Name: Rachael
Site: Calm Banana
Review completed on: 10/09/07
SPLASH PAGE
No splash
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Hey Rachael! I've been slacking off with my reviews of late, and I've had a couple of people waiting since February, you being one of them. This review has been a long time coming, and I thank you for your patience. I hope that this review will be a good one for you.
LAYOUT
Damn - a layout change, just when I was wanting to review you under the gorgeous layout Ramsha made you for your birthday. She did a fine job, there's no doubt about that - clean, simplistic, and attractive. What's more, it featured a snazzy banana that went perfectly with your site title.
Unfortunately I cannot write about your new layout with such enthusiasm, and to be honest I was quite disappointed when the page loaded this morning to notice that you'd made this change. I'm all for simplistic looks when it comes to layouts - some webmasters automatically deem basic, image free layouts as 'boring' but this is not always the case. In my opinion it's all down to your colour choices - choosing the right combination can be the deciding factor in whether a layout like yours could be simplistic and appealing, or plain and boring.
The layout is mainly all black and white, save for a baby pink used for the content links and as the hover colour on your navigation. I recommend 'bringing out' this pink a bit more - perhaps as the navigation and/or the footer background? As it is now, your layout is quite 'heavy' looking, very stark. Moonthology.Org's layout features black and white as the dominating colours as well, but she's added a lovely patterned background to her header to avoid a plain, stark look. Sometimes a small patterned header background can make all the difference, as well as a bit of added colour as mentioned previously.
The fact that this layout is user friendly could possibly be seen as its saving grace. Your navigation is in a prime location underneath your site title, your font is a decent size therefore easy to read, and your sidebar is extremely clean and organised - not a trace of clutter.
Is this meant to be here? Seems strange.
Anyway, I can't really think of anything else to write about this layout because it does not inspire me in any way. It's a total contrast to Ramsha's design...a step backwards, if you will. See this as harsh if you want - it's not meant to be - I'm just being honest. You can do a lot better than this, because I've seen some of your previous work and I know your potential. All you need to do here is add a little jazz - accentuate the pink, possibly use this colour on your navigation or footer. I honestly think your layout would look noticeably better if you did this.
CONTENT
About Me
Hmm...the first sentence here struck me as kind of awkward:
Hi my name is Rachael. I'm 20 years old, English, and not as dumb as I look. I have 3 A-levels, too many GCSE's, and I deserve a degree in being an idiot.Say what? So you're not as dumb as you look yet you deserve a degree in being an idiot? Idiot = stupid person. Also, you say you're not as dumb as you look - what do you look like then? Picture or description please?
All in all this self-description was pretty short, but you've managed to describe many aspects of your personality all the same - some of your traits, the things you like doing, and general facts such as your age, your location, and some of your qualifications. I admire the fact that you've covered all of this in seven small paragraphs - puts my "About Me" page to shame really, rabbiting on incoherently about this and that, as I tend to do. Yours is short, sweet, and to the point - and I like it a lot.
Oh...you've decided to delve deeper by covering your internet history I see. They usually make for an interesting read.
On the first line, bbc needs to be capitalised as it is an acronym for British Broadcasting Corporation. Well, at least I'm assuming that's the BBC you meant.
Hehe, I clearly recall ye olde days of the internet that you speak of - Altavista when it was a well-used search engine (before Google came on the scene!), when Comic Sans was a socially acceptable font to use, blue links, paper patterned backgrounds...ohh yeah, we're going way back. So, your first web hosting experience was on Freewebs. I was a Tripod bitch myself.
You have all of your acronyms capitalised (as they should be) bar two...HTML and URL. This may seem nitpicky of me, but it pays to be consistant, ya feelin' me homegurl?
This was a great first section - but it's left me wanting to read more, much more. Have you considered adding to this at all? Opinions, a full autobiography, anything personal really.
Writing
Custom Keywords - this is a really valuable tutorial and from the looks of it a reasonably easy one to follow. Thanks for this - I intend to use it myself in the near future.
How to make a layout in an hour - when you explain the sort of content a footer should contain, you give a link to your host as an example - funkyvision.co.uk. I take it then that this tutorial was written quite a while ago, since you're on your own domain now.
Making your site accessible - I could not find fault with this at all. Loved it.
How to prevent image theft - I wonder if Mac users know what you're going on about when you cover the "Print screen" function, as this option is not present on Mac keyboards. I remember hearing about this myself a couple of years ago and had no idea what it was, considering I've been on a Mac since I was 6, and have zero experience on Windows systems. You might like to add "The Mac equivalent to Print Screen is Grab".
Things to avoid when creating a website - most sites contain similar articles these days, which I guess is a good thing. In saying that though, I'm not really seeing anything here that I haven't already seen at another site. You could add generic content to your list though - unoriginal reads and cut and pasted games etc.
Using Doctypes - this was an interesting and informative read, successfully outlining the importance of the different Doctypes and the one that's best suited to the type of site the reader has. Along with your tutorials on accessibility and custom keywords, this one was a real favourite for me.
How to survive a moshpit - this isn't something I'm personally interested in so I'll be keeping the commentary to a bare minimum. You've listed some valuable tips though, I'll give you that. In the first paragraph, claustrophic needs to be changed to claustrophobic.
Security guards do pass out cups of water, and if you get them first, don't drink all of the water! Just take a little sip to keep you going and then pass the cup back. I can guarantee the people behind you are suffering more than you are.So you mean to say that security guards pass out cups of water and one person takes a sip and hands the rest of the cup to someone else for their turn to take a swig? Meningitus much?
Goodies
Very bare, containing merely one link.
Hosting - just your typical hosting page explaining the criteria and hostee benefits. PHP should really be in caps rather than lowercase since again, it's an acronym.
I definitely suggest you add to this page. What happened to the blank button templates you had up previously, why were they taken down? What happened to all the pages that were supposed to be coming soon? There's nothing here now, and the entire section would only be beneficial to those who are wanting to use your hosting services. What about everyone else?
Misc
Link Me - some sample codes here for people to use to link back with, which is fine, but you should include some buttons too!
Site Map - handy dandy. Don't forget your list tags next to the links.
Reviews - the "Dark Love" link failed to load. Truculent, Mobile, and Yum-Yup have already completed their reviews of your site, so instead of simply linking back to their index pages you could always link to your review there so that other people can read it directly, without having to search the site for it. Better yet, you could even include their reviews at your own site, along with your own comments!
Plugboard - this goes directly to a form for visitors to use if they want to add their button. I haven't seen it set up this way before, usually you've got the plugboard right there in front of you with the form underneath it. Right now the only way I'd be able to see the actual board would be after I added my own button...
Blogroll - Nan of monomust.net is Nan of Monomuse.net. I don't know her personally, but I've seen the link around on a few other websites that I frequent.
Contact
Nicely set out and in good working order. I do suggest you add a border around the "Send Message" button though. For all I know it may look more like a button on a Windows system, but on Safari for Mac there is no border present.
SUMMARY
Right now, the Writing section is the strongest element of your site. Your tutorials cover a range of web-related topics - accessibility, the SEO related custom keywords tutorial, Doctypes...these were all very interesting to read and I'd love it if you added more. I know that you recently asked your visitors for feedback and several of them gave you some interesting suggestions - I hope you'll take some of these into consideration. Web related topics are certainly hot at the moment!
I enjoyed the content in the other sections too, but there wasn't much of it. This lack of content was particularly noticeable in the Goodies section, which currently only contains a page about how to get hosted at Calm Banana. I strongly suggest you add some extra goodies - anything from blank button templates to bullet points...free themes perhaps, just add something! Anything!
Apart from a few typographical errors, your content was error free, and I applaud you for that.
As for your layout, I've made my feelings about it pretty clear. I don't hate it, but I've seen you come up with decent, eye catching layouts in the past and I know what you're capable of. This was also quite the comedown after the success of Ramsha's layout that had been up for a while. Remember, first impressions are important too. Not as important as the content, by any means, but how your site looks at face value can be the deciding factor as to whether a visitor will want to stay and explore. I wish you and your site the best of luck!
