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Site Name: Out Of Bounds
Owner: Anne
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 24th July 2009

Site Name

It’s quite a unique and creative name; it’s also easy to remember.

Coding and Validation

You didn’t code the layout yourself so I don’t see the point in going into depth with your coding; I’ll outline things briefly. I’m sure the layout had valid markup to begin with, but after editing, you might have produced some errors that, in any case, you might like to fix.

Your HTML has 38 errors.

I spot the following piece of coding several times in your document:

<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" />

It’s a hidden element so I’m assuming you aren’t aware of how to edit it. Naturally though, id can only be used once in a document.

More errors are caused by the video you’ve included in your blog. I have a tutorial on validating video coding.

Despite those errors you don’t have any stray coding or coding that can be improved; you haven’t edited this theme much.

Your CSS is valid.

Browser Compatibility & Usability

According to Browsershots.org your site looks the same in most browsers.

The text size and navigation are fine.

Layout

I understand you’re using a template made by someone else, so I can’t really review your layout. I have seen other people using the same template, so perhaps editing it to some point and making it more unique would be a good idea.

Content

About

On the main page, email,and should be email, and.

You should edit the “ask and answer” page so it also has the sub navigation links at the top of the content section.

You have comments enabled on the “Behind the name” page. I don’t know if this was intentional so people can comment on your site name, but you don’t have comments enabled for other pages.

It’s not necessary, but having the credits page in alphabetical order would look neater.

You also have comments enabled for the link back buttons. I don’t know if this is entirely necessary.

Owner

On the main page, full Vietnamese should be a full Vietnamese.

This page is very well organised. I like how you have included things in sub headings.

Writing

These are very organised and set out very nicely. Perhaps a “back to top” link would be useful on the albums of song lyrics.

All the poetry and song lyrics are very unique; they’re a nice addition to the website.

On the main “guides and articles” page, I don’t think the comment form is necessary. Also, you should have headings on the pages reading the title of the article. Some of them don’t have any. It looks a bit strange without a title to welcome the page.

The same goes for a few of your other pages; larger titles would stand out more.

On the gaining site traffic and visitors page, PSD’s should be PSDs. Though I’ve seen these kinds of articles before, this is written very well and I like how you’ve split the page into sub headings.

Visitor

The tutorials are already in the main navigation so you don’t need to show them here. I will review them under “tutorials”.

The writing link is also part of the main navigation so you don’t need to display it here either.

The completed reviews page and the pending reviews page cannot be found.

The textures are nice and of good quality. I don’t really like the colourful rainbow one though; it’s quite blurry.

Tutorials

On the main page, used does not should be used do not.

I like the refining images tutorial. The result looks great, except the hair of the man looks a bit strange because of the colours.

The blending tutorial looks great. The vintage look makes it look a lot better though.

On the images inside shapes tutorial, ant-aliased should be anti-aliased. This tutorial incorporates very simple steps. It’s a great idea that you have taken it a step further to use many shapes, not just one, and added effects.

Brush blending, personally, is how I have always blended (even though I don’t work with blends much). It’s great that you have included a tutorial on it, and again taking that step further to decorate and add interest to the graphic with other functions.

The brush stroke path tutorial doesn’t have a title. Nevertheless this is quite a good tutorial that goes into some detail.

“Cutting images with quick mask mode” doesn’t have a title either. I don’t really like the result of this tutorial; parts around the beak and legs of the seagull don’t look too smooth. Wouldn’t the magnetic lasso tool do its job and delete the background more easily?

You don’t have all the coding tutorials linked.

The centering text with div classes tutorial is good. I have seen this outlined before but it’s usually not in its own tutorial so people don’t really come across it.

The coding on the centering layout tutorial should be available for download, or linked to as a .txt. You have embedded CSS in here! It’s best to go through the CSS as well. As you mentioned in your articles, you should not have embedded CSS.

Installing WordPress with Installatron seems similar to installing with Fantastico so you might want to include a tutorial on that as well. I noticed the Fantastico icon in your screenshot.

The permalinks tutorial is good. I have seen it often but I never seem to have to edit .htaccess. Thank you for including the code in the tutorial; it makes things a bit clearer for me, actually.

The abstract simple design layout technique is excellent. I actually prefer the colouring at this step. The result looks great, and it’s so simple.

The butterfly typography piece looks amazing. I have never seen a tutorial on this. I think it’s very unique how you have layout techniques. I would definitely like to see more.

The FTP tutorial is great – I have only seen a very brief tutorial on local FTP once. I think a bit of information on how to use FTP would go well with this tutorial. Perhaps just a paragraph or two.

Again with the colour palettes tutorial, it’s great how you continue to utilise the method you’re teaching, and not simply teaching it. There are some programs such as Eyedropper and Pixie that can grab the hexadecimal code of colours from the screen; it might be a good idea to link to these as well or mention them, since not everyone has Photoshop.

Originality & Creativity

You have a lot of original content on your website. I didn’t read through all your writings but they are always a unique thing to include in a website.

I didn’t know what to expect from the tutorials at first, but I find that they’re all very good. They’re explained very well and you have very unique and creative layout techniques.

Organisation & Errors

Very well organised. I couldn’t find myself getting lost on your website at all.

Some of the pages can have titles placed on them; they look empty without them.

Overall Comment

At first, Anne, I didn’t know what to expect from your website as you were using a template. But you definitely changed that impression. You have some very good tutorials and from what I have read, you write very well.

I actually started to enjoy your review as I browsed through the tutorials. They are explained well, and they have such great techniques.

I’m surprised you didn’t create your own layout. Is it because you aren’t used to WordPress themes, maybe? I can’t tell. But with the layout you should definitely attempt to edit Erin’s theme to make it more unique. I can see that you have good knowledge of coding and graphics design, so that’s really what I would like to see.

I don’t necessarily mean that you must use graphics, but having a layout that is more “yours”, with or without graphics, would really be great. Keep up the great work.

Rating

(out of 5)