Website Check

A few criticisms (btw, I do web development for a living, so don't expect a sugercoated response):

- The text is extremely blurry and hard on the eyes.
- The menu highlights should not disappear (in other words, when I mouse over the menu items them should stay highlighted until I move the mouse away)
- I really don't like the colour scheme... The orange is too bright and the green/gray is too dull...

It's definitely readable now, so that's a huge improvement.

As far as the colours go, I'd tone down the orange. Right now you've got 7-9 instances of orange (depending if you count the News box and scrollbar as seperate instances), and it's an overload, since they all compete for the user's attention (and draw attention away from the content).

I'd probably get rid of it as a background colour (maybe get rid of the background gradient period; it looks a bit random). I'd also try removing that orange shape under the main title (it serves no purpose). I'd make the Navigation and Events heads uniform (maybe make them like the "Welcome" header). I'd change the background color on the bottom News box to something other than orange. And I wouldn't make that scroll bar orange (actually I'd get rid of it, since only the scroll arrows function).

I'd also add more white-space (er, "green" space) around the main content. I'd also try aligning the bottom edge of the Events box with the bottom edge of the content box. And maybe increase the space between the various boxes. And also align the boxes at the bottom with the sides of the navigation/events box and the content box.

I'm also not sure about those shapes at the bottom of the content box. While they add some variety, they also seem a bit random.

Your site is interesting and I like your design but I had a terrible time reading the font. I was looking at it on a 15" monitor with screen resolution of 800x600 and the font size was very tiny.

I can't read it because I disabled Flash. :\

You will have the same trouble from blind or dyslexic viewers, or people using text browsers, or people who can't install plugins on their computers. Plus, people on older computers will have serious trouble loading the page. Overall, you kicked out a good minority of your audience.

I know Flash is fun to play around with, but it is not a replacement for an actual Web site.

looks good

It's slow loading on dial up.....best to stear away from flash media like mentioned above with older computers too.....plus, the buttons on the left flashing when u go over them is worse than it was before....overall though the site itself looks good, just needs some tweaking and putting it back into html format and not flash....

Seeing that you are aiming the look of the site to appeal to teenage or younger viewers, it looks fine for a little flashy site. If you could do it, I’d self-target the sub pages, like pictures as you did, and link the picture pages to work in your index flash page instead of setting them as an external link.

Dare I say, add a music loop? Okay well it worked for the Jars of Clay site and I’m sure the kids loved it. Down side is that it will slow down load but it can be worth it if the site is well designed. I’d never suggest a music loop for most sites of course and even this one is iffy to add one.

You may even want to create a special low bandwidth regular html site for us old fogies that just cant bare to wait for a page to load. Having a choice to load or not to load is something good for all those people you cant please all the time.

I’m finding the text to be just a little blurry but hey, you gota love the color green with white text.

It looks better, Scott, but still could use more tweaking. Specifically, I'd work on aligning the various boxes. Right now, they are unaligned by a few pixels here and there (for example, the Events box looks about 1-2 pixels to the left, compared to the Navigation box). Also maybe make the header boxes (Navigation, Welcome and Events) the same height.

I'm still not a fan of the colour scheme, but if you have to use it, you have to use it.

Durelen said:

Dare I say, add a music loop? Okay well it worked for the Jars of Clay site and I’m sure the kids loved it. Down side is that it will slow down load but it can be worth it if the site is well designed. I’d never suggest a music loop for most sites of course and even this one is iffy to add one.

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I wouldn't recommend it. Actually, I'd advise strongly against it, especially since the content of the site is not really conductive to a music loop.

Pete Harcoff said:

I wouldn't recommend it. Actually, I'd advise strongly against it, especially since the content of the site is not really conductive to a music loop.

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Hmmm… but in the context of a flashy youth site I would not rule it out. I mean if you are going to invest so much effort into sight then it is just obvious the site needs some form of sound if in fact you are trying to appeal to the senses. Does that make any sense? Play a videogame and turn off the sound for a moment and notice the subtle difference in emersion. Though this site is obviously not a video game, it is targeted to appeal to the viewer on a sensational level. Music or plain role over sounds is something this site is missing.

That took 5 seconds to load on my half megabyte a second connection. Unless the message you're spreading is that christians can't use dial-up I'd suggest changing it.

P.S. not that many people care about flash. In fact my personal opinion is that flash is the most abused program ever.

that took less than ten seconds to load on my 28k (on a good day) connection.

and lots of people "care" about flash. although there are drawbacks like the fact the user needs a fast-ish machine to run it and a fast-ish connection to view it much, in my opinion those are far outweighed by the sheer versatility of it...there is so much you can do. the possibilities are endless.

though yes i agree it gets abused when people use it just so people will think their site is cool, when they could just as easily use html and get the same results.

in this case i think its a good use. just about every teenager who has a computer and the internet probable has the flash plugin anyway, due to how much flash content is available on the web these days....so i think in this case it's ok.

music loops: no! there is nothing worse than music loops imo! unless there is a VERY clear way to turn it off.

Flash: Be careful what you do with it. it's nice, but alot of people with little experience create huge flash programs when they are not needed. sometimes flash can just be used for parts of a website (perhaps a banner or something) or for websites that are intentionally graphics heavy (i.e. a graphics showcase, or animation) since flash is a nice animation tool. but for about 99% of the websites I have seen flash just ain't needed. It is easy, well relatively easy, to create a sharp, professional site with no flash in it!

oh, another thing, use solid colours. the green/black thing is rather nasty on alot of computers or at least my work machine, I will look at it again when I get home if I remember). if you need a dark green, just use a dark green, don'T go for pixel blends like that.

ScottEmerson said:

What would you think about some small sound loops that would go off when highlighting a menu option, or perhaps a "Swoosh" when the main pages come in.

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No, that's even worse than adding a music loop (since usually the user has the option of turning off the music, but not the sound effects).

The only time sound effects for mousing over menu items are useful is if the people visiting the site have visual impairments. The audio cue will help them find menu items.

Most students I know are playing CD's or have music going anyway, so there doesn't need to be THAT much.

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Which is exactly why music and sound effects on web sites (unless necessary or applicable to the site) is usually a bad idea. Usually when I come across a site with a sound or music, I get the feeling they are compensating for lack of content.

Anyway, if any of you would like to compare this outing with my last, just go to http://www.fiveseventeen.org/ to see the "original" page.

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Hmm, I don't know if you'll want to hear this, but I like the original better. While it could use improvement (such as getting rid of those moving bars and also making the menu links appear all the time, instead of when mousing over them), the over all colour scheme is more soothing and the text is easier to read.