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[56K warn] Honest comments wanted for iris.ac

Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 5:17 pm
by Chris Corbyn
Hello only me :)

First time I've posted a thread here to have my stuff ripped apart but since this is an important site to help promote the project I work on I'd like it to be as good as it can be.

http://www.iris.ac/

Just finished it today. There are more pages to be added regarding pricing, a virtual tour and a full in-depth description of the application but we have other more important things to be getting on with inside the system for now. The screenshots will also open in popups (using JS if and only if it's enabled, or just in the same window if not) but I have the tedious job of going through, blanking out all confidential information :(

I'm looking for comments on the usability, the way you navigate, etc etc.

I was thinking of including a text-only or black/white version for visually impaired users but I started to think that with the current layout, all black and white would look way too busy.

Constructively criticise please :)

Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 6:01 pm
by Luke
I tried as hard as I could to find some critisism. It looks great man. Easy to find what you're looking for... aesthetically pleasing, valid html and css... I'm sorry I couldn't help!

Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 6:09 pm
by Chris Corbyn
The Ninja Space Goat wrote:I tried as hard as I could to find some critisism. It looks great man. Easy to find what you're looking for... aesthetically pleasing, valid html and css... I'm sorry I couldn't help!
Thanks... that is help.. if people say it good and it's an honest answer I can't complain :)

Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 6:21 pm
by shoebappa
Did you ever look at the site in IE? the floats break pretty bad in IE6... Homepage just a couple of places break, gets weirder on other content pages.

Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 6:33 pm
by Chris Corbyn
shoebappa wrote:Did you ever look at the site in IE? the floats break pretty bad in IE6... Homepage just a couple of places break, gets weirder on other content pages.
I did yes over a Citrix connection since I work in Linux... Worked fine... Grrr... 8O

It'll be a padding/border issue (IE's wrongly implemented Box model).

I'll tinker with the iestyles.css sheet tomorrow at work to get that sorted (hope I can recreate it). What resolution are you at? I tried it at 1024x768 then shrunk the window down to < 800x600 without any issues but I'll have another go.

Thanks for the heads up :)

Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 7:21 pm
by shoebappa
Yeah, gotta love IE... I run at 1600 but it does it at low res for content pages too (just a little less obvious). The right column wraps below the content at any res...

I think some <br clear="all"> might do the trick in between the content sections, wherever you use the floating images. When the content doesn't wrap the height of the image, the image below aligns to the right of the image before it. Not sure what to do about the right column.

Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 7:22 pm
by shoebappa
Is the free VMWare Server available on linux? How we test other browsers in other OSes / older browsers from Windows.

Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:37 am
by Chris Corbyn
shoebappa wrote:Is the free VMWare Server available on linux? How we test other browsers in other OSes / older browsers from Windows.
Yes it is available. I used to use it but don't have it installed now but since we have citrix servers all over the site running windows xp it's not an issue.

I know what the issue is you're referring to, although I thought I'd fixed that... shall be looking at that in the next 30 mins or so. You're referring to the screenshots page when you mention the images right? I assigned i min-height to the DIVs as a means of clearing since with a 3-column liquid-layout you can't use clear in the center div. IE of course doesn't (grrr!!!!) support min-height but does however wrongly implement the box model for "height" (it stretches a box to accomodate content) so I put "height" in the iestyles.css. Not sure why it's not working for you.

Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:49 am
by onion2k
Nice site.. a few comments:

1. On the Screenshots page I expected to be able to click on the screenshot images to view a bigger version. Those tiny ones tell me nothing.

2. On the Development Team page Chris Corbyn's photo is horribly overexposed. It looks nasty.

3. On the Contact Us page .. no contact form?

4. On the Credits page .. d11wtq | Name removed .. I realise this is just a joke, but it looks unprofessional on a site that's designed to sell something.

5. In the footer, I'd expect "Parrs Wood High School" to be a clickable link.

Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 3:08 am
by Chris Corbyn
onion2k wrote:Nice site.. a few comments:

1. On the Screenshots page I expected to be able to click on the screenshot images to view a bigger version. Those tiny ones tell me nothing.

2. On the Development Team page Chris Corbyn's photo is horribly overexposed. It looks nasty.

3. On the Contact Us page .. no contact form?

4. On the Credits page .. d11wtq | Name removed .. I realise this is just a joke, but it looks unprofessional on a site that's designed to sell something.

5. In the footer, I'd expect "Parrs Wood High School" to be a clickable link.
1. Read my first post :P
2. Tell me about it :P That's me... we're getting professional snaps done soon -- this is just for usability I was asking but yeah i totally agree it needs changing.
3. Why is that important? Does anyone else agree this is needed... I personally prefer a more personal form of contact by email/phone. It can be added for sure ;)
4. Blame my boss... I did try to tell him :?
5. Quite right... toally missed that.

Thanks.

Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 3:29 am
by Chris Corbyn
Hi shoebappa,

I've taken some screenshots of what I see at 1024x768 and 800x600 in IE 6.0.3790.1830 In Windows XP.

1024x768
Image

800x600
Image

Can I be really really cheeky and ask you to send one with what you're seeing because I can't recreate it at all :( If you could also send the full build version of your IE 6 it would be great :D Thanks

Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 4:14 am
by ody
d11wtq wrote: 4. Blame my boss... I did try to tell him :?
If I remeber correctly you suggested "no dial tone" being changed to "no carrier". ;)

d11 | 8O -- Good job I'm gonna kick ur ass at poker tonight!

ody | Good job I'm staying in with Clare, a bottle of wine, film and some grub! Keep your eye on Kieran.

Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 6:08 am
by Chris Corbyn
OK, I've added a contact form on the contact page.

I've also tweaked around with the IE stylesheet but I'm not sure if it will have fixed anything for you shoebappa since I can't recreate it :(

Comments? :)

Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 7:22 am
by matthijs
Don't have much to criticise, only some subjective input:
- Arial? I would prefer a nicer font (verdana, lucida) certainly for body text. But I know that many businesses have Arial chosen as the default font (why I wouldn't know).
- Maybe the design could use a bit more whitespace around the textarea's. Just a tiny bit more padding around the blocks of text in the middle.
- Decrease the amount of contrast in some parts of the design. This point has much to do with the previous one. For example, decreasing the contrast for the borders, would automaticly reduce the need for the body text to have more padding. You already did this for some borders, like the top one. I like that better.

It's just that the page (and I'm looking at the homepage) is quite filled. Decreasing the contrast for the less important areas and giving the more important area's some more would lead the eye a bit better.

- Personally I would ditch the valid html/css buttons. That's not really important for a visitor isn't it?

Hope you can do something with this. I know this is all very subjective, so if you can't do anything with it, that's ok.

Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 7:55 am
by Chris Corbyn
matthijs wrote:Don't have much to criticise, only some subjective input:
- Arial? I would prefer a nicer font (verdana, lucida) certainly for body text. But I know that many businesses have Arial chosen as the default font (why I wouldn't know).
- Maybe the design could use a bit more whitespace around the textarea's. Just a tiny bit more padding around the blocks of text in the middle.
- Decrease the amount of contrast in some parts of the design. This point has much to do with the previous one. For example, decreasing the contrast for the borders, would automaticly reduce the need for the body text to have more padding. You already did this for some borders, like the top one. I like that better.

It's just that the page (and I'm looking at the homepage) is quite filled. Decreasing the contrast for the less important areas and giving the more important area's some more would lead the eye a bit better.

- Personally I would ditch the valid html/css buttons. That's not really important for a visitor isn't it?

Hope you can do something with this. I know this is all very subjective, so if you can't do anything with it, that's ok.
Thanks :)

Yes I can see where you're coming from with the contrast on the borders. I'll try dropping some of them to #DDDDDD or CCCCCC and see what happens.

The reason I use arial and nothing "nicer" is because arial is extremely common across all operating systems. I use linux, I don't have verdana installed since it's an MS Proprietary font that you need a license for (bet you didn't know that :P). The font will stay I think since it's clean and easy to read, sorry.

The valid XHTML/CSS buttons just show our visitors that we're not slack when it comes to implementing standards. I guess they could be swapped for something more discrete if the images are too distracting?

I'll see what it looks like with a few color changes on the borders :D