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Site Name: Popsicle
Owner: Danni
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 12th November 2008
Site Name
Popsicle is cute! I loved your previous site name as well. But Popsicle is great because I haven’t really heard of anything like it, and I love one-worded site names 
Coding and Validation
You’ve included links to the CSS validation service but it’s a pity your CSS is actually not validated. I believe your CSS file is site.css. This produces 12 errors.
To try and help you fix those errors:
- Don’t use coloured scrollbars. Errors come easy, and the scrollbar won’t appear coloured unless it’s in Internet Explorer.
- Use #000000 instead of ‘black’.
- Don’t put background-color for your bold and italic text if there is none – that causes an error.
- Don’t use the ::. That also causes an error.
Naturally that won’t solve all your CSS problems, because you still choose to use some attributes, but it will cut down on the errors.
Your HTML is not validated. You can check your document at The Markup Validation Service. You’re missing a doctype! That’s so important. And you’re missing a character encoding. Try the following at the beginning of every page to make sure your pages are validated:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" >
Don’t use the backslash “/” before the end of the tag in that Extreme Tracking Counter. Use of the backslash is only done in XHTML, but you’re using HTML. Just remove those unnecessary slashes.
Other than the fact that things aren’t validated, your coding is obviously okay. I can see from this that coding isn’t your strong point.
Browser Compatibility & Usability
Everything looks great in most browsers and in all common browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera – according to Browsershots.org. Your iframe looks a little bit off in Internet Explorer though.
I can see the navigation, but it’s really quite small. You have written ‘ORANGE!!!’ as the text on the menu, but you should write ‘Navigation’, because unfortunately, people will feel quizzed about finding your navigation and may not be familiar with this sort of navigation.
I would suggest making another bubble for the navigation, or having the navigation as text.
I don’t really like how in your CSS you’ve included a crosshair cursor. Cursors are usually annoying, and in my case, they don’t even work. It’s best to remove it.
Layout
It’s very bright, is my first impression. Maybe a little too bright. Firstly, what is good. I love the way you’ve drawn the popsicle and the orange slices. The text is also really stylish and cute. I like how the bubbles are different – like the content bubble, the link bubble and the tagboard box.
What I’m not a big fan of though, is the background. It’s lovely and matches, but after a while it isn’t so great on the eyes and everything becomes too bright. I think it would look a lot better as a plain, light colour. Like the same background without the patterns.
I’m not such a big fan of the iframes anymore, and it’s easy to achieve the same look with PHP includes, but generally sites like yours do use iframes, so it’s not a major problem.
The tracker is annoying unfortunately, and you should hide it under the layout, or at least stick it in another corner – like the bottom left. Everything looks a little squished. I’m not really liking the alignment to the left. You can fix this and it’s easy. All you have to do, is put your entire layout into a separate page (all the coding here) and make that page open in a centered iframe! At least you’ll be getting that centered look, which looks better 
The tagboard font doesn’t match with your default font and it’s too small – so change it to that. The colours are a great job though.
Overall I like this layout. The main problems are the background and the squishiness. Change the background to a solid colour (#FAFAB7 could be the one you’re looking for) and try centering the layout by sticking it all in a centered iframe.
Content
Me
I really like the star bullets, but they don’t match with the layout because they’re stars. A plain circular or square bullet would be better, because it makes everything look a little over the top.
I notice you have a ‘back’ button on your ‘About Me’ page. I think this should probably go on your menu pages too. Also, put your likes and dislikes in a list down the page so it looks more organised and easier to read.
On your ‘contact me’ page, you may like to include an email address, in case your form stuffs up, or if people just prefer it. And you may want to make the sites as links (Friendster, Neopets, etc).
Your facts.. no! Don’t refer to yourself in the third person. It seems a little immature.
On your ‘Joined’ page, in any should be at any.
You
Don’t give the impression that your site is unfinished with all these coming soons! Oh, of course I love your pixels, the marshmallows make me hungry.
The stuff under ‘Misc’ includes scripts that you didn’t make yourself.. Fonts are best not distributed because some creators don’t allow it. I see you are building content here, but never give the visitor the impression that your site is unfinished. I know you have potential and are working on your graphics at the moment, but you shouldn’t have applied till everything was fully and utterly complete! ^_^
Site
On your ‘Site History’ page:
an internet is should be the internet was
me own should be my own
freewebs should be Freewebs
haven’t even should be hadn’t even
a lazy butt that I am should be being the lazy butt I am
I’ve been should be I’d been.
It may be an idea to link some places here too, for example “CTMB” and “Freewebs”.
Well done on adding a credits page! Did you make the ‘back’ button yourself then? It isn’t listed here
In your disclaimer you still have your old site name (Puddin’ Cup) and old site URL written.
Fail to do should be Failure to do.
Originality & Creativity
Your site has always been original like many pixel/cute sites. I love your layout, it definitely shows originality. Your site is indeed creative and I have no bad comments to say here.
Organisation & Errors
You had a few errors which I have already mentioned. One that I haven’t – is that your ‘back’ buttons don’t really work. Sometimes they don’t take me to the page I was just on, they take me to two or three pages before. It’s so strange. Try the following link instead:
<a href="javascript:history.back()">IMAGE URL HERE</a>
Organisation was not a problem!
Overall Comment
Danni, you know I love your site, being your host and affie, but you know I had to provide criticism in this review to be fair. I think you should not have applied with the number of missing pages you have, for starters.
I used to own a very, very pixelly-cute site before I branched off into making my layouts less pixelly and cute. You know I still make pixels, though! Because of this, you may not agree with some things I have said in this review. For your site type, your site is amazing and almost flawless. However if you apply for a review somewhere else, you may receive more critique. I know that for a lot of unfamiliar people, the navigation will be a problem, which is why I pointed that out.
I would suggest making your layout less “WHOA” by not having that background. It looks quite over-the-top and hurts my eyes after a while.
You just need to make sure everything is up, and fix those minor errors. I have no doubt that you have original and creative ideas and I’m looking forward to more pixels and scribbles and other cute things!
