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Site Name: Dead Battery
Owner: Amber
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 10th August 2009
- Previous reviews:
- Tarnished Colors
- Hotncold-designs
Site Name
It’s a unique and quirky site name; it’s also easy to remember.
Coding and Validation
Your coding has 8 errors and 3 warnings.
The character encoding and favicon code below should not have the slashes and should be in the head section.
It’s good to see you have placed the alt attribute on all your images, but where possible, actually place some text in. This will provide more meaning for the blind, who use screen readers.
The Twitter code you are using is invalid; my Twitter tutorial can help you.
The following piece of coding is one of your divs:
This would be better customised with CSS, after assigning an id to the div:
And then calling on the div with HTML:
You should also do the same with your other divs. My tutorial on classes and ids can help you here.
Additionally, you are neglecting to close one of your divs with </div>. The following should also go at the end of your document.
Attempt to use <strong> instead of <b> and <em> instead of <i> from now on, for semantic – more meaningful – purposes. As I mentioned with screen readers it does give more meaning for them.
Your CSS has 7 errors.
font-weight: none is incorrect; you’re looking for font-weight: normal.
weak is also not an option. Here you will find the proper values.
font-style: italics should be font-style: italic.
font-style: strikethrough is incorrect; you’re looking for text-decoration:line-through.
overflow: yes is also incorrect. Available values are visible, hidden, scroll, auto, inherit.
Browser Compatibility & Usability
The site looks great in most browsers according to Browsershots.org. It functions in Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer.
The text size could be made a bit larger. The default links are also hard to see. The light grey is too light.
In future avoid using an imagemap as people with images turned off or who are not able to view images will not be able to navigate your website.
Layout
The colour scheme is great. It’s very simple and I like how you have broken up the blue and black with white.
I notice you’re using brushes that actually are commonly used on other websites. I know it can be hard to avoid doing this, but it’s much better if you use unique brushes. I also noticed you have your own “doodle” brushes available on your website; these are so unique and adorable.
I might have mentioned this in a previous review but the layout would look better centered. Using a container will center your layout. Because you have a rather uniform layout, this is a good idea.
The CSS is amazing. The layout is kept so simple but the elements of the stylesheet, such as the subtle backgrounds and images, are a very nice, unique touch.
Content
Owner
On the toybox page, you should link the pixels to the website you got them from (including mine). At the moment they link to Tinypic.com.
Visitor
You have the majority of the links on this page in alphabetical order, but some aren’t. Having them in alphabetical order will make everything look a lot neater and organised.
You’re using bullets as well as centered text, which looks messy. Bullets should only be used in a list aligned to the left.
The uncoded layouts are not bad. However, when people look for a layout they like to look for something coded for them, because they usually aren’t able to do it on their own. The layouts are nice but I don’t really like the pixelated effect on the first one.
The affiliate images are nice, but they’re not very useful. People barely use affiliate images anymore, and it’s more polite to link someone with their name.
Same with the button bases. They are nice but rarely used. People make their own buttons.
The icons are very nice. They have beautiful effects and are all of good quality. You seem to use the same notebook texture a few times. This is nice, but use different ones for variety too.
The pixels are very cute, and the box buddies are unique. I like the style of the televisions and ipods and phones, but the others are a bit rough on the edges, and could really do with some shading. They looks rather sharp and boring.
The bullets are simple, but they should be cropped to remove as much of the blank background as possible.
The pixel words are nice, but having inanimate ones would be good too; animated ones can be distracting.
The polaroids are very nice. Make sure you give credit for the resources too.
The brushes are nice and simple. Perhaps including formats for Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro would be an excellent idea too, to make things easier for anyone who wishes to download any. Some of these read “chalk bubbles”, which I assume is a previous site name. Be sure to update these.
The icon textures are very nice as well – simple and well made.
The photography isn’t the best I have seen, but there’s still some unique photographs here.
The scans actually look pretty similar to the photography.
Nothing much to say about the site names.
The fifth texture links to a thumbnail and not the full image. All these textures look pretty similar to others I have seen, particularly the scratch ones. They are fairly good, but some look a bit grainy.
On the celebrities article:
Alot should be A lot
possesions should be possessions
magazing should be magazine
come accross should be come across.
On the commenting article:
How Generic should be How generic
intersting should be interesting.
These kinds of articles are becoming all too common, and in order to make your article stand out, you should elaborate on the points you already have.
On the article about “choosing friends”, you have a <b> that should be </b>.
On the “building a website” article, Doux Riensand should be Doux Riens and and viewers should be viewer’s.
On the scavenger hunt page, these cute little pacman ghost pixels should be this cute little Pacman ghost pixel.
On the retouching contest page, the bullets appear as question marks. You might want to retype those or replace them.
Tutorials
The rotating text one is very simple.
curser should be cursor
anyway should be any way.
Screenshots for this tutorial, such as shots of the commands or what the screen looks like, would be more useful.
You include a screenshot in the “glowing rainbow text” tutorial, but you should display it on the page rather than as a link.
The pixelling tutorial is very simple. As I mentioned with your pixels page, you should include shading as the pixels look sharp.
The advanced coloring tutorial is nice; the effect is nice as well.
The “scribble on hover” tutorial needs to be explained more in depth. It is very confusing for a beginner. Some screenshots, and spacing out the instructions, would be more appropriate.
Site
On the credits page, try to specify why you are crediting the website. What have you used exactly? How have they helped?
The site history page should be spaced out more. Use paragraphs. It is a lot easier to read.
URl should be URL
miley cyrus should be Miley Cyrus
Be sure to capitalise the names of your previous websites and names like Jen and Lunapic.
Originality & Creativity
Most of your content was original and creative; good job!
Organisation & Errors
Just a few errors here and there. The blank homepage was noticeable as well though; hopefully you can get that sorted.
Overall Comment
You have a great site, and you have improved. You have a lot more content of a greater variety. I didn’t spot many huge errors, and your content was good overall.
I believe you can improve your layout and create something better. I don’t feel that this is your full potential.
Some of the articles do need to be elaborated on, and a few issues addressed here and there. Otherwise, a great job. Keep up the great work.
3 Comments so far — leave one?
amber says:
Thanks so much Georgina! I’ll work on those errors right away (:
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amber says:
Oh, and I looked through my CSS before, and I couldn’t find anything that has Overflow in it. Or “yes”.
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Georgie replied:
Ah. It was in the embedded CSS, in the div properties, if I remember correctly.
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