Website for Review
http://www.eskside1.freeserve.co.uk

Additional Comments
My personal website has been thouroughly revised recently and many new pages have been added as my health has forced a change in direction. I am new however to CSS and have done what I can at this stage to restrcit mistakes. Nonetheless I will take onboard any constructive comments and am grateful for your valued time.

Thanks

Colin
Best wishes for the imminent New Year

Passing through, just a few thoughts, if I may...

Simple and neat layout, -quite appropriate for its purpose, -the good news... ;
Now the worse  :
- I'm on 1280x..., and it's pretty hard to follow the text. Perhaps a fixed size centered div would be better instead of the undefined one, which by default covers the whole 100% width.
- Also because of this resolution, I'm having difficulties with that font, Times I guess... Why not using the same as the menu...?!
- Well, and the font color, -I'm not fond of black text, generally... I'd suggest a dark blue, (-deep waters, "angry" sky, or alike...).

Hello Webcro

Congratulations on being the first to share your views with me and thank you for your comments. To be fair I was expecting some criticism as this is my first opportunity of getting any feedback with the website and anything I receive good or bad will be equally considered.

The reason I have the whole page open for content is that I find it strange for websites to be created with unused space I guess I am just trying to maximise what content I can have online. I will try the font change to see if it would be more consistent. The font colour was chosen as I have some degree of reduction in sight and for me black works well, but I will of course take your comments onboard.

Thanks;).

whitbycolin wrote:

Hello Webcro

Congratulations on being the first to share your views with me and thank you for your comments. To be fair I was expecting some criticism as this is my first opportunity of getting any feedback with the website and anything I receive good or bad will be equally considered.

The reason I have the whole page open for content is that I find it strange for websites to be created with unused space I guess I am just trying to maximise what content I can have online. I will try the font change to see if it would be more consistent. The font colour was chosen as I have some degree of reduction in sight and for me black works well, but I will of course take your comments onboard.

Thanks;).

I felt that the amount of text presented may be a tad overwhelming for a new visitor. I would suggest doing some Goog searches on text and page segmentation. It will make the sites topics more scanable and the pages more engaging and promote user interactivity.

In regards to the site navigation, there are a few exceptions but as a general rule you want the navigation consistant throughout the website. Visitors may be more inclined to click farther into your site if they have the visual assurance that consistant navigation offers, it builds trust.

Unused space is fine as long as its in the proper places. You may also want to look over one of the many eyetracking projects, no use in wasting good text on places people don’t look.

G'day Colin. Welcome to the forum, Mate.

Very extensive website and a great read. More than just a great read, though. It's a great recourse. Obviously the site has come from many years pursuing a passion with vigor.

Depending on your expectations for the site, you could say it's fine as it is. However, there are improvements that can be made and WS has made a start.

I'll address one area only at this stage. I'm hoping you'd like some help with your css.

img {

        padding: 0px;

        display: inline;

        border: solid black 1px;

        }

The code above can go in your css file and will give you a 1px black border around the photo. You can change the thickness and colour of the border if you wish. You can also add a narrow space between the image and border by changing the padding to 2px. And you can get more fancy, but I wouldn't. I do think the narrow black border sets the image off nicely.

I see you are having trouble fitting your photos in with the text. The solution is quite easy, once you get the hang of it.

I'll give you the code I use in my blogs to position photos. In this situation I insert the photos as a paragraph, <p></p> but you would probably use a div, <div></div>

p.right_350 {

        float: right;

        text-align: center;

        width: 350px;

        margin: 0 0 2px 7px;

        color: #666666;

        }

p.left_350 {

        float: left;

        text-align: center;

        width: 350px;

        margin: 0 7px 2px 0;

        color: #666666;

        }

You'll see I have one of my photos floating to the right and the other floating to the left. I usually stagger them down the page with the text occupying the space in the middle and floating around the images.

It would pay you to go to a fixed width page if you decide to follow this method. Otherwise you loose more than enough control on how your page will display in someone's monitor.

On the html page you have something like this:

<p class="right_350">

<img src='http://www.sapphirecoastnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/cityindex.jpg' alt='City Index' />

City Index Leopard skippered by Mike Slade

</p>

See if you can figure it out. I'll give you more help if you wish.

Here is the page above: http://www.sapphirecoastnews.com/sydney … t-race.php

And here's a page from another blog where I've staggered the photos down the page: http://www.southimage.net/wilderness-tr … dation.php

If the photos were smaller and the space was wider, the text would fit in the middle and the photos could be placed on the same level or else not staggered so much, say half their height.

I've got to go, Mate. The Missus has just got home from work and I think I'm in trouble because I haven't finished mowing the lawn. But do get back if you'd like more help.

Regards,
Laurie.

Actually you don't even need to wrap your images in a paragraph or div.  You can just do this to make it work:

img.right_350

{

  display: block;

  float: right;

  text-align: center;

  width: 350px;

  margin: 0 0 2px 7px;

  color: #666666;

}

Then just attach the class="right_350" to the image itself.

Now on to some technical issues.  you have two body tags in your html (just looking on your main page).  You should only ever have one, and it should contain all the displayed elements.  You should move your first body tag above your TDStats code, and make sure to add a </head> tag before it to close the head.  Then just move the onload parameter into that first body tag, and remove the second tag.

Add alt tags to your images, and make them descriptive of the image.  This is useful for accessibility purposes or pictures that don't load for some reason.  It's also good for your on page SEO.

Thank you Waveshoppe for your valued comments.
The site was originally first online in 1999 when it was quite smaller than it is at the moment and as it has grown I have tried to update it without reducing the amount of information I can display, I do though understand where you are coming from. I have also started to duplicate the same navigation elements throughout the entire site so as to remain consistent.

May I say how wonderful it is to be conversing with people from around the globe. It is really good to be able to get feedback from other web users on one's own website.

Thanks

Colin:)

Thank you Laurie M for your comments the website was initially launched when I was very active diving and it was a way of trying to share my experience and knowledge. I am grateful for the responses as my aim is to try and carry the website forward with help on making it more user friendly and the reviews are a great help. The site is currently hosted on the free 15mb web space one gets when registering with my ISP but it is out growing the allocated space and as I consider a individual hosting it is important to allow the website to evolve without hindering its usefulness.

Getting the photographs positioned to where I wanted them created so many headaches for me. I placed the code in and tweaked it from time to time without much success. The only solution I came up with was to lock them into a table style.

I am in the process of sending a PM with regards to your photography exploits.

Regards

Colin:thumbsup:

Hi Steven

I am bowled over by the swift response and help and look forward to incorporating some of the suggestions over the coming days.

I have started to try and clean the html and did use the validation in Dream weaver before uploading the newer pages. I did find though that even this did not pick some of the errors found in the WC3 Markup Validation website. One of the main problematic areas for the WC3 validation was the TDStats script it simply did not like it one bit.

The WC3 also brought up the problem of my website DOCTYPE, although this seems to be acceptable at the moment. The website has experienced a fairly rapid growth recently and with so many images it is time consuming adding alt tags but I am adding them as time permits.

Thanks once again for your input, it is 01:02 on the Saturday but I wanted to get this posted before logging of.

Colin:)

It's not loading right now. I have some problems may be. Would but glad to check on your site and next time. Good luck!

Thanks for all the advice and tips and please accept my apologies for asking for the site review when I had clearly not put enough effort into getting as good as I could.:thumbs.
:
Following your comments I have taken onboard some of the advice, but more than that it was the proverbial 'kick up the ar*"e' that prompted me to sit down and go through the code in detail.

I have now spent the best part of the week going through each page and cannot believe how many problems I had created for myself. I am pretty pleased that to begin with I have the home page at a stage where it pases the WC3 validation and I hope to continue with the amendments.

Waveshoppe, I am beginning to reduce the text where I can, although it is not easy and I have reproduced the navigation elements throughout the whole website.
Webcro, I have looked at changing the colour of the text to differing shades of blue but cannot seem to find one I am happy with, which is the same with the font type, I find that with my sight deficiency black works better, sorry.

Thanks all who gracefully gave me their time and hence positive feedback.

Thought you might like a logo.... god knows why I did this, especially with that old version of Photoshop I have.

Don't laugh now, as I tossed this together in about 1.5 minutes flat (got pizza burnin' in the oven). If I had time at work, I'd just use Corel, and put together something real nice.

Stick with the black text, Mate. That's your best bet. A lighter background maybe.

I find white background is the go. A bit of colour from your photos gives the page a lift and the photos stand out better on white with a narrow black border. It's all subjective, of course, but that's my take on it.

The main trouble with your text is the font. Go for verdana.

You can change the whole site in one hit with your css file. Use:

font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;

I noticed the other week that you have some minor problems with your css file that probably stop it from working, altogether. Can help you with it if you wish.

A nice looking font will stand our beautifully, even on the background colour that you have.

Regards,
Laurie.

I am beginning to reduce the text where I can, although it is not easy and I have reproduced the navigation elements throughout the whole website.

Assume you are talking about the nav?
Just have it as an include (if its not already) so change one file, change the whole site.
You would need to make a .htaccess file mod as well to cater for the .html , cannot remember offhand what it is but someone will soon tell us!