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Site Name: Snap-beat
Owner: Mandi
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 7th July 2009

Site Name

I’ve heard of another website by the same name so it’s not too original. It’s easy to remember though; I don’t have anything against it personally.

Coding and Validation

Your coding has 6 errors.

You have an extra </td> in your table. After fixing that error your coding will be validated.

Your CSS has one error regarding your stylesheet. I suggest making your theme folder so that it doesn’t have a space in it – use an underscore or leave it without a space instead.

Browser Compatibility & Usability

Looking at your site at Browsershots.org, your layout is looking consistent in most browsers.

The layout is rather wide so consider cutting it down in width so that it works with smaller resolutions as well. There is a large gap between the content and sidebar so I suggest scaling the layout down altogether.

The navigation is rather clear but I suggest a solid colour instead of a pattern for the hover background. The text on the navigation blocks should also be bigger.

The text size should be increased, as it is very small and hard to read.

Layout

The header image is rather striking, and when I see the original image it is rather large with the coloured streaks fading into the woodgrain texture. It looks great like this, but the way you have placed it on your layout looks quite messy.

The coloured streaks go down the page, whereas the woodgrain texture is horizontal. This clash in body lines makes the layout look messy. The image is also quite large and looks very out of place. The image should be cut down in height so that the content begins further up the page.

The woodgrain texture looks excellent, as does the colourful streaks, but they do not look excellent together. They look excellent on their own. Only one of these should be chosen for the layout. The woodgrain texture is a better choice because the lines are more ordered and the texture is easy to work with.

Keeping the layout simple is a great idea. The reduced opacity of the content background in comparison with the main background is a nice effect. This effect should be embraced with an entirely simple header image, consisting mainly of bold text of the website name.

The stylesheet can be improved. The text size should be bigger to support the boldness of the woodgrain texture, to begin with. Additionally, the brown text should be black to stand out, as the brown brings out the background too much and looks a bit blinding. Brown should be used for the headings instead as it is used enough in the background.

Other components of the styling can be improved. The comments label is in blue, for instance. The font placed on this is much larger and would be a good size for the other text, actually.

As a final note on the background, it should be placed as attachment: fixed as that would make it look neater.

Content

About

The sub navigation links at the top of this page should be a lot larger.

You need to capitalise your Is on the pages in this section. It doesn’t look very professional.

Under history, you have errors, as well as the lack of capitalisation:
happening, i should be happening; I
begining glitter should be beginning, glitter
non related should be not related
that sort should be that sort of thing
applyed should be applied
costed should be cost
I applying should be I applied.
You need to capitalise the first letter of sentences and I – it looks messy and as if you’ve written things in a rush when you don’t do this.

On the page about yourself, the same comments apply.
compliment should be complementary
On this page you also possibly copied and pasted the survey, because the quotes have turned into unknown symbols.

Music

As the icons were not made by you, don’t redistribute them. You should not be redistributing other poeple’s work.

The lyrics are a lot more original; definitely add more. This will embrace the purpose of your website as well as its name.

The “music by me” link is a 404.

Content

This section would be better named as “visitor” or “resources”.

The downloads link leads to the homepage.

The textures are very nice, but they’re in .bmp format and take a very long time to load. Consider saving them as a PNG or an optimised JPEG (high quality).

The first background is okay. The others are not very good quality, and look pixelated. No one would use this as a background.

The button bases also look pixelated and grainy; the quality needs to be improved. Rather than cropping images, design the button as the size it’s in.

The scans page is a 404, as is the stock images page and the effects page.

The gradients are nice and well made. These should be saved in JPG or PNG and not BMP – BMP takes a longer time to load.

The survey and hosting pages are blank.

Writing

There’s nothing in this section.

Originality & Creativity

You don’t have much content on your website, but what you have is quite creative. The resources you had were quite generic. Your lyrics were quite original, though.

Organisation & Errors

Organisation was okay. The grammatical errors can be fixed, as well as the broken links.

Overall Comment

Your website wasn’t really enjoying to review. The layout could do with some great improvement. Take into account my suggestions for the layout.

You had pages missing which wasn’t a good impression. This needs to be fixed, along with the writing on your pages, which can also be improved with the correction of errors and such.

It’s impressive that you have validated your coding and have a basic grasp of creating a layout and theme, but you should work a bit on the graphics side of things. Your layout wasn’t great, and some of your resources could be improved. The most important thing is not to save your images in BMP, but in PNG or as an optimised JPG.

You also need to build up on content. I notice that you focus around music, so work on adding more lyrics that you have written, or adding music-related graphics, and perhaps layouts when you have improved. I see that you have good potential but you just need to work a bit on what you have so far.

Rating

(out of 5)