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Site Name: Kisses and Cake
Owner: Morgan
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 1st July 2009
- Previous reviews:
- Kisses And Cake
- Over My Head
Site Name
I’m getting more used to the site name; it doesn’t sound as weird anymore.
Coding and Validation
Your coding has 14 errors and 12 warnings.
So, there are things to be improved here. You are missing the fundamentals of a webpage and if you don’t already know, having clean coding makes a website a little bit more accessible as it reduces errors across browsers and operating systems.
Firstly, you need a doctype to declare your document as an HTML document. The doctype below, HTML 4.01 Transitional, best matches your coding. You need to place this at the very beginning of every page, before <html>.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
You also need a character encoding to define the character set of your webpage. The most common one is UTF-8. You should place this in between the head tags.
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
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.
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.
Avoid using center as it is deprecated; use CSS with a div class:
.center {
text-align: center;
}The HTML:
<p class="center"> Centered text here </p>Of course, replace
pwith whatever element you’re using – a div, a link, an image.
Your CSS is valid.
A few warnings here that you can fix – fonts with more than one word, or that have “whitespace”, need to be quoted. For example, “times new roman”.
Your CSS would also be better in an external stylesheet. Copy all the coding with the exception of <style type="text/css"> and </style>, place it in a document called style.css and call on it like so, placing it in your head section:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" type="text/css">
It’s easy, and allows your website to load faster. And that’s the whole problem, your CSS should be in the head section.
You should also be specifying HTML pieces with CSS. Instead of this:
<body style="background-repeat: repeat-y; background-image: url(http://i471.photobucket.com/albums/rr80/remix-it/Purple-Sexy-Ninja-Pickle/flywithme2.png);
background-color: #989898;">
You should be using CSS:
body {
background-repeat: repeat-y;
background-image: url(http://i471.photobucket.com/albums/rr80/remix-it/Purple-Sexy-Ninja-Pickle/flywithme2.png);
background-color: #989898;
}
Same with the divs. Give them an id and use CSS:
<div style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 203px;">Let us name this div “background” and customise it with CSS:
#background {
position: absolute;
top: 0px;
left: 203px;
}Then we call on it:
<div id="background">
There is no need for embedded styling. For more information on classes and ids, visit my tutorial.
Browser Compatibility & Usability
Looking at your site at Browsershots.org, your site looks similar in most browsers.
A centered look would look better with this layout because of the uniformity. Use a div container to center it; I have a tutorial on that.
The navigation is clear; it would be better above the welcome message though. The main body of text could be bigger in size but at least it is more legible than in your last review.
Layout
This is a huge improvement from your other layouts that I’ve seen. I notice that you have improved significantly. You manage to keep a simple but slightly decorated layout which is good.
I like the simple use of colour in the layout and how the purple and blue stand out from the grey – the contrast is nice. Choosing a colour like grey really tones down the brightness and makes things a lot easier on the eyes.
I like the use of different font styles; this layout is so simple but I can tell you have put in some work with the CSS this time.
The header image itself is really simple. I like the quote and the two little stick figures; they are very cute.
Great job on this layout; I’d just recommend centering it because it would look a lot nicer; there’s a big blank grey space to the left of the layout because I have a large screen.
Content
Site
The subnavigation at the top of this page would be good to have on every page of this section.
You have my website linked twice in your credits.
On your link back page, you should use <code> instead of <textarea> to display code – textarea is intended for user input (notice how you can edit the text within?) and not for displaying code. In doing so you have to replace < with < and > with >.
Visitor
This page looks a lot more organised than last time; good job.
Affiliate images are generally pretty useless and tacky; you’ve done a better job and made some better ones though.
I like the cassette tape in your mobile backgrounds section. It’s pleasing to see you have really cleaned up this section and displayed graphics that are a lot better. I can begin to see your own unique style through these.
The coded layouts are nice. You’ve used some good colours in them. Try to make them a different style from your current layout though. Also, not all the coding is validated, especially the HTML, so before stating they’re validated (with a regularly used and common doctype as well) make sure you check.
The wallpapers look great; I love the purple city one and the “see stars” one. Shame they aren’t in my wallpaper size – try and create some bigger ones here. And if possible create some widescreen ones too!
Get to your reviews soon! Hope you haven’t kept these guys waiting too long.
As I mentioned with displaying code – display them correctly.
Page graphics – don’t really see the point.
Tips and tricks… *cough* “Grammer” should be Grammar.
No body should be Nobody
you, you should should be you; you should
it’s case should be its case
exactly like someone elses should be exactly like someone else’s
Friends should be friends
url should be URL
“tutorials” is a broken link. And under “general” you basically repeat the same paragraph as the first.
Some articles weren’t made by you; try and write more of your own.
HTML codes – I probably mentioned this before, but they’re really quite pointless. People can’t really learn anything from this.
Owner
Great page. /yes Not too long and not too short. Funny that; I’m 5’2″ too.
Originality & Creativity
A lot more creative and original than last time; I’m really impressed. The updated content looks a hell of a lot better.
Organisation & Errors
Just a few small errors here and there. Your website was a lot more organised this time around.
Overall Comment
Morgan, your site has improved a lot since your last review. I’m definitely impressed with the changes you’ve made. There are just a few things you need to fix – your coding and your layout.
Validating should not be intimidating; you don’t have many errors and it’s worth it. There are many things you can fix with coding, particularly with utilising CSS instead of HTML.
As for your layout, centering it would be a better look.
You’ve made good improvements to your content; you do need to add more to make your website a bit more interesting and worthwhile to visit. Keep up the great work.


4 Comments so far — leave one?
Twitted by jeorgina says:
[...] This post was Twitted by jeorgina [...]
Deena says:
Woo, quite a good score! A subtle improvement, but well done anyways.
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Sophia says:
Congratulations Morgan!
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Jen says:
YAY Morg! A site improvement!
Gonna read Georgina’s blog right WHEE HOO LOL
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