. So please don't delete this thread as I am still making notes.

Thanks, DMB


(oops! posted this a sec too late. please ignore this. the web coding debate has been shifted to here by Greg)
 
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