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Site Name: An Imaginary Mind
Owner: Alex
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 19th June 2009
Site Name
No problems remembering it – very nice. I just don’t like how your URL is different from your site name, that’s all.
Coding and Validation
Your HTML has 34 errors and 22 warnings.
You are missing a doctype and your document is not properly structured for an HTML document. You need a doctype at the beginning of every page to tell the browser that your document is an HTML document:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
You should have the correct structure for an HTML document, which I have outlined in my validating HTML tutorial. You need <head> tags to place stylesheet coding and such.
You also need a character encoding, which should go in the <head> section:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
I recommend going through your coding and making sure it’s up to scratch. The reason for this is that whenever there are errors in your coding, it’s possible that it can cause an error in a certain browser or operating system. Having validated coding ensures that your website is viewed as best as it can.
You should have a title to your page by placing this in the <head> section:
<title> Title here </title>
Your CSS has 7 errors and 26 warnings.
In your div specifications, width: 350; should be
width: 350px; – you have to specify a unit. This is the case with other widths and heights that you specify.
You should customise your divs with CSS where possible. For instance, you have the following div: <div id="content" style="left: 229; width: 350; position:absolute;top:326; height:457">.
You can specify that with CSS like this, and paste it in your external stylesheet rather than inside the tag:
#content {
left: 229px;
width: 350;
position:absolute;
top:326;
height:457;
}
That way, all you have to specify is <div id="content">. You should read up on classes and ids; I have a tutorial if you need some help.
You should look through your coding as you have some blank values such as left:; in a Cbox code.
This piece of styling in your document should go in your external CSS file.
<style type="text/css">
<!--
.style1 {
font-size: 12pt;
font-weight: bold;
font-style: italic;
}
-->
</style>
Browser Compatibility & Usability
According to Browsershots.org your site looks the same in most browsers.
You should extend the position of the div with the welcome message a bit more to the right, because in Internet Explorer, the text overlaps the image.
Your welcome message should go on the left sidebar instead, as it’s very long. And all the affiliates, Twitter updates and so on, can go on the right sidebar. The navigation should, in essence, be further up the page.
Layout
It’s really simple. I notice that you don’t have very extensive HTML knowledge but this a fairly stable, neat layout.
The header image is rather simple. It could be improved in quality as it looks a bit rought and blurry in some places. I’m not sure what graphics program you use but saving images in the highest quality is a must.
The colour scheme is alright, but you need to brighten up the CSS to match that header image. Customise the headers like h1, add a bit of background colour or a texture to the content, and use varying fonts. Tutorialtastic and W3 Schools can help you here.
Content
Blog
I obviously won’t review a blog; this is also an external link.
I notice that most of your links are external or to other parts of the web or your website. I won’t review them in detail unless I see major problems.
Fanlistings
This has a rather simple layout as well. I’m not liking the header image (it’s a bit scary for me) or colour scheme (red and white and grey aren’t terribly exciting) but at least everything is well organised here.
Fan Videos
This site seems unfinished. There is a big gap where I assume the header image must be, and the links in the sidebar lead to 404s.
Site
The information on this page doesn’t display under the header image as it is supposed to. Compare the content on both the home page and this page and follow through so you can edit it until it works.
Contact
Same thing with this page. The text doesn’t display directly under the header.
My Host
External link.
Icons
All the pages in this section have a different layout. I’m sure this wasn’t intended.
I don’t find it necessary to divide all the icons into sections.
These icons aren’t very good at all. The quality isn’t great – many are pixelated and the original images stretched. You don’t use very good effects, and the text colour on the icons are mostly red or blue or blinding shades. You should use colours that match with the image and don’t stand out. The text looks very tacky as there isn’t much depth to it, and it seems that you haven’t really put much thought into these.
Half the pages here have dead images. And not all the icons are of the same size.
Headers
This section has a different layout as well.
These also aren’t of great quality. They’re pixelated and the colours and fonts aren’t very good together.
You should also cut down on the use of celebrity images as they are copyrighted, and you generally need permission from the photographers to use these images.
Backgrounds
This section also has a different layout.
Again, the quality of these images isn’t good, and some of them just look like a mess of blended pictures. Many images have been resized as well, resulting in loss of quality.
Colour Bars
Same as above.
Friend Only Banners
Same as above.
Moodthemes
You should have a screenshot of this. I don’t want to have to download it just to see it.
Website Layouts
“Download: Here” doesn’t work. “Webiste” on the image should be “Website”.
This layout isn’t of very good quality.
FanFiction
This is a different part of the site, and I won’t review your writing.
Original Stories
Same as above.
Originality & Creativity
I didn’t see anything hugely creative on your website. Your graphics weren’t very original as they mainly used celebrity images, which is very common.
I believe that if your website focused more on your writings, it would be a lot more original.
Organisation & Errors
You had a lot of broken images, and the layout changed on a lot of your pages. You have your content in the right sections and such, but your individual pages need some cleaning up.
Overall Comment
Alex, I hope I wasn’t too harsh in this review. I need to make it clear to you that your site does need a fair bit of work. You have sound knowledge of HTML and CSS, but that really needs to be improved in order to create a more catching design.
Your graphics are your weakest point, and I would suggest taking down the graphics you have until you have practised enough to make graphics of better quality, and utilise better colours.
I highly recommend working with an HTML template to start off with, and using this to help you understand a bit more about HTML and CSS. Quite a number of websites out there have templates available.
You should practise on your graphics skills if you are going to offer graphics. Otherwise your site would be fine just focusing on your written work and fanlistings, as long as you create a layout that’s a bit more impressive. Remember that you don’t always have to edit the hell out of an image but you can use colours and simple shapes to define a great layout.
