Your opinions or suggestions on my site

[Rik]

Spot on, Bill.
The Placeholder 'thingy' worked. Seems a pretty good way of placing HTML code or even flash animation (which I haven't done yet) where you want it.
Cheers.

[Soquili]

Yes Rik, placeholders are very useful.

[Rik]

I assume that Email Forms are an external thing as well, and not something that Xara can do?

So, if my assumption is correct, then is that done by using a Placeholder as well?

[Soquili]

Yes Rik you can use a placeholder for an email form. I believe there is also an email form widget in the Designs Gallery.

[Rik]

Thanks again, Bill.
Yes, I've seen the widgets, now, in the Design Gallery.
Just need to work out how to use it and get it to work!

With some help from everyone, things haven't been too difficult. So I hope that this part will be the same.

[AndFarr]

I think Frances is right.
It isn't clear at all what your website is about at first glance.
As a user, all the design of the site is irrelevant if I can't immediately understand what your service or product offers.
Don't expect your users to wade through your content for find out as they won't bother.
Make the meaning clear, then provide the content.
- Andy

[Rik]

Hi Andy.

I appreciate what you say, but as I explained earlier, this site is not for the general public.
Sure, they can log on to it if they want but it will not mean anything.

The site is to help me with what I do for my work.
And anyone who I have trained on the software they will be using, called OSCAR, will know exactly what the site is about.
That is the sole purpose of the site.

This is the first site I am building using Xara. I have always used FrontPage and if I had done that, then I would not be here asking for opinions on how it looks, and more importantly, to ask for help when I can't get something to work.

So, I've been asking questions on how to get things to work, using Xara for web design.

Please don't worry about whether it makes sense to you or anyone else you know.
Unless, of course, they work for the company I work for.

I've managed to get a second page working now.
If you click on the 'How To' menu and click on 'Side Panel' - that's the next page I've managed to get working.
But, that page will not mean anything to those who do not use the software I train.

Hope that explains things.

[DaveC]

Just a few passing comments:
I find the site a bit cold. Possibly the gray shading suggested would help. The white is awfully WHITE! My site is totally unlike yours but I have a graduated background you could look at: ptolemeeplus.ca/triphotos/France2011

I realize the content is only provisional but you have repeated the same content three times. Might be better (as mentioned) to explain a bit more exactly what you are offering. Small error in the second line of text: the verb should be "shows".

If you spread the button box to the left you can integrate the middle (newspaper) box a bit better.

I hope this is of some help, DaveC

[Rik]

Hi Dave.

Thanks for your input and thanks for spotting the grammatical error!

The reason why it's all WHITE, is that if you go to the 'Sidepanel' page, that's a set of pages that I've copied from the magazine the sales people can download and print. The magazine is done with white pages so that it's not too heavy on printer ink etc...
To save a ton of work, if I am going to copy pages from the magazine and put them up on the web site, then things need to be white(ish).

That's not to say that I don't understand what you mean by everything being all white.

I also understand things being repeated.
I will probably remove some of the repetition in time, but initially, I want them to be able to get to pages that explain what's changed from a number of places.

The bit about what I'm offering (to be more accurate, what OSCAR offers) is something that I need to work on. That's for sure and I just haven't got there yet.
What is being offered, however, is not too critical. Those who are visiting the site have already been trained by me and are there just to remind themselves of what they may have forgotten etc...

But, I am not pretending that I've got everything worked out perfectly, by the way.

[DaveC]

I completely understand your thing about printing and ink cost and it's obviously what works best for you. But a light shading might help set off the foreground from the background. Good luck!