I know we have a Showing off Thread that showcases some of the really great designs people have come up with. But Is there a "feedback" thread?

I was thinking about a thread or even a room where we can just ask for other people's feedback on a site we might be working on. I think this is different than the showing off because it could have lnks that aren't the final destination of a website. It would be when we are really looking for "maybe you should try this plugin" or "reduce the heading font size a little" or "the colors are too bright" type of thing.

I looked for this but did not find it. Mods... Any thoughts on this?

I just changed the title of this thread to Feedback... Now you have a thread. Go for it and see what happens.

Thank you lmilesw.

First one up I guess.

dev site is at http://drwalton.seoexcell.com - thoughts? commentary etc? Thank you.

ps. You give me your feedback I'll give you mine.

You need padding on your pages such as "About". Also on that same page the image with the rounded corners should be a transparent png so the white corners don't show.

Overall I like the clean look however.

Oh yeah! thank you. I was focusing on the front page for now but thanks for the reminder on the padding...

As for the images, yes, I'll make it a transparent png, what are the thoughts on just using a jpg with rounded corners and matching corner background? like I did in some of the images in the front page? seems like pngs for images tend to be much larger than the equivalent jpg version...

Originally Posted by muychingon

As for the images, yes, I'll make it a transparent png, what are the thoughts on just using a jpg with rounded corners and matching corner background? like I did in some of the images in the front page? seems like pngs for images tend to be much larger than the equivalent jpg version...

That would certainly work in your instance and keep the sizes down. I would recommend a lower quality jpg however. You could drop that image from about 62k to under 10k by lowering the quality to about 30% without affecting how it looks much at all.

30% eh. I'll take your word for it and try it... I'm used to keeping them from 65 - 85 from original but maybe I really don't need to. I'll give that a try for sure.

Take a look at www.overseas-auto.com and let me know what tips you can give for improvement. I am somewhat of a WP Newb but am learning.

@bigjim5551212
A personal preference is to have a static width site. I would also use a shorter title for the site and use an SEO plugin if that is why you have the long title.

muychingon- I agree with Imilesw about the white corners on the photo. I like the neatness of the layout, the colors go together well.

bigjim5551212-I wonder about adding categories for navigation. Just personal preference on my part, but I have never been a fan of long pages. The orange color works well; it gets your attention, but not overpowering.

Originally Posted by NMF

bigjim5551212-I wonder about adding categories for navigation. Just personal preference on my part, but I have never been a fan of long pages. The orange color works well; it gets your attention, but not overpowering.

You mean categories instead of page information?

@bigjim5551212 I agree with lmilesw about the title. it is really long so it takes up a lot of space.

Also a nod to the width... It doesn't look too great on my screen on my laptop and the same goes on my big screen. What I usually do is look at Google analytics and see what my visitors are using for that particular site and I cater to the largest group and then try to make it good for the rest. I'm a fan of fixed width, but a combo of max width and min width might do the trick for you if you want it flexible.

The orange and red I don't know if they go together so well. Try using adobe's kuler tool or one of the many color combination ones out there (not like I'm a color expert or anything).

And the contact tab on the left --to me-- is a bit intrusive, I usually prefer a fixed "contact" page or box or call to action somewhere on the page over these tabs. In your case, as I scroll down the page it actually covers up the menus and that's why I noticed it.

Originally Posted by NMF

muychingon- I agree with Imilesw about the white corners on the photo. I like the neatness of the layout, the colors go together well.

Yes, and I've just ran into this issue where the client wants to see a few different background colors and I have to redo the images with the colors in the corners... going for transparent pngs from now on.

Originally Posted by bigjim5551212

Take a look at www.overseas-auto.com and let me know what tips you can give for improvement. I am somewhat of a WP Newb but am learning.

Besides my feedback... its a learning experience and you'll get the hang of it. Don't be discouraged if you can't get it right the first time. It takes time and patience.

Originally Posted by bigjim5551212

You mean categories instead of page information?

I just wondered if you could turn your product lines (engine performance, suspension products, etc) into categories. They could go in the sidebar like your pages or as a horizontal menu to give viewers of your site a quick reference to your products. However, (not knowing much about car parts ) the vertical placement may be essential to your site and what you are trying to do.

Originally Posted by NMF

I just wondered if you could turn your product lines (engine performance, suspension products, etc) into categories. They could go in the sidebar like your pages or as a horizontal menu to give viewers of your site a quick reference to your products. However, (not knowing much about car parts ) the vertical placement may be essential to your site and what you are trying to do.

Yes, i was thinking about this today. I would like to get rid of the "pages" on the left sidebar. Then have a drop down of categories on the top.

I did some changes on the sidebar widgets. I did not like how the page list was all cramped together. I got to think what I can do. I put a text widget in the sidebar, and made all HTML code, showing a bullet, and all the pages that I wanted to show. I can then show a page category as well. This is not a blog site, so blog categories do not work.

You can always use categories... even if it's not a blog. then you have the "posts" you make to a specific category show up only where you want them to -- easier said than done, but it doesn't *have* to be a blog for you to use categories. That's just nomenclature for a taxonomy system... or in simpler terms, categories are good to organize and compartmentalize your content...

With that, the look is much better, not as cluttered and a bit easier on the eye. I would now increase the font size of your main menu, it gets dwarfed by the other big font throughout the site, and in general I would try to make the fonts a little more proportional, it seems that some of the headings are really big compared to the text that follows.

And last but not least... change your permalinks to something other than the default, so you get the benefit of keywords on your links, and it looks better.

edit: one more thing, the "other websites" on the top right, those should be links; almost nobody will bother typing those in or copying and pasting. If you want people to go to them, make them clickable.

Good luck.

OG