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Site Name: Rainbeat
Owner: Jake
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 25th July 2009
Site Name
“Rain” and “beat” are commonly used words but I haven’t seen them used together. Your site name is quite unique and easy to remember.
Coding and Validation
Your HTML has 47 errors and 6 warnings.
The character encoding below should be in the <head> section. That’s what’s causing a big error.
When you have the ampersand (&) in URLs, you should write them as &. It will open the same way in the browser, but in the code, it needs to be written like that. You have an ampersand in the URL for the topsite you’re linking to.
Another key rule with validating coding – specify an alt attribute (alternative text) for all images. Screen readers such as those for the blind will be able to read these more effectively and give a better description if you put some alternative text on your images. You’re missing this on some of your images.
Also, you have the following in your coding:
<font color="#ffffff"><center>
Both font and center are deprecated. They are no longer considered correct, therefore you must use CSS for this piece of text. Try using a class like so:
HTML:
<p class="center">Text here</p>CSS:
.center { color: #ffffff; text-align: center; }
You’re using a class for some of your divs, so I’m sure you can understand this.
Most of the other errors are caused by the marquee and Javascript used on your website. Try to avoid these. Javascript cannot be viewed by everyone, and marquees can be annoying.
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 18 errors in CSS3. Most of these are due to the opacity effect being used in the marquee.
Overall, a satisfactory job on coding. You are just forgetting a few little things, and using quite a lot of effects. They aren’t affecting your website in a big way, and the warnings are simply from FanUpdate coding your entries in XHTML rather than HTML. I know that you mentioned this to me but I’m pleased that despite these uncontrollable errors, you have validated to the best of your ability.
Browser Compatibility & Usability
According to Browsershots.org your site looks the same in most browsers.
The navigation is fairly clear – very creatively put, I must admit. However, larger text for the navigation would be better.
While everything is easy to read and the layout is very creative, I don’t really like the “small” look. It’s rather cramped, and if I were on a bigger monitor (mine is not that big), your layout would look exceptionally small. The style is great – I will talk about that further in layout – but the small size isn’t nice when you have a website that isn’t a cute pixel site or something like that.
I notice you are using many effects. These are nice, but because of the size of the layout, it looks like there is too much going on, especially with the scrolling affiliates and changing advertisement.
Layout
The layout is very creative. I like the scrapbook style – the decorative brushes against the woodgrain background, with the content in a neat box – it’s very creative.
The colours you’ve used are great; they add interest to the layout. The stylesheet also matches very well. The layout is colourful and you’ve done a great job putting it together.
There are however, flaws in this layout. You have included a welcome message at the side of the layout. The text used looks tacky and just makes it look like there is too much going on in the layout. A simpler side panel here, with just the navigation and the site name, would be more effective.
The affiliates are displayed creatively, but the movement can be distracting, so perhaps in future, don’t use a marquee. I also don’t think the arrows on the sides of the affiliate marquee are necessary. They’re quite big and don’t match with the layout.
Content
Site
This page has always bugged me. It’s just the way there is so much space between the links. The speech mark background is great, but because of the size, it’s just annoying to scroll, and there’s so much whitespace around the text. I suggest removing the background and just having the links and blurbs. Even the blurbs to the links aren’t very necessary, though.
Your name, and the font names, should be capitalised too.
On the page about yourself there are a few errors:
13 year old should be 13-year-old
BG,Jake should be BG, Jake
8D). Im should be 8D.) I’m
polish should be Polish
cant should be can’t
ITS should be IT’S
Make sure to should be Make sure you
im not should be I’m not.
On the history of Rainbeat page:
Very good no should be Very good, no
ect. should be etc.
thats should be that’s
co.nr,kaddictions. should be co.nr. kaddictions
history I really dont should be history; I really don’t.
You should capitalise your website name too – it’s a name, right?
You also mention all these websites that you like/admire. It would be great if you could link to them; not everyone knows the URLs.
The symbols you’re using for the bullets on the terms page appear as question marks.
change it up should be change
Dont should be Don’t
Thats should be That’s.
Please make sure you capitalise names of websites and programs, and the first letter of every sentence. It looks much neater, more professional, and doesn’t look like you typed in a rush.
The link back buttons are nice, but try and create inanimate ones. Ones that are animated can be distracting.
Content
On the main page, layout’s should be layouts.
You don’t really need the sub page for the layouts because you don’t have categories other than Pokemon at the moment.
The layouts are very cute! The CSS is well done, and it’s nice how these are all similarly styled but have a different Pokemon. You have placed “image by suta-raito.com” on the image. You should write base image instead, because I was under the impression that you didn’t make the entire header.
The button bases are simple but nice.
Great bookmarks! I do recall seeing these at Aerozode.net; it’s very nice of you to credit Kinza for the idea.
The textures look amazing. I am amazed by the colours and the high quality. Great job.
I don’t like the icon textures as much as they’re a bit plain, but I’m sure they would look fantastic when used with an icon.
Originality & Creativity
You’ve definitely got some original and creative content here. You don’t have much, but you’ve definitely spent time on it. You have high quality content.
The Pokemon layouts were very cute; I rarely see Pokemon layouts around. Personally it reminds me a bit of Neopets but it’s less common!
Organisation & Errors
Organisation was okay. The large space on the pages of links bothered me.
You show your character in your writing; it’s great. It’s fine to use smilies and express craziness with capital letters, but you just need to capitalise things like names and such.
Overall Comment
Great job on your website, Jake. You did mention that you didn’t have much content but it’s quality that counts, not quantity. I know you can add more, though.
Just be sure to touch the layout up a bit. It’s very creative but think about the user or viewer of your website as well. They wouldn’t always like reading text in a small box.
Keep up the great work.
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Jake
25th July 2009 at 11:37 pm
Thanks for the review georgina! Ill make sure to improve! Thanks for your time (:
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