almost done :)

[juergen]

after almost 2 months I feel I am almost done with the design of both a new product and all related websites [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] With the help of the info in the current color threads I hope I did not screw that part up.

For the first time I used a webeditor just to design a template. The site itself is done with an editor (to write the .asp scripts) and Xara.

I would be really glad to receive some feeback on both the looks of the site and especially the graphics. It is at http://test.herling.com

juergen

PS. I have spent countless hours on the graphics and the site design. If I now look at it, it feels so ... well, to me it still looks basic and if there is something missing [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

PPS. no complaints about the drunk guy on the people page. Its really me and I will replace that photo as soon as I find a better one. Look at my daughter instead [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[juergen]

after almost 2 months I feel I am almost done with the design of both a new product and all related websites [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] With the help of the info in the current color threads I hope I did not screw that part up.

For the first time I used a webeditor just to design a template. The site itself is done with an editor (to write the .asp scripts) and Xara.

I would be really glad to receive some feeback on both the looks of the site and especially the graphics. It is at http://test.herling.com

juergen

PS. I have spent countless hours on the graphics and the site design. If I now look at it, it feels so ... well, to me it still looks basic and if there is something missing [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

PPS. no complaints about the drunk guy on the people page. Its really me and I will replace that photo as soon as I find a better one. Look at my daughter instead [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[joroho]

Personally, Juergen, I love the site. It's pure simplicity really makes it refreshing compared to so many cluttered sites out there today. It was very easy to navigate, the colors were easy on the eyes, and the text was prominent (the way it should be). Your simple use of small bullets and other objects was very tastefully done.

.joroho.

[Mickie]

Juergen,

I like the site too. My only suggestion is to look at your table width. When I resize my browser window to 800x600, I get a horizontal scroll bar (i can see all the info, but the scroll bar is annoying). Possibly you just need a border=0 in the main table tag.

Good work.

Mickie

[jclements]

There is beauty in simplicity. Since your site is primarily to present information, graphics per se don't have to be the emphasis anyway. If your site is "fast" in execution, people will value and appreciate it for what it is and let other know as well. Besides, unless you are familiar with maintaining web-site "stuff" and do it on a regular basis, it should make any maintenance functions less time consuming for you.

One thing, I noticed that the triangle and sphere have white backgrounds which are "whiter" than the white of the page's backgroud. You may want to export these symbols from Xara as transparent GIFs.

[ajreed]

Comments on others comments:

I agree with Jorohos comments, it was fast and simple. Speed is nice.

Mickie says his browser puts Hscroll bar up on 800x600. Don't know what you're running Mickie but mine at that resolution has none. Ie5.5 running full screen.

But this does lead nicely into my main criticism, this site is clearly built for 800x600 in that the dreaded Hscroll bar appears at lesser resolutions, and the site sits all over on the left at higher resolutions.

I had always been led to believe it was worth making the effort to acknowledge the range of resolutions in use out there, and make sites flex accordingly. But i only run on 800x600 [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

The background, whilst unobtrusive, almost becomes a single colour. Not sure what to do here as to increase the contrast might interfere with the text, yet to decrease it and you might as well go for a plain colour.

Overall the site does have a nice consistency to it. Step back and there is an overall theme. The colour scheme is good, not very high tech, but pleasing on the eye.

As for symbols, perhaps the arrow but not so wide (my personal opinion).

PS your daughter looks a whole lot better than you do. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Alan

[Mickie]

Actually Alan, I was talking about browser window size at 800x600 which is often where I surf. My Screen resolution is 1024x768.

Mickie

[d-sine]

i think its great juergen.

its nice and very refreshing, and its very pleasant to browse, the eye is not confused. the colours work very well too, am impressed.

i agree with the browser window size comments but you've got this far with very little problems it seems, and that little hurdle is easy to solve.

like i said, excellent.

d-sine.

[nwilkinson]

Juergen,

I like the overall effect of this. I really do. Jealous as mine are always quite staid by comparison (IsoCalc.com). However, a couple of things:

1. Lose that background, it's not necessary! Just choose a solid colour. It will draw quicker, although won't affect the download time by much.

2. Fix that fixed-width table! I work for a browser company writing browsers for embedded devices and one or our biggest problems for users is websites that fix their width to greater than 640px. I am not saying that this is the holy grail of widths, but 800px is certainly too wide for many users. Probably the easiest way to do this is to drop the full-width grey lines from the top image. Then break the image into three parts: the left-hand end, including the logo; the middle section, which only needs to be about 16 pixels wide (more in a moment); and the right-hand 10 pixels or so. Then, use two table cells for the top bit: in the left cell, place the logo and left-align the image. In the right cell, place the right end and right-align it. Then set the background of those two cells to the middle image.

If nothing else, set the <TABLE> tag to <TABLE align="center"> so that it floats in the middle of the page.

The reason for using a 16-pixel wide middle bit is that if it's 1px wide then the browser will have to repeat it many many times. 16px is nice and efficient -- a fair compromise between small file size and not too much repeating.

Cheers,

Nick Wilkinson.
IsoCalc.com

[BobInce]

I agree that liquid layout would be nice, but more important to me is text size. It is currently very small indeed.

You've used points to specify text in your stylesheet; don't. Points and other physical measurements (cm, in...) are okay for print stylesheets, but useless for the screen. The size of screen text you get will vary depending on the operating system's whims. On a Mac your text will be unreadable.

For fixed font sizes, use pixels ('px'). Body copy is better set in resizable units so the user can decide to make the text bigger/smaller to suit their tastes. Try 'em' and '%', but be careful to set the text sizes *inside* your table cells instead of outside, as there is a bug in older browsers where font sizes do not inherit into tables. (Or avoid the problem with CSS layout.)

Your stylesheet specifies align, cellpadding and cellspacing on tables, but these are not actually CSS properties. To get the CSS equivalent of HTML cellspacing="0" across most browsers, use "table { border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0; }". To get the equivalent of cellpadding="0", use "td { padding: 0; }".

To centre the table, give it a width property and set "margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" but beware this doesn't work on IE, which erroneously needs "text-align: center;" on the parent element (together with "text-align: left;" on the table to stop the centring inheriting into the text. (Or, again, avoid the problem using a liquid and/or CSS layout.)

Technical quibbles over, I quite like it; personally I'd keep the background. And maybe put some rounded corners on the leftmost section to match the header.