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Site Name: Foolish Pride
Owner: Madelaine
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 28th December 2009

Site Name

You didn’t think of it – I don’t really have much to say about it anyway.

Coding and Validation

Your HTML has 6 errors.

You need an id for your <map> (image map). You’re also missing a </ul> to end the list in your “new notes”.

Your CSS is valid in CSS3. You have a warning from colours clashing but that isn’t such a problem.

Browser Compatibility & Usability

Your site is navigable and functions in Firefox, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer.

The navigation is easy to spot but it would be better if it wasn’t image navigation. If visitors cannot load images or have images turned off, they would be stuck on your site because they wouldn’t be able to see the navigation. Have alternate navigation in the footer, or create a site map and place a link to that in the footer.

The text is legible and easy to read – no problems there.

Layout

This is a rather original layout but there are some flaws in it. I know pulling off a notebook or scrapbook style is interesting and you can be really creative with it but some improvements can be made in your layout.

I like the use of natural white and grey for the backgrounds. This isn’t blinding and the background tiles pretty tolerably, but the pink, green and blue you have used in this layout is much too bright and blinding. The sticky notes are such a creative idea, but the colours are just way too bright. You should really tone this down a bit, make the colours lighter – maybe use some pastel colours instead. The padding on the sticky notes needs to be increased as well – the text is so close to the edges. Also, the curling of the sticky notes is nice but it looks odd when some of the text goes off the corner. Perhaps don’t curl the corners but use a drawing program to draw some doodles in the corners instead?

Another thing in the layout is obviously the header image. These colours also need to be toned down. The shadow effect on the site name isn’t very nice. You’ve used a rather decorative font – adding a dropshadow to it just makes it look overdone. Since you are using decorative fonts for the navigation and the quote in the header image, it would be best to support these with bold, not-so-decorated text for your site name.

The hovers on the navigation take a long time to load. I barely noticed this. The icons you have on hover are also not very appealing with the layout. The style of your layout doesn’t match it. Perhaps if you had a scribble over the area as you hovered, that would fit better.

The layout is generally neat and organised but the graphics and colours need to be thought over.

Also if you have used a template for this layout, please give credit. I can’t really tell but some elements of your coding look very similar to Vicky’s.

Content

Resources

This section isn’t open.

Articles

I don’t know why you have the double-navigation going on. It looks cool, but when someone has a smaller screen resolution they won’t see the part down the side. You already have the list of links in the content section so I really don’t think you need to be repeating it.

Make sure you capitalise “Twitter” and “WordPress” on the “Twitter annoyances” page.
your talking should be you’re talking.
Regarding number 2, you should get an application. You don’t need to copy the tweet, seeing as it bothers you that much.
You should remove number 9. Download an application if this feature bothers you that much. Applications use API to refresh your tweets automatically. Not everyone uses the web.
You should remove number 10 as well. People use lists to categorise people and organise them, because sometimes they don’t want to see everyone’s tweets at once; they only want to see those of their school friends, or only those of their forum buddies, or the like.
Regarding the over-capacity, it’s not like they can help it. They can only tolerate 200 tweets per second and with 1.8 million tweets every hour, naturally they need to work on their server. Servers don’t come cheap.
I know this article is sort of personalised but I find that I have to disagree with these points because it doesn’t seem like you know a lot about the many Twitter applications that exist.

“Inspiration Isn’t Copying” – this is on a good topic but it’s been talked about a lot. You could expand this article a bit more. Perhaps talk about other ways to be inspired (listening to music, etc.).

The link “Layouts Tips” should be “Layout Tips”.
these, they’re should be these; they’re
every layout had should be every layout has
400×750px should be 750×400 pixels
times new roman, arial, tahoma should be Times New Roman, Arial, Tahoma
It be should be It can be
and it unique should be and make it unique
your stuck should be you’re stuck.

Tutorials

This section is also not open.

Web

On the buddies page there are some mistakes:
each others should be each other’s
back, I’m should be back; I’m.

On the programs page you can link Paint Shop Pro 9 to Jasc.com and WordPress to WordPress.org.

On the owner page there are some mistakes:
everyday should be every day
freewebs should be Freewebs.

Originality & Creativity

You’ve definitely got some creativity and originality going on in your website. I think you need to work on the quality of your writing and graphics at the moment, though. It needs some touching up.

Organisation & Errors

Well organised and not many errors (apart from the unopened/unfinished sections).

Overall Comment

Madelaine, I think you’re well on your way to having a very original and interesting website, but at the moment there is nothing much to look at. You can start by removing the links to the sections that aren’t open yet (another reason why text links are better than using images).

With the content you have up already, you could really work on it and improve it. It’s just articles at the moment but these need to be improved. I also think that you need to include those parts of your website that haven’t been included.

If you work on the articles and spend time on your content before putting it up, it will really help. I’m not so familiar with your graphic skill but some tweaks to the layout would be helpful.

Rating

(out of 5)