Need your input to my first website attempt

**Snowbird57** · 02 January 2006, 05:47 PM

First of all I'd like to wish you all a very Happy New Years.

I built this site for my association. www.afac784wing.ca I used MS Frontpage with one of their templates and I fiddled around with it and added graphics I made in Xara1. I've made plenty of mistakes and would appreciate your input as how it can be improved.
Sorry I can't figure out how to hyperlink the website in this forum.

Thanks
Snowbird57

**pauland** · 02 January 2006, 10:49 PM

For a first attempt, or even second attempt I'd say it's pretty darn good - you should be proud of it. About the only comment's I'd make are that it would be nice to see a few less colours used for headline text so that the site is more consistent and perhaps check out some font sizes - special announcements doesn't quite look right with the rest (Arial black, size five and garish header colours). Some of your images could be compressed to improve loading speed.

All in all - very little criticism for a job well done.

Paul

**RTK** · 03 January 2006, 04:22 AM

Snowbird,

What Paul said...

Can't really see anything "wrong" here... It's a site that gives information - and I can't see why anyone looking for this kind of info. would not find what they are looking for?

People that know better, talk about making things accesible - using "alt-tags" for images might be something to consider?

For the navigation on the left - I'm sure many people are used to imagery matching the message (home, images, etc.) Knowing nothing about aircraft - maybe the current images do? On the otherhand - the imagery in the navigation fit the theme of the site.

In all - people looking for information will find what they are looking for.

Well done! (Input from a non-web designer...

)

**Snowbird57** · 03 January 2006, 04:58 AM

Thanks very much for your comments, I see what you mean about Special Annoucements, Paul I'll get busy and fix it up. As for the slow download I still have to figure that one out. I tried reducing the image size and resolution in Photoshop 5, but I guess I didn't get them small enough. Santa was good to me this year and brought me a Wacom Graphire 4 Tablet with Photoshop Elements 3, maybe I can do some neat stuff with them to reduce the photo size.

Thanks Risto for your comments, I'm really new at this and I'll have to figure out the Alt-tags your talking about. Guess I should have read the manual first. One thing I know I can't go on a search engine and find the site, I must have done something wrong uploading.

Anyway fellows thank you once again.
Bob

**RTK** · 03 January 2006, 06:17 AM

Originally Posted by Snowbird57

One thing I know I can't go on a search engine and find the site, I must have done something wrong uploading.
Bob

No, it's not something you did wrong "uploading" - or anythng else for that matter. Looking at Google only - that SE has found your site: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...afac784wing.ca

The explantation for not being listed is easy:

(1) Your website is new (a couple of moths?) and Google hasn't come around to rank or index your pages properly yet.

(2) You don't have enough (any?) websites linking to your site yet. Talk to your friends (other websites) who make a difference to the services you provide - and ask them to link to your site. The more other website (that are already in Google) that link to you - the faster you will be found and listed. How high you will be listed is determined by "Google Magic"... Before trying to figure out the "magic" - get the word out (to other web masters) about your site.

Hope that helps a little bit!

**pauland** · 03 January 2006, 08:42 AM

Originally Posted by Snowbird57

I tried reducing the image size and resolution in Photoshop 5, but I guess I didn't get them small enough. Santa was good to me this year and brought me a Wacom Graphire 4 Tablet with Photoshop Elements 3, maybe I can do some neat stuff with them to reduce the photo size.

Bob, the size of the pictures on the page is fine, but their file size is quite big. The trick to this is to play with the compression settings of the image and tweak that to get a smaller file and still have a good quality image.

As an example, I've shrunk your banner from 44K to 32K and your building picture from 43K to 18K to give you an idea (feel free to use these if you wish). The smaller pictures are a compromise of picture quality and space. Feel free to try and get a better compromise than I've achieved. I'm not suggesting these are the only pictures you can optimize!

Good luck (and again well done).

Paul

**Snowbird57** · 03 January 2006, 05:52 PM

Boy you two guys are great, thanks again for all your advise. Risto getting other association Wings to link into our site may take time, as there are only a few that have websites. But getting to my membership is the big thing, most of the members that have computers were emailed about the site. Now the holidays are over I'll take Paul's and your advise and clean up the letttering and photos.
Thanks for the work on the photo and banner Paul, visually you can't notice any difference.

Bob

**Soquili** · 03 January 2006, 07:20 PM

Hi Bob,

I like your web design.

I have a question about the Latin phrase, if you don't mind. My Latin is about 40 years unused since high school

I'm not sure if Ardua is derived from Arduum (steep place) or from Arduus (difficulty). So I'm not sure if the phrase is Through Steep Places to the Stars, or if it is more accurately Through Difficulties to the Stars.

**Hwy101** · 04 January 2006, 01:12 AM

Originally Posted by Snowbird57

First of all I'd like to wish you all a very Happy New Years.

I built this site for my association. www.afac784wing.ca I used MS Frontpage with one of their templates and I fiddled around with it and added graphics I made in Xara1. I've made plenty of mistakes and would appreciate your input as how it can be improved.
Sorry I can't figure out how to hyperlink the website in this forum.

Thanks
Snowbird57

Great Site!

**pauland** · 04 January 2006, 07:24 AM

Just a couple of other points - the site is showing what is supposed to be the current date and the last updated date - both of which are back in November, so I guess a bit of work is required there. I don't use Frontpage so I can't help you out with that.

You will also find that the pages don't print out very well - they'll be cut off on the right-hand edge. Usually I would use some techniques to make the page print correctly using CSS (cascading style sheets), but this isn't always straightforward and since most web sites also have printing difficullties like this I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

I hope the association appreciates what you've done for them.