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Site Name: iShutterbug
Owner: Tiffany
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 6th August 2009

Site Name

It’s a great name – it’s catchy, unique and easy to remember.

Coding and Validation

Your coding has 16 errors.

In the small icons that link to your WordPress admin and cPanel, you have forgotten </a> after the first icon. You have also placed </a> after <br /> – you should place it beforehand.

Also, another general rule with validating coding is to specify an alt attribute for all images (alternative text), and provide a slash for the image code. In XHTML images should be displayed like so:

<img src="image URL" alt="photo of me" />

You’re also missing a </p> after these buttons, as you have specified a <p>.

Avoid using <center> because it is deprecated. Use a class instead, for example:

<p class="center">

And specify with CSs:

.center {
text-align: center;
}

That way you can add class="center" to any element you would like to center.

Your CSS is valid

The coding is fine; I can’t spot any huge problems or flaws.

Browser Compatibility & Usability

According to Browsershots.org your site looks the same in most browsers.

Looking manually, the website looks the same in Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Safari. It also functions well and is easily navigatable.

I have no problems with the fonts or sizes of elements in the layout – it’s all to an appropriate scale and everything can be read easily.

The container has an exact width of 800 pixels. Be wary when creating a layout this width or wider – one of the smallest resolutions is 800 by 600 pixels, and to accomodate elements such as the scrollbar and browser window, layouts should be slightly narrower to avoid parts of the layout being unseen in this resolution. The resolution is not all that common, but it’s something to keep in mind. Particularly with more mobile devices becoming available, layouts should be kept relatively compact.

Layout

I understand you’re new to WordPress themes, but you should still attempt to create layouts that are, to some extent, personified by yourself. Your previous layout was great because it was your take on a layout created by someone else.

I’m not entirely sure how much of the current layout was by you (reading from your blog) but I am assuming that you basically designed the layout but had it coded for you.

The colour scheme you’ve chosen is one that I have seen before, but you have chosen a colour palette that works very well, and that isn’t too bright.

The header image stands out, which is quite nice. The effect of the text of your website name is nice – I find it really suiting. I think the dropshadow on the green shape could be a light colour (white) rather than a dark one, because that matches with the layout better, and it separates the pink from the green so that it doesn’t look too “mushy”, for want of a better word.

There is a lot of pink in the header image though; the stripe could probably have a bit of texture incorporated to make it a bit less bold.

Overall it’s a well styled layout with great colours; the stylesheet is well done and there’s nothing much to fix.

Content

Webmiss

I believe you have to update this page; you recently turned 18 so your age should be changed.

All the pages in this section are okay; I didn’t have any problems.

Visitor

The avatars are good. You don’t have many but this a good start. I know you aren’t claiming them as your own but the use of celebrity images is not encouraged, as simply by editing them and displaying or redistributing them, you can be in breach of copyright.

The banners are okay – they are good as bases. They’re fairly well made but I’m not really a fan of the colours you’ve used, in general.

The blank buttons aren’t too impressive. Apart from the fact that blank buttons are pretty generic and not many people use them, the colours of these buttons don’t look that good, and a few of the buttons appear “stretched”, such as a few of the balloon ones.

On the colour palettes page, color combination should be color combinations. I can spot a really bright one that I don’t particularly like, but the other ones look good and the colours work well together. There’s not much one can say about colour palettes.

You’ve got one set of brushes – looks fairly good for a beginner!

The movie reviews are good – you should add more, obviously.

The recipes look great, and I love how they have the difficulty grading on them.

On the HTML tutorials, you should be using <strong> and <em> instead of <b> and <i>. It is more semantically correct.

On the images tutorial, you shouldn’t be placing the slash in the image code – beginners won’t be using XHTML. Also, you should have alt text on the images.

On the tables tutorial, you are missing the <tr> to start the second row.

On the API key tutorial, Akisment should be Akismet.

The other WordPress tutorials are fairly good.

The plugboard is pretty self explanatory.

Reviews

I really like this page here because it shows what you expect of the reviewee when they apply, and what they can expect from their review. It’s a bit lengthy, but that isn’t too much of a problem.

Domain

The word “domain” is probably an unfamiliar term to some people, so “Website” would be a preferable title for this section.

In the first paragraph:
for scratch should be from scratch
iShutterbug.info . should be iShutterbug.info.

Also on this page see it Here should be see it here.

The credits section is fine; this page is very organised.

Hosting

No problems here.

Originality & Creativity

The majority of your website was quite creative and original. I think you did a great job with your website overall.

Organisation & Errors

I didn’t spot many errors; just a few minor mistakes here and there.

Overall Comment

You’ve done a sound job on your website overall. You have fairly good content, though bits and pieces can be improved, as I mentioned.

It would be nice to see a layout that’s had more input from you; I believe you are quite capable of this. You have had some nice layouts in the past so you should use ones that you have created.

A few of the coding tutorials need to be fixed up. Other than that, your pages are very organised and you have a nice variety of content. The main thing concerning me is your layouts. Most of the layouts I have seen have used help from others, or templates. So definitely something by you would give a slightly better impression of your website.

Rating

(out of 5)