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Site Name: Dash of Color
Owner: Rin
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 14th June 2009
Site Name
Very nice name. I just don’t really like the discrepancy present with the spelling of ‘color’ and ‘colour’ (British/Australian). I spell it as ‘colour’ because I’m Australian.
Coding and Validation
Your HTML has 1 error and 41 warnings.
You don’t have a <html> tag after your doctype. You need this to open the document as HTML. Immediately after this you should have <head>. And preceding the body tag you should end the head section with </head>.
The warnings in your HTML are simply from WordPress posts; the fact that they code in XHTML and you are using the HTML doctype. However, the error in your coding is caused by one of the rotations at the bottom of your page, which is coded incorrectly:
<a href="http://xchange.selphies-world.de" target="_blank">
<div style="background-image: url(http://www.selphies-world.de/exchange/layer/xchange.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-align: fixed; width:92px; height: 43px; padding-top: 10px; padding-left: 1px; padding-bottom: 2px;">
<IFRAME SRC="http://www.selphies-world.de/exchange/work.php?ID=Fahrin" width=88 height=31 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 frameborder=0 scrolling="no"></IFRAME>
</div></a>
The div is inside the link tag, which is incorrect. You cannot place an entire div inside a link tag. The only method I can see to validate this is to recreate the image, or to simply not link the top section of the image at all. Validation is not necessary as this is just a minor error, but I felt the need to point it out.
Your CSS has 1 error. It is in the same rotation code. background-align:fixed is not a valid property and it should be background-attachment:fixed.
Browser Compatibility & Usability
According to Browsershots.org your site looks the same in most browsers.
The layout is rather wide. Take into account that some people have small screen resolutions so making your layout just a tad narrower would make it easier to navigate. This is often the case with mobile devices.
The navigation is clear; it’s in quite an orderly manner down the sidebar.
The font size is fine but the grey colour of the main text could be a shade darker; it’s a bit too light on the light background.
Layout
I like the colours. The use of contrasting colours in the layout, coupled with shades of yellow and broken up with grey, produces a nice result. Overall, the layout is quite nice on the eyes and the colours aren’t terribly blinding or dull.
The header image is great – the silhouettes in a single colour are very bold and capture attention. Apart from the use of a lot of blue, it’s well designed and very neat.
The rest of the layout is put together nicely; the CSS is well constructed and uniform. The navigation is nice and neat and the headers complement this style. It’s a great layout overall.
Content
Site
On your ‘about’ page, not on time should be not in time.
There’s no problems with most of the pages in this section. I recommend using spam protection other than a captcha image, as some people can have images turned off or their images may not load. It’s good that you have included your email address though; some people don’t include their email address for some strange reason.
I notice that you have the rotations at the bottom of every page. Perhaps instead of having them directly under the content, have them static and in the footer. It’s a bit strange having them at the bottom of each page; particularly when the page is short, it is very noticeable.
I like the way you have organised your credits; it’s quite unique.
Resources
The icon textures are very nice. I like the first set. The second set’s style is quite common. Perhaps you should say “credit me” instead of “credit us”.
You shouldn’t be redistributing the fonts if they weren’t made by you. Sometimes the owner or creator doesn’t allow this. It’s also not very original.
I don’t see fractals often and I don’t really know how they are made. Yours are quite nice. They’re of high quality and I like how you have a range of large spanning ones and smaller shaped ones.
Graphics
The banners are of good quality but I expected them to be bigger. I don’t really see these as useful because of the size.
The designs are great. There’s a variety of colours, they’re of good quality and a variety of layout styles. I just don’t think they’d appeal to everyone because not everyone likes anime. You should also include credit on these layouts for the resources you used, such as the Big Bang photographs and perhaps any other resources.
The icons are very nice. I like the effects on them. This one looked a bit blurry and plain, though.
You should be crediting the source of the images for the celebrity icons. I’m not sure if you had permission from the photographer to use the images but be aware that the images could be copyright.
Tutorials
I don’t really see the back/forward links tutorial very useful. It’s basically a copy-and-paste code and not a tutorial.
With the basic CSS it would be better to use external CSS. The backgrounds parts are useful though.
The basic HTML tutorial isn’t very good. If you’re going to teach very basic HTML you should start from the very beginning and explain how it works. Having copy-and-paste codes don’t really help.
The drop-down menu tutorial is interesting. If you didn’t write the script yourself, credit the source.
I wouldn’t recommend the iframes tutorial. Iframes have many disadvantages both for the user and the creator of a website. Of course, the use of iframes is now considered “old”.
The image wrapping and page anchors tutorials are alright. Very simple HTML and CSS but some good tips for people who don’t know how they work.
I wouldn’t recommend the marquees tutorial either; marquees and distracting and annoying.
The image mapping tutorial is great. This is the only way I personally know how to image map, and I haven’t seen anyone cover this tutorial so good job.
Shadowed text is pretty simple to do. The tutorial isn’t as useful as the image mapping one.
I think you could display the images on the page rather than in Lightbox. It is a unique thing to have an image helper but Lightbox can be a bit slow, and when you’re looking at a tutorial, it’s not as good as, say, a photo gallery. Also, some people don’t use Javascript.
I have seen the colour bubbles tutorial before so I’m not surprised.
The miscellaneous tutorials are pretty simple. They’re not very original or in depth.
The WordPress tutorials are pretty simple and straightforward. More of these would be great; I don’t see many WordPress tutorials.
Originality & Creativity
You’ve definitely got some original and creative content on your website. Most of them aren’t my style, but your graphics all have your own personal style which is really good.
Your tutorials weren’t very original. They’re a nice addition on your website but a lot of them, such as the HTML/CSS ones, are quite superfluous.
Organisation & Errors
Well organised, no major errors or broken images. Good job.
Overall Comment
Rin, you have a nice orderly site with some excellent graphics of very good quality. As I mentioned, your graphics aren’t my style but they are great.
I don’t have much to suggest except to continue adding content and resources. Remove the fonts as they don’t belong to you. I would like to see things like brushes and more tutorials on things like Photoshop. You should also cut down on the tutorials that aren’t very useful. Also be sure to credit everything.
Good job with the site and good luck.
