Design advice

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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phpnewb1
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Design advice

Post by phpnewb1 »

Here is my first attempt at a website http://www.chattennis.com. I need design advice, critique, etc. Any advice would be much appreciated and please be brutally honest.
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Christopher
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Post by Christopher »

Firstly, it only displays correctly in IE. Firefox has the left column overlapping the middle and other problems. Then the site does not resize gracefully. I think specifying minimum widths would fix this.

As far as the design it is a little bland but fine. Little things like removing the letters from the logo and putting a mouth chatting (or two tennis balls chatting!?), cleaner corners ...
(#10850)
phpnewb1
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Post by phpnewb1 »

just fixed firefox problems
thiscatis
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Post by thiscatis »

It's better to have a forum integrated in a website instead of the other way around imo
phpnewb1
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Post by phpnewb1 »

what do you mean?
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Zoxive
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Post by Zoxive »

The "Chattennis.com" graphic on the top doesn't match the color scheme at all, and ruins it.

Bevel and drop-shadow doesn't help either.
thiscatis
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Post by thiscatis »

phpnewb1 wrote:what do you mean?
8 menu items point to phpbb pages.
In my view of design i'd rather create a site, with full options like news management, user profiles etc..
and integrate a forum for discussion into that.

Good points:
Like the Usability
Good work for a first time mate!
phpnewb1
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Post by phpnewb1 »

Ok I changed the banner at the top to a more appropriate color and font
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

Does it pass validation? Accessibility tests? Textual browsers tested?
phpnewb1
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Post by phpnewb1 »

It tentatively passed validation.
Z3RO21
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Post by Z3RO21 »

phpnewb1
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Post by phpnewb1 »

thx these are some good sites.
phpnewb1
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Post by phpnewb1 »

I have changed the look of mytennis forums site a bit. I think it looks a little plain. Is there anything I can do to spice it up a little bit without overdoing it?
matthijs
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Post by matthijs »

I would start with 2 things:
- the header is very large. if it were a beautiful image and only on one page, that might be ok. but in this case it's a bit of a waste of screen estate, in my opinion.
- the light blue color combined with the white makes it all very cold and pale. White is not bad, but combined with light colors it is. If you'd change the blue to a darker, warmer blue it would improve a lot.
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a.heresey
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Post by a.heresey »

Try googling for some info on color schemes. Your design as it stands now is using two colors that are very close in value and don't have a formal relationship as applied to the color wheel. Try messing around with background-color and taking putting a warm color from the red side in, like a rust orange/ clay court color. Tertiary tension. Or see how adding a dark green for an analogous approach would keep things more elegant.
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