back to Completed Reviews
Site Name: Built By Robots
Owner: Brooke
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 12th January 2009
Site Name
Built By Robots is a rather unique site name. I quite like it; it’s easy to remember.
Coding and Validation
Your coding can’t be checked because of this annoying copyright symbol in a script you’re using. Try and remove that.
When I check your coding after taking the symbol out, you have 213 errors. This is quite bad, so I’m going to figure out why it’s so.
You should remove your <html> tag, as the special html xmlns takes care of that. Three errors solved, 210 to go..
It seems that a lot of errors are caused by the script you’re using. You’re using a script for your advertisements for them to change automatically from button to button. This isn’t a great idea as it distracts. Anything moving generally distracts. You should simply make the button change on each page.
You’re forgetting to add a backslash before the > of your META tags and your favicon. Also, in your tags when you write meta, put it in lowercase. In XHTML you’re not supposed to write commands in capitals.
Other erorrs are caused by you forgetting the alt tag in some of your images.
Unfortunately, most coding errors are caused by the special effects you choose to use and the JavaScripts.
Alternatively, for your advertisement rotation, try this PHP script from Tutorialtastic.co.uk.
Your CSS file is valid CSS 2.1, but some style attributes embedded in your document itself have errors. Three to be exact, and they’re from some “gradualshine” effect you’re using.
Your coding isn’t awful, it’s just the odd scripts here and there.
Browser Compatibility & Usability
The site looks great in most browsers according to Browsershots.org.
The navigation is in a good spot but the text should be bigger.
Your text is too squished. Leave a bigger gap between lines so it’s easier to read.
Layout
I really like the layout’s colours. The blue with the shades of grey look good.
I particularly like the selection of fonts. The background is also quite nice.
What I don’t like is how you have a horizontal scrollbar. Your whole layout is one image that is very large. You could crop that to produce the layout and a background that could tile. This would make loading time easier as well.
To support that you’d need to have a nice centered layout. You can do this by using a div container. Try this tutorial.
The black top section of the layout looks out of place. Why not extend the blue instead?
Content
Your sidebar is neat, but it could do without the welcome message. We know that people don’t read them; they just skip to the content! And remove the linking button; people can find the page themselves. Too much stuff in the sidebar isn’t good.
Visitor
Well organised; links are in alphabetical order! Good stuff. The comma after your name should be a semicolon, and pallets should be palettes.
Nice brush set! I’d love to see more, not just one. And consider an .abr file as well.
With the bullet points page, you’ve got the same note as on your main visitor page but with errors. Capitalise your name and I, for example.
Just put the bullets all on the same page. There aren’t many, and it’s annoying to have to click through further navigation to see something. This unnecessary subpage, if removed, could save time, space and energy.
And.. ditto for the palettes. Which you’ve spelt wrong again, Brooke! Get this, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
palette – a thin oval or rectangular board or tablet that a painter holds and mixes pigments on
pallette – one of the plates at the armpits of a suit of armor
pallet – a straw-filled tick or mattress
So now you know which one’s right. These are nice, by the way, but not exactly useful. People should be able to pick their own colours.
The layouts are the same as the one on your main navigation. Why the double-up?
I don’t know if you’re aware, but using celebrity images is actually illegal.
On your one-column celebrity layouts, the one with the Olsen twins sits to the right of my screen, not the left. With all these, it’s best just to center them all, because you’ve fixed them in a position some distance from the left, which looks different in different resolutions.
You should be saying grey, not gray – you’re from Australia!
Your two-column non-celebrity layouts are great, but on the celebrity ones, a horizontal scrollbar appears.
You shouldn’t be redistributing these fonts as they’re not yours; it’s best to check where you downloaded them because a lot of publishers don’t allow redistribution.
On your icon bases page:
icons bases should be icon bases
Brooke, should be Brooke;
catagory should be category.
Again here, celebrity images are illegal. These icon bases are essentially just cropped images. Decorating them and making icons would be better; otherwise they’re useless.
On your PSDs page, please capitalise your name, I, and PS, and PSP9..
I’m not going through to check that all these work. I suggest you remove them. They’re not useful and people can do these on their own.
You could seriously put all the previews for these smilies on one page. It would save me getting annoyed at pressing ‘back’ all the time. And it’d save you a subpage..
Nevertheless, these smilies are quite cute.
With the stock images page, you’ve got the same note as on your main visitor page but with errors. Capitalise your name and I, for example.
These are all very lovely! Be sure to put a comma after ‘image’ on these pages. Under ‘misc’, the first large image leads me to a 404.
No need to capitalise ‘direct linking’ on your banners page. And really, one thumbnail on each page? What a bother.
These are really quite great, but they use celebrity images.
On your main icons page, catagory should be category.
ARRGGGGH! Do you really have to further categorise these icons into the celebrity names?!?! Just stick them all on one page or stick 20 on one page; who cares who they are, they’re celebrity images anyway!
A lot of these are boring and look like they’re just cropped. Can’t you add text or textures?
The wallpapers are nice.. but I am sick of seeing all these celebrities. Consider changing to JPEG as PNGs take a while to load.
Tutorials
On the main page:
pink shadows should be deep colour
fav icon should be favicon.
On the Blue to Green tutorial:
carves should be curves.
On the Colouring 1 tutorial:
raster should be Raster
bas should be base.
On the Colouring 2 tutorial:
screen should be Screen.
On the Colouring 4 tutorial:
screen should be Screen
exclusion should be Exclusion
burn should be Burn.
You don’t need to underline and add effects to all the commands; it makes things harder to read.
On the Deep Colour tutorial, there’s no need to add effects to the words “blue” and “red”.
On the Holy Blue Eyes tutorial:
exclusion should be Exclusion.
You don’t need to underline and add effects to all the commands; it makes things harder to read.
On the Pink Haze tutorial:
HardLight should be Hard Light.
On the Pink Shadows tutorial:
duplicate should be , Duplicate.
On the Screencaps tutorial:
your should be you’re.
On the Special Characters tutorial:
i should be I
secial should be special
i should be I
Salsh should be Slash
Backsalsh should be Backslash.
On the Favicon tutorial:
fav icon should be favicon
done, Told should be done. Told.
Also, on all the following tutorials, Softlight or SoftLight should be Soft Light:
- Blue Tint
- ALL Colouring tutorials
- Deep Colour
- Fire Light
- Green Highlight
- Grunge
- Holy Blue Eyes
- Intense Shadows
- Purple Burst
- Red Line
- Screencaps
I actually quite like how you can hover over the original image to see the tutorial’s result. With the directions, try spacing the text out a bit more – like leaving a line between each step. Makes things easier to read.
I don’t think the basic HTML tutorial is useful at all. People already know these.
Also your bullet points tutorial is wrong. You haven’t included the <ul> and </ul> to begin and end the bullets. You haven’t gone through ordered lists as well, <ol> and </ol>.
Layouts
This section has been outlined above.
Online
Consider writing in more paragraphs so this page is easier to read. And please capitalise your Is, and capitalise TV, else write “television”.
Alot should be A lot.
You have fair rules for affiliates.
watse should be waste.
You’ve got an orderly credits page, but try to list the resources you used from each site or why you’re crediting them.
On your ‘about me’ page, became 19 should be turned 19. Wooooo another Australian!
Consider writing in more paragraphs here as well. The text is just too squished.
Also link back to where you got your name’s meaning.
On your past layouts page, please spell palette correctly..
Originality & Creativity
You’ve really shown your creative side through your website. Your layouts and graphics all show that you’ve worked hard on them. It’s just the use of celebrity images that makes things monotonous; so many sites have those graphics.
The stock images were very original and of great quality. Expanding more in that section would be great, and using more legal image sources.
Organisation & Errors
Quite a few dodgy spelling and grammar and punctuation errors which could be fixed; they make things look so rushed. I found the text hard to read because it was so squished.
Fairly organised, but you could cut down on the subpages. Too many! And write with more paragraphs.
Hardly any broken links – just one, from memory.
Overall Comment
Brooke, you’ve got an amazing well-kept site here, and your designs are excellent. You’ve got a creative way of putting things together but there are improvements you can make.
Work on tweaking parts of your coding, and organising the content on pages, particularly where there’s lots of text – like the tutorials. Tutorials on graphics are great, but I don’t think tutorials on coding are your forte.
I suggest also cutting down on the use of celebrity graphics and possibly decorating your icons more, so things are less boring.
Good luck fixing up those errors. I enjoyed reviewing your site; but please – Soft Light is two words!
