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Site Name: Catiebug.com
Owner: Catiebug
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 16th August 2009
Site Name
It’s easy to remember; no problems here.
Coding and Validation
Your coding is valid.
Your CSS is valid.
Attempt to use <strong> instead of <b> and <em> instead of <i> from now on, for semantic – more meaningful – purposes. It gives more meaning for people such as the blind, who rely on screen readers to read their text.
Your CSS can be shortened in some places. For example:
can be shortened to:
This shouldn’t be too hard to do; you have some codes shortened already.
Browser Compatibility & Usability
Your site looks the same in most browsers, and it is navigable and functions in Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and Opera.
The navigation is really hard to spot. I have to scroll down quite a lot to see it at all; at first I thought there wasn’t much to your site. Navigation in this form should be first thing on the sidebar so that it is noticeable, otherwise opt for horizontal navigation instead. Having bold text on the navigation or something similar would make it stand out more.
The font size is fine and legible. However, you use far too many text effects on your pages and especially in your blurb in the footer. It’s nice to use a variety of colours but too many, in different colours and styles, becomes very hard to read.
Layout
It’s a lovely layout. I especially like the scrapbook look because many people do it in many different ways. I like the colours and the background and the position of the photographs and elements of the layout.
Getting picky about a few things, the container could do with a bit more padding, and the sidebar and content should have more space between them. Also, the fonts on the layout are lovely, but the labels of your friends’ names could be a bit more subtle and with a less decorative font.
It’s a bit hard to read the site name with the nice background, so the purple should probably be a lighter colour.
The CSS is excellent; you’ve used a lot of colours and I like how you’ve used a lot of brown to balance out the colours. Avoid using too many colours though; keep it to around five or six because with colour theory, too many different colours will clash.
Content
In the sidebar, own by me should be owned by me. Your message is intended to be a welcome message. It is intimidating if you’re saying things about people not liking you and not to waste their time; it almost gives the impression that you are expecting someone to lash out at you (and surely if you don’t care what other people think, you wouldn’t be applying for a review either). Keep it simple to something like “This is my website so please respect my work; I appreciate nice comments”. You’re welcoming the visitor, so keep it that way.
Catiebug
On this page four favourite colours line looks a bit messy and hard to read; you didn’t put spaces between the words.
where as should be whereas
happy, it’s should be happy; it’s
better then others should be better than others.
You have very creative titles for the subpages; I’ll give you credit for that. However, the items would look better in a list rather than a big chunk of text. It would also be a lot neater, considering you have it all in alphabetical order too.
On your wishlist page, I’m not sure if you did it deliberately, but some of the text is in a scrolling box.
Love
Just a few mistakes on this page:
myspace should be MySpace
eachother should be each other
everyday should be every day.
Collective
Obviously I won’t be reviewing these websites but it’s nice that you have included them!
Domain
Not everyone is familiar with the term “domain”; it would be better to name this section “website”.
On this page, a little while after I should be a little while after, I.
You’ve got a great credits page and it’s well set out.
Exit
Some links on this page would be good; not just a form for applying for affiliates.
You site must be well designed, I am not picky just I don’t want people who type like “I nEeD tO gO bAk To SkOoL aNd LrN tO sPeLl aNd NoT tYp LyKe DiS”
should be
Your site must be well designed. I am not picky; I just don’t want people who type like this, “I nEeD tO gO bAk To SkOoL aNd LrN tO sPeLl aNd NoT tYp LyKe DiS”
Originality & Creativity
Since your website is a personal website, it’s very original and creative; in particular, the layout is very creative.
Organisation & Errors
Not many problems here; all I caught were a few mistakes in spelling/grammar.
Overall Comment
You’ve got a great website. I know it’s a personal website, so it’s great that you blog regularly and have all these pages about yourself.
All that needs to be fixed are those errors, and maybe to reflect your website about yourself a bit more, add more pages such as photos or maybe some writings. You like to blog, so some more written pages would be great.
You’ve got an impressive layout so keep it up. Just avoid using so many text effects and too many colours on one page.
4 Comments so far — leave one?
CATiEBUG says:
Thanks so much for doing this for me.
And where you said something about me getting reviewed when I don’t care what people think. When you get reviewed, it’s like someone reading over a paper you wrote for school. They notice things that you may not have noticed. Like mistakes and just little things that make it easier.
You can have your site reviewed, but you don’t have to make the changes that they tell you. It’s all opinion and people would say different things when reviewing any site. In the end, it is the owners site so if it makes them happy, that’s what matters because you can’t please every visitor.
Thank you very much again for reviewing me though. I see what you mean about a lot of things. There are things that I’ve had one way for awhile and haven’t changed them since I probably first put them up. Definitely going to use some of your advice though!
Oh, and I noticed where you put site name, you put Catuebug.com, just fix the ‘u’ to and ‘i’. =]
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CATiEBUG says:
Also, what do you mean about having more written pages? Like articles and stuff?
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Georgie replied:
I fixed that error; thank you.
You’re welcome! And yes, I mean like articles or more writings about yourself. You don’t have to, but it would be nice to have more. You had that page about Shane, so personal writings such as that one are really nice to have.
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CATiEBUG replied:
I was actually thinking about that early when I was fixing errors on his page. It’s easy for me to write things like that about a personal experience or about someone like I did with that. Only problem is I don’t know what else to write about. Haha.
I actually had the idea for his page from to other sites I use to visit frequently and I just decided to write how we met and stuff because I figure most people see long distance relationships as a bad thing. I wanted to show that it’s not always the case and they can be very special to the people who are involved.
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