Another new design (critique please)

It doesn't matter if you do all the error checking in the world, or if you have the most beautiful graphics, if your site or application design isn't usable, it's not going to do well. Get input and advice on usability and user interface issues here.

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Luke
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Another new design (critique please)

Post by Luke »

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dallasx
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Post by dallasx »

I personally think it looks good.

The only thing I notice with the graphics are that they have that low quality jpg blotch.
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

yea... that's cuz the guy who I made the site for wanted it to load as fast as possible... I tried to lower the quality as much as possible without sacraficing looks too much. Thanks!
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Nathaniel
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Post by Nathaniel »

One armed space goat wrote:yea... that's cuz the guy who I made the site for wanted it to load as fast as possible... I tried to lower the quality as much as possible without sacraficing looks too much. Thanks!
If speed is an issue...

You could save 7k by turning this into text and styling it with CSS.

You could save a bit more by turning click to start into just the lock icon, with CSS styled text.

The rest of the images are justifiable, I think.

The only other thing I'd change offhand is add more left-padding to "The Problem: ... The Solution: ..." paragraphs.

I like the color scheme, easy on the eyes :) The buy page is excellent. The 1 - 2 - 3 step breadcrumbs are a nice touch. I might change the "select state" box to have a grey background and the same width as the text boxes, though.

- Nathaniel
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neophyte
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Post by neophyte »

Nice site. I like it!

Just a couple of suggestons.

The vertical text on the left is over optimized. On my monitor I'm seeing pixelation. It's a low res jpg. Turn it into a gif. You can probably get a way with a two color gif. It'll be extremely light weight and look better. I almost always use Gif's when working with simple graphics and color.

I think I'd like to see the gif's at the top roll over to a new color. Yellow might be a nice color. The outlining wasn't quite enough for me.

Cheers :wink:
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Post by Roja »

- The HTML doesnt validate (Not really a webpage by the definition of html you chose)
- The CSS doesnt validate
- Not WAI compliant
- "Click Here" is extremely bad. (Google for reasons)
- The javascript should be an external file, allowing browsers to cache it, speeding up the page load
- Tables for layout? Could use css instead - save some more bandwidth
- Contact Us and FAQ don't line up - Faq's top line is higher than Contact Us's.
yum-jelly
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Post by yum-jelly »

I like colors, but it does have some errors. Also I think the header logo is way to big. I have never understood why people design such huge logos. I think big header logos are fine for forums and webmail systems where you have many controls that fill a area up with user defined tools. But just a big image that does nothing makes me think that ran out of idea's for real content. Also the images are small in size (bytes) but they still account for nearly 50% of the pages content which is way to much...

But like I said, I do like the colors, a really nice blending effect!


yj
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

Thanks for all the advice.
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wtf
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Post by wtf »

You should handle contact form via post

http://securityfreeze.us/contactus.php?errors=no

I've changed it to errors=yes and it seems it sent mail
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

Oh thank you...
It didn't send the email though.
alex.barylski
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Post by alex.barylski »

The Ninja Space Goat wrote:yea... that's cuz the guy who I made the site for wanted it to load as fast as possible... I tried to lower the quality as much as possible without sacraficing looks too much. Thanks!
Why not use PNG???
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Chris Corbyn
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Post by Chris Corbyn »

Hockey wrote:
The Ninja Space Goat wrote:yea... that's cuz the guy who I made the site for wanted it to load as fast as possible... I tried to lower the quality as much as possible without sacraficing looks too much. Thanks!
Why not use PNG???
PNG isn't always a lower filesize. It's often higher. You simply need to choose the correct format for the job. In general, JPEG is a lower size for photos whereas PNG is a lower size for graphics such as logos etc with less colors.
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Post by Roja »

d11wtq wrote:PNG isn't always a lower filesize. It's often higher. You simply need to choose the correct format for the job. In general, JPEG is a lower size for photos whereas PNG is a lower size for graphics such as logos etc with less colors.
Have you used pngcrush much? Most people that think png is "often" higher are used to the (<span style='color:blue' title='I'm naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span>-poor) output from Photoshop, which is aimed at quality, not filesize. Photoshop+pngcrush will virtually always result in smaller filesizes than a jpg, unless the jpg quality is stupidly low (60% or less).

However, your other contention is correct - photos are the most common type of image where a large difference between jpg and png will occur.
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Chris Corbyn
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Post by Chris Corbyn »

Roja wrote:
d11wtq wrote:PNG isn't always a lower filesize. It's often higher. You simply need to choose the correct format for the job. In general, JPEG is a lower size for photos whereas PNG is a lower size for graphics such as logos etc with less colors.
Have you used pngcrush much? Most people that think png is "often" higher are used to the (<span style='color:blue' title='I'm naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span>-poor) output from Photoshop, which is aimed at quality, not filesize. Photoshop+pngcrush will virtually always result in smaller filesizes than a jpg, unless the jpg quality is stupidly low (60% or less).

However, your other contention is correct - photos are the most common type of image where a large difference between jpg and png will occur.
I haven't used that no. It does make sense what you say though :) I haven't checked whether or not that's the same with GIMP or not, which is the graphics application I use primarily.
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Bill H
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Post by Bill H »

Just one note on content: I tend not to trust a site which does not include (or obscures) any names, addesses, or phones numbers for the proprieters. It says "this company exists only on the Internet" which is how scammers operate. I'm not suggesting that you are one, merely offering what the lack of information on your website can connote.
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