Tarma Designs - Site Critique

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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Tarma Designs - Site Critique

Post by Luke »

We finally finished our revamping of Tarma Designs' website. The site we redid is here:

[s]http://www.tarmadesigns.com[/s] (moved into production)

the new site is here until we finish testing it

http://www.tarmadesigns.com

Please rip it apart. Tell me how much it sucks. You know the drill :)

[s]EDIT: Please note: for the next few hours the links may be broken, so maybe leave this thread alone for a few hours. Sorry.[/s]
Last edited by Luke on Mon Jun 04, 2007 5:07 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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superdezign
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Post by superdezign »

I'm not a fan of the color scheme. I feel like the olive-yellow color doesn't fit well. However, it's not always up to us what the color scheme is like. :-p

No complaints. It's solid, though small.


I really like how you have your own custom font on there. Very nice. :-D
The news section's titles act strangely though because you can't have focus on more than one flash movie at once. So, only the one that's focused on can have the nice rollover effect. Oddly, it'll work for about 3 or 4 of them in a row, but then stop unless you click and focus.
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

yea I'm aware of that problem. I believe it is fixed in version 3. I'm still using version 2. I think version 3 is still in alpha. Thank you for the critique and the kind words :)

As for the color scheme, I agree, but it's their color scheme.
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superdezign
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Post by superdezign »

The Ninja Space Goat wrote:yea I'm aware of that problem. I believe it is fixed in version 3. I'm still using version 2. I think version 3 is still in alpha. Thank you for the critique and the kind words :)

As for the color scheme, I agree, but it's their color scheme.
Lol Yeah. The longer you look at it though, the more natural it becomes. But at first glance, it's like "whoa."
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Kieran Huggins
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Post by Kieran Huggins »

well implemented - but why use sIFR on some headings but not all?
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superdezign
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Post by superdezign »

Kieran Huggins wrote:sIFR
:?: :?:

:?
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Kieran Huggins
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Post by Kieran Huggins »

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Ollie Saunders
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Post by Ollie Saunders »

I can't stand sIRF go with the gifs.

You have several problems, I'm being brutal here:
  • Content doesn't scale horizontally when changing text size
  • Backgrounds such as the one you have look very dated and add to visual clutter making the experiencesmore confusing for all and harder for the visually challenged
  • Inconsistent appearance of links
  • Subjective: a bit to much top margin
  • "Search the store: |xxxxxxx| <[ Go ]>" would be better as "|xxxxxxx| [ Search ]"
  • Mailing list button is unlabelled have a unique, unconventional appearance. Also what am I subscribing too exactly?
  • Could mistake "© 2006 Tarma Designs" for being a clickable link
  • Mark-up is in the wrong order when CSS is disabled. If you do put it in the right order you'll want to add a "Skip navigation" link for blind users
  • If images are disabled some text is no longer readable
  • When viewing a product the <title> becomes the current product alone but should probably be prefixed with the site name
  • Sort by select relies on JavaScript and behaves in an unconventional fashion. Both of these can be fixed with the introduction of a button.
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Post by sentback »

The news section has no style. Thought I should mention it :D
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

@Kieran - hmm... are you referring to the "Tarma Adventure" page? If so, that page is sort of "interim". It will be changing very soon. thanks!

@ole - thank you so much - I'll respond more thoroughly in the morning, but I really appreciate your thoroughness :)

@sentback - thanks, it was working when I left on friday, but then the DNS switched over and killed it. I'll have to fix it tomorrow as well.
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

* Content doesn't scale horizontally when changing text size
Yea it's a bummer, but it's a fixed-width site. The client was very specific about the design.
* Backgrounds such as the one you have look very dated and add to visual clutter making the experiencesmore confusing for all and harder for the visually challenged
same as my previous answer - it's all about branding. :(
* Inconsistent appearance of links
What would you like to see more consistant? I changed the bottom links to not turn white anymore. They just get underlined. I tried to stay consistent depending on the background color
* Subjective: a bit to much top margin
eh... I'll play around with it
* "Search the store: |xxxxxxx| <[ Go ]>" would be better as "|xxxxxxx| [ Search ]"
I like it how it is
* Mailing list button is unlabelled have a unique, unconventional appearance. Also what am I subscribing too exactly?
That is interim until we get a real mailing list script set up - the stupid ecommerce platform works against us in a lot of ways :(
* Could mistake "© 2006 Tarma Designs" for being a clickable link
check it out now... better?
* Mark-up is in the wrong order when CSS is disabled. If you do put it in the right order you'll want to add a "Skip navigation" link for blind users
I know... that's the one thing I hate about this layout. I tried to fix it, but I couldn't get it to work in IE and FF without doing it like this. :(
* If images are disabled some text is no longer readable
yes I know, that particular page is interim as well
* When viewing a product the <title> becomes the current product alone but should probably be prefixed with the site name
Umm... nah I think it's fine how it is
* Sort by select relies on JavaScript and behaves in an unconventional fashion. Both of these can be fixed with the introduction of a button.
Good catch. Thank you. I'll fix that.

Thanks so much ole for such a thorough response! :-D
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superdezign
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Post by superdezign »

The Ninja Space Goat wrote:
* Mark-up is in the wrong order when CSS is disabled. If you do put it in the right order you'll want to add a "Skip navigation" link for blind users
I know... that's the one thing I hate about this layout. I tried to fix it, but I couldn't get it to work in IE and FF without doing it like this. :(
Not even putting the left column first, floating it left, and giving the right column a padding-left that's the same width as the left column? I didn't try it on your code, but it looks like it shouldn't work any different than other websites. I could be missing something in the CSS somewhere. As of now, I see that you're floating the main content right, but it's rare that I see content floated at all.
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

Ninja, did you move the review site into production? I can hit the link on the first one, but not the second.
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

yes I did. they are both one site now. http://www.tarmadesigns.com - I will edit my original post. :)
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

Ok, what I really want to know if how many people are working on these sites with you? You are seriously cranking out some stuff.
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