Name: Jordan
Site: Airvaux.Nu
Review completed on: 19/12/07
SPLASH PAGE
No splash
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
'Allo 'Allo. Thanks for being patient, mate.
I'd like to get straight into it by reminding you of what you told me in your submission email, warning me of the spelling / grammatical errors your site contains; due to the fact that you are dyslexic. I don't usually take off points for spelling mistakes etc unless there is a large volume of them, but in your case even if there was, I will not be deducting any points. As with everyone else though, I will correct them for you - saves someone else doing it if you've submitted your site elsewhere. I won't do it to be patronising, I just think that all errors need correcting.
LAYOUT
The colour scheme for your layout reminds me a lot of the bottle for "Love Love" by Moschino; one of my favourite perfumes. Underneath your site title you've got "Some what festive", which indicates obviously that this is a christmas inspired lay? If it wasn't for the red bauble at the bottom, I'd never have guessed! Granted you've got a graphic of a penguin on snow, but that's not necessarily associated with Christmas. I think that your header image would look less random if you brought the red christmas bauble up so that it's in the same line of sight as the penguin, as well as maybe adding a small Christmas tree.
What is the purpose of the "Skip to content" link? I click it and it doesn't do anything at all, when it should be taking me directly down to your blog. Also, you have what appears to be a search bar in the top right corner - I'm only guessing though, since I can type inside of it. How about a much needed search button to go along with it, or at least something that clearly indicates that it's a search bar.
Lastly, I think your navigation links ought to be bolder. As they are now they're a light orange against a light blue background and that's a bit hard on the ol' eyes. You don't have to make them larger - the size is not the problem here. Like I said, bolding would do the trick. If you like you could even change the colour from pale orange to the red you've used in the bauble, since this colour hasn't yet been used elsewhere in the layout.
CONTENT
About
You don't have a great deal to offer in this section, and although you have provided most of the basic information there isn't anything else besides.
You mention that you struggle a lot with maths. So did I, when I was at school. I couldn't glean any interest in it whatsoever and sometimes it all seemed too impossible to figure out, and I'd cry in frustration. In Form 3 (age 13) I had to stay behind after class with my maths teacher for "extra coaching", when really all we did was chat about how Geri had left the Spice Girls and whatnot. Man, I had such a crush on that man. I even looked him up in the phone book and got butterflies whenever I biked past his house, which was conveniently on the way to school anyway. How completely and utterly sad.
Alrighty, with the risk of being super anal (instead of just anal) I'm going to paste every paragraph from this page here; and then paste the corrected paragraph underneath. Then you can paste mine into your site, replacing yours.
I'm Jords, well fall name Jordan Day. I'm fourteen, and fifteen on 11th April. I'm quite opinionated, honest and open minded. If I don't like somthing i'll let you know basically, Apart from that i'm pretty average normal My hair is a little bit long at the moment, its a mess, so are my eyes. The late nights make them carry bagage, also there hazel :) I'm slightly dyslexic, thats why I makesomealot of grammar mistakes and I struggle alot with maths, but hey I can read and still spell my name thats somthing, right?
My full name is Jordan Day, but you can call me Jords.
I'm fourteen, turning fifteen on April 11th. I'm quite opinionated, honest and open minded. If I don't like something I'll let you know, basically. Apart from that I'm a pretty average guy. My hair is a bit long at the moment, it's a mess! So are my hazel eyes for that matter - the late nights make them carry baggage. :)
I'm slightly dyslexic, so that's why I make some a lot of mistakes with my grammar as well as struggling a lot with maths. But hey - I can read and still spell my name and that's something, right?
My hobbies are, well I don't really have many ofcourse graphics and webdesign are one of them. I love skiing, but English winters suck so does the landscape. Which means we go on holiday skiing around January Febuary time.
Graphics and webdesign are my two main hobbies. Aside from those I also love skiing, but English winters suck and so does the landscape. This means that we go on holiday to ski, around January/February.
Aw come on man, surely England isn't always dull and dreary? I hear the Lake District's supposed to be quite nice, up North.
In the third paragraph, all you need to do is replace well are ups and downs to well our ups and downs.
In the fourth, simply place a comma next to the first Southbourne. Sweet!
I work in a store called 'Emsworth Home Hardware', as a cashier, assitant and basicly the labour jobs is i'd put it. (Crush boxes, stock up, clean certain things etc). The shop is extremly busy, so i'm rushed alot. However, being abit dyslexic causes me to panic on the till somtimes.
I work in a store called 'Emsworth Home Hardware' as a cashier and assistant. As well as this I do the general labour jobs like crushing boxes, stocking up, cleaning certain things etc. The shop is extremely busy, so I'm rushed a lot. However, being a bit dyslexic causes me to panic on the till sometimes.
And last of all...
I'm a big fan of Sharon den adel, Her vocals for the band Within temptation work perfectly, which leads me to pick them as my favourite band!
Musically, I'm a big fan of Sharon den Adel - her vocals for the band Within Temptation work perfectly, which leads me to pick them as my favourite band!
Resources
Hmm, this didn't lead anywhere. Your header and the information under it are present as usual, but not the actual resources page itself. Is this under construction or something? It pays to have a "Coming Soon" type message up if it is.
Domain
Okay, with the opening sentence here:
Airvaux.nu is a personal blog and portfolio to Jordan, make yourself ?t home and read about my life, my rants, my opinions.. and feel free to comment i? willing to hear constructive criticism, however have the decency to leave your real name, email or site. If you do not leave a name or a real email atlest and i find out who you are, I replace the fake name and email and site if so. Take a look around feedback woudn't go a miss?
...delete the above and replace it with this:
Airvaux.nu is a personal blog and portfolio by Jordan. Make yourself 'at home' and read about my life, my rants, and my opinions. Please feel free to comment - I'm willing to receive any constructive criticism - however have the decency to leave your real name, email or site. If you leave fake details and I find out who you are, I'll replace those fake details with your real information. Take a look around and have fun! Feel free to leave me some feedback.
For your Credits section, you could put a colon or a dash next to each persons' name - for the sake of increased organisation.
Under Subdomain, "Intrested In a subdomain? Email me. If your Piczo I will Shoot you." needs to be changed to "Interested in a subdomain? Email me. If you're on Piczo I will shoot you".
Links
Whoops - this goes to an index page that displays a number of files. I'm assuming this page is under construction, so you ought to make an actual page for this section stating this fact, as I mentioned earlier in your Resources section. Link pages shouldn't take very long to make anyway, so the sooner you get onto this the better!
SUMMARY
This review hasn't been very long; mainly due to the lack of content offered at your site at the moment. I realise that some of the pages are still under construction, and this is fine as long as you don't leave them that way for too long. Out of all the pages, the About page was by far the most comprehensive, and even that is not saying much because it merely consisted of a few paragraphs! You've done right in providing the reader with your basic essentials, but now it's time to go into further detail. Branch out and include some pages dedicated to who you are and the things you like to do. What other bands are you into besides Within Temptation? Perhaps you could make a list of your top five and explain to the reader why you like them, as well as recommending some of your favourite songs by them. You could also do the same for movies and tv shows. Following this, you could chuck in some rants and opinions. After all, your introductory paragraph earlier tells the reader that you're quite opinionated. A few months ago I was reading an old blog of yours about fast food workers, and I had tears of laughter rolling down my face. I'd love to have that 'no holds barred' Jordan reveal himself again sometime!
The main advice I can offer you would be to work on completing all your sections, as well as bumping up the volume of personal content. As far as the spelling and grammatical errors are concerned, well, as I've said I haven't taken any marks off. Dyslexic or not, you can use a spell checker and it'd replace all the misspelled words for you in an instant. A spell checker is a very essential tool for anyone to have on their computer.
Which brings me to this part - I noticed on your previous sidebar (before your current layout) that you'd referred to yourself as "dumb". This bothered me a bit to be honest. I guess society has put a stigma on the word, which leads certain people to believe that having dyslexia means you're stupid. Dyslexics have a different mind, yes, but they're anything but stupid. Dyslexia is certainly no barrier in terms of wanting to succeed in life. Jamie Oliver, Keira Knightley, Richard Branson, Thomas Edison, and even Albert Einstein are all brilliant at what they do (or what they have done in the case of Edison and Einstein) and they're all dyslexics. So please, don't ever go thinking you're dumb, because you're not. I've just finished reviewing your entire site and I've not once thought of you as this. Why would I? A few spelling errors is hardly a worthy measurement of ones' intelligence.
Anyway, Jordan, I hope this review has been of some help to you. I wish you and your site the best of success!
