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Help Neven
Posted on March 30th, 2006 by Shane
I’ve seen a lot of great designs from Croatia lately, and Neven has one that’s very close but not quite Gallery-worthy yet. He’s asked for some real live feedback, though, and I knew you guys would be happy to provide that.
Take a look at http://www.cro-invest.hr and let him know what you think!
This site has not been rated, cast your vote!
Well, if it is a professional (business) site, get rid of the HTM and CSS links to validate - most businesses are open to standards, but don’t really care whether or not it validates - as long as it works. Putting those links on it makes the site seem just a little tacky.
I like the background - keep it. It’s different. Loud enough to call attention to it, but subtle enough to relax the readers into looking at your content.
I see a lot of white. White, white, white. The same goes for those drop shadows and gradient overlays. They can be nice, but they seem fuzzy sometimes and have to be done right. Otherwise, readers reactions are awkward.
All that white space draws away from the rest of the page, too. I don’t notice the header that much.
Just some minor design tips that could help, otherwise it’s not bad.
Positives:
- The buttons and rollover effect are nice, I see some pixelation there though, the buttons may benefit from being saved at a higher compression rate to improve their quality.
- Good choice of font and line height for easy reading.
- Nice form on the contact page! (but maybe move that send button to the right were most people will expect it to be).
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Could use improvement:
- This may just be me, but the background looks like carpet which is definately not a professional look, even for a real estate site. The color is good, but the actual texture could be so much better, something very plain but effective like striping, eg - http://www.ekobau.pl/
- The little side tabs on the header (for validation and email) are cute but not user-friendly enough to be highly useful (ie - there’s no descriptions, icons alone aren’t enough for usability purposes), and the site would potentially look better without them.
- Since this site is small in dimension it could benefit from some breathing room, ie - give it some space between the top of the browser and the start of the header, 20px usually does the trick.
- The footer should be centered properly.
- Users would benefit from a “Home” button on the menu, and possibly move the “Contact” button to last in the menu as there’s where it’s typically found rather than in the middle of the menu.
Hope that helps :)
My first impression was that the palette was a bit cold. I’d like to see some more of the reddish color and maybe even an orange.
I agree with much of what Harmony commented on. The side tabs on the header really detract more then anything.
First I want to thank Shane for doing this!
@Mark
Well most of bussiness sites acctually have css and htm validation links but in the footer, I think that putting them in the “header” is strange and that`s the reason u don`t like it.
When I made the site I wanted to be slightly different from the rest of web sites out there. I had to put something on the right side becouse i have e-mail link on the left :D
The header isn`t really for looking so much so…
Do u have a suggestion for a different color insted of white?
@Harmony
IMO when u are writing into textbox u start from the left yes?
that`s the reason that submit button is on the left, but the most important thing is that they are using that form :D
As for the background I had problems with choosing the right one…
The e-mail button is there for the people who forgot the e-mail address, and if they don`t know what that button does they have the contact page :D
The footer is not centered becouse when u resize text it goes right outside the site…I need to fix that.
@all
Nothing is perfect, but the main thing is that I have a good feedback from the “real users” of the site I just wanted some proffesionall thoughts.
Thank u all for the review! :D
The critics above were really good, and detailed. They said pretty much everything that had to be said.
I just thought I should say that you might as well listen to what the expert are saying, as they are speaking from experience, then your “real users” would give you even greater feedbacks. Wasn’t that what you were looking for?
Am sorry but the last comment you made, made it look like you weren’t embracing all the critics.
ps. I agree with Marks’ comment about the use of gradients.
I really appreciate the font and line height;easy on the eyes.I think the colorization could be a little more vivid.
@Tom
U misunderstood my comment. I pretty much agree with all the critics, all I`m saying is that when u look at the whole web these critics are just some tiny “problems”.
And u all made me see that problems.
As for the color, it`s totaly subjective thing…
And I don`t think that white color disctracts users, maybe it does but from the background :D
Offcourse the web allways needs to be worked on so this is not final stage…
•The web site looks nice. Though I agree with some of what was said before.
•I find the background a little odd it’s good but not corporate style.
•The site looks somehow fuzzy due to drop shadow over use.
•The used font is good.
•You have some usability issues that must be looked up:
1.The small buttons on the header should be associated with text, since some of them are not understood unless hovered “Skip to content”.
2.The increase / decrease font size must be some where up in the page maybe under the header. Never put useful features in the footer, no one will see them because no body is used to find such features in the footer. ”come on do you really expect for a user to scroll all the way down in a long page just to increase the font size.”.
3.The top button is very helpful then again not in the footer.
4.I haven’t looked your CSS file yet but I think you have to know that when a user increases the font size manually the site elements break apart.
5.Why use words like” Laščina” in the English version.
6.Is your home page called Info?! “That’s new”.
7.I don’t know but don’t you think the estates link is part of the services you provide.
8.In the services page. Is that all you can offer? “TEXT” show me more!
•I have to say the accessibility of the site is fair.
If I hang around I am sure I’ll find some more things to talk about.
Other than that the site looks great, and I think it’s a great job to have your XHTML/CSS validate. Keep up the good work.
ad 1.
I can do that but then I have to make the tabs longer which doesn`t look good…
ad 2.
You are totally right on this one!
ad 3.
This is tricky one. I think that the “top button” should be somewhere down on the page not in the middle…
ad 4.
U can increase text size atleast 3 times in FF which I think is a very big font-size then :D
And nothing breaks …
ad 5.
“Laščina” is the name of the neighbourhood in “Zagreb”
Is there any translation for that? :))
ad 6.
“Info” is acctually about page :D
ad 7.
You are right, but splitting those on two links(services and estates) isn`t so bad isn`t it?
And besides I think that “Estates” deserves its own link.
ad 8.
How? I can only make a film :D
Thank U for your time :)
My initial constructive comments are:
The interface is too soft - the buttons seem unfinished to me.
And there is something awkward about the white content area and how it meets the denim(?) background… maybe a shadow would separate the content from the bg? And, from personal opinion only, the background is kind of bland… I could see the blue fabric thing working if it seemed less tiled and more like one sheet of fabric - imperfections and all. It’s very clean and perfect - but fabric isn’t. It feels unnatural. Does that make sense?
That said - I like the layout quite a bit. It’s not cookie cutter looking. Very original.
New design is up :D