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Site Name: Crackerjack of Clones
Owner: Mike
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 8th-11th August 2010

Site Name

It’s really long, but it’s not that hard to remember.

Coding and Validation

According to the HTML validator you have 40 errors and 1 warning.

Your CSS does not validate. For starters, where you specify a cursor (which only works in certain browsers), you need to add a type attribute to the <style> tag; that is, <style type="text/css">.

Your doctype is XHTML 1.0 Transitional. You seem to be forgetting some of the rules of XHTML, one of them being that <br> needs to be self-closed with <br /> every time. Similarly, image tags should be in a similar format: <img src="image URL" alt="alternate text" />.

Browser Compatibility & Usability

Your website is looking consistent in Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome.

The text is easy to read though I would recommend increasing the line-height of the main text and perhaps making the navigation bold or in a different font – or changing the text colour. At the moment, the yellow on brown-yellow doesn’t really stand out that much.

I like the white being used for links as it is in contrast to the other colours used in the layout.

Layout

I know you’ve just edited the layout that I have as up for use on my website. I really like what you’ve done with it and it’s actually the most surprising look I’ve seen someone edit my layout to – partially because of the colours. I like the colours because they are not commonly used on a website and the combination of yellow and brown looks good. I think the yellow could be of a lighter shade to add more contrast.

The background is a little distracting and would look a bit better if you had it set to attachment: fixed. I think that overall you could edit the original layout a bit more with different fonts and such – what I have offered for visitors is simply a guide and you are more than welcome to experiment more with the coding – not to mention you could be a bit more daring.

I won’t go completely in depth with the styling but it can be improved to accentuate the boldness of the colours. Structurally, the sidebar is a bit of a mess and you could do with organising the buttons a bit more.

Content

Mike

You have a lot of characters on this page that appear as question marks, such as apostrophes. Make sure you use the right character entity for these, especially since you’re probably using “smart quotes”. You can re-type these apostrophes in a plain text editor or look at a chart of HTML entities.

Freewebs and CSS should be capitalised; asmatha should be asthma.

It’s a bit hard to see the colour of the “contact” link.

Stuff

It’s really confusing to navigate this page. I have no idea why “updated” and “new” are in such large headings; they should be more separate from the text.

I recommend changing the colour of the blockquotes because the text is very hard to read on them.

The brown, cloud and rainbow headers are a 404. I think these could definitely be improved. The colouring isn’t that good and the headers are of low quality. You should try saving in PNG format and starting simpler with not too many colours. You should also gradually try different, smoother effects.

The purple layout doesn’t look good – the images you’ve used are extremely fuzzy and the styling isn’t interesting. It would be a good idea to stick to a colour scheme with more than one colour. More fonts could be used. The sidebar also doesn’t seem to fit in the layout and is always at the right hand side of the screen regardless of window size. I don’t think very many people would use this layout because of its lack of functionality and aesthetic design.

The textures page is a mess, and the links should be in a bulleted list with appropriate spacing, or thumbnails to the images could be used. The last few textures of wood are okay, but the rest are pixelated and the colours don’t go well together. These are also really quite small for textures. Textures would be more usable and versatile at a larger size.

The PHP include tutorial is not bad, but you could give an example of the page or maybe even a download to make it clear to visitors.
exept should be except

Jenny Ferenc didn’t “leave the internet for Facebook”; Facebook is a website on the internet. Make sure you clear that up, or don’t mention this part at all.
ect should be etc

The navigation hover menu tutorial is an interesting one, even though I have seen it before.
seperate should be separate

Shack

Again like the “Mike” section, it is hard to see the links in the sub navigation here, so make sure you work with the colours.

an WordPress should be a WordPress
wonderous should be wondrous

On the affiliates page you mention to type “cracker” – make sure you specify which field you wish the applicant to type it in.

On the credits page you also have question marks appearing in place of certain characters, so be sure you fix those up too.

Good to see you using <code> on the link back page.

On the plugboard page, I’m not sure why “awesome” is a heading.

Rent

This leads to a separate website so I won’t be reviewing it.

Originality & Creativity

I really like that you are venturing out into working with code and I can tell that you’ve been trying new things with it. I will admit that your graphic skills need to be improved, but you do a great job with your attempts. I have no doubt that you put a lot of effort into your website.

Make sure you read up on graphic design tutorials or find a way to get your creativity out there. If you are struggling with colours, use Color Scheme Designer; don’t be afraid to ask for people’s opinions; be daring – sometimes stepping out of your comfort zone can help.

Organisation & Errors

You need to organise your website more. For starters, the <h1> headings are much too big. Your sidebar is cluttered and some of the links could be more organised, and neater. Try to make sure the link buttons are not too distracting; perhaps smaller ones would make it look less cluttered, or using a rotation might be helpful, or even text links in a list.

I didn’t spot too many errors in your writing. Generally, my concern is with the organisation of your pages and the use of your styling. You seem to be unfamiliar with the effects of some of your heading tags. I recommend going through all your pages and making sure that they are neat and organised, and that all links are readable.

Overall Comment

Overall, my main suggestion would be to organise your website. It is a bit messy and cluttered. The layout needs some tweaking and it would be great if you gave it your own personal touch. You should also work on your content and find your strengths, or try and better your graphic skills with tutorials – I know CreateBlog has some good ones.

Try using more colours in your layouts and ones that contrast more. Too much of the same or similar shades can be daunting and too much on the eyes.

Rating

(out of 5)