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Site Name: Zebraffe
Owner: Jenny
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 17th July 2009
Site Name
It’s unique and easy to remember; no problems here.
Coding and Validation
Your coding has 129 errors and 19 warnings.
While you have the fundamentals of HTML covered within your coding, there are simple rules you need to remember to keep the coding clean, and if possible, validated.
In your title, ♡ should be terminated with a semicolon (♡). You have this symbol numerous times in your coding so be sure to terminate them all.
You need to have a slash at the end of your stylesheet tag because that is what is required in XHTML:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://zebraffe.info/style.css" />
table cellspacing=10 should be quoted – table cellspacing="10".
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 need to place a slash at the end of images as well, similarly to what needs to be done in your stylesheet tag.
When validating to XHTML, <br> should be written as <br />.
Overall, the coding is not bad but you do need to give it a clean and keep in mind the basic rules. This tutorial will help you validate your coding. It is a good idea to do so as it can minimise errors particularly across different browsers.
Your CSS is valid in CSS3. You have two warnings. These can be fixed if you place fonts with whitespace in quotes, for example "Century Gothic".
Browser Compatibility & Usability
Browsershots.org tells me your site is fine in most browsers.
The text size could be increased. It’s rather small and hard to read, especially on a larger resolution. The navigation is clear and at the head of the page, but the text used on the navigation should be bigger. “Clear” should be written as “Home”.
As the layout is quite uniform it would look a bit better centered instead of aligned to the left.
Layout
The layout is set out in a very unique way. The decorative font used in the website title and sidebar titles are a nice touch.
The colour scheme is very nice; pink and teal go very well together. The use of bright colours on a grey background makes them stand out a lot more.
There are no huge flaws to address in the layout; it’s very unique and neat. The layout could be centered though. The navigation can also be adjusted so it doesn’t extend across the screen – it might look a bit funny in larger resolutions, in comparison to the width of the sections of the layout.
Overall a very good job, a unique layout and nothing much to complain about.
Content
Hosting
This is a completely separate part of the website so I won’t review it. There is a database error on the homepage though, and not all of the pages work.
Webmiss
The following:
If I fill up this entire page full of information, I would but I don’t have all the time in the world
Would be better phrased as:
I would fill up this entire page with information, but I don’t have all the time in the world
The contact form could be placed on this page, as the page is rather brief.
Visitors
There’s not need for the subpage for “neo-related graphics”. It would be a lot easier to navigate if the links on this page were moved to a small subheading under the visitors page.
On the graphics pages, you should be using <code> to display code, not <textarea>. textarea is intended for user input and not for displaying code. code is also a lot neater, and you can customise it with CSS. In doing so, though, you must replace < with < and > with >.
The blogs are nice; all the Neopets graphics are well made. However, I don’t see the point in closed/enter signs. They’re quite outdated.
With the resources subpage, you should also have the links on the main visitor page instead of having an extra subpage.
The brushes are of good quality and are neat. I don’t see a problem with them. Try saving them in .abr or in an appropriate format to offer as well.
Very cute emoticons. Very well made.
The icons are lovely. The effects are nice as well.
The layout template previews are a bit hard to see. Perhaps having more distinguishable colours would make it easier to see. Grey on white is very hard to see and is practically blinding; try and at least make the text black.
The pixels page is titled “layout template”. You only have one pixel. It looks great so add more.
Try to avoid offering textures in PNG format. They take a very long time to load and can be very large in file size so opt for a high-quality JPEG where possible. People using slower connections will have problems when it comes to the loading of the images.
The services page is titled “resources”.
I don’t see a point in Cutenews or FanUpdate hosting. People can install these on their own server or own account in most cases.
The subdomain hosting link leads to your hosting site; label that with an asterisk or something similar to show that it will open as a different website.
On the Cutenews and FanUpdate hosting pages, related the post should be related to the post. You refer to the password here, but is this the password needed for the form as the desired password, or what exactly?
Domain
This section would be better named as “Website”. “About Us” should be something like “About Zebraffe”.
it’s history should be its history
hostee’s should be hostees’
I ot up should be I got up
On the affiliation page, related the post should be related to the post.
Don’t forget to credit Neopets for the Neopets images, and where you got your site counter from.
On the link back buttons page, use code and not textarea, as I mentioned earlier.
On the past layouts page, I wasn’t should be It wasn’t. You should also add version 3 to this page.
Originality & Creativity
You don’t have much on your website but what you have is definitely original and creative. Your layout really stood out the most. You don’t have much content but it’s definitely of good quality.
Organisation & Errors
Well organised; less subpages would be preferable.
Overall Comment
Jenny, you have quite a neat, organised website with some good content and resources. There are just a few errors to fix on your pages (wrong titles) and a few things to organise.
I highly recommend cleaning up your coding and validating it, and fixing the displays of code on your subpages. Also work on getting the hosting section up, and editing those templates so that they are easier to read/view.
Keep up the great work.
