Name: Angela
Site: Shorelight
Review completed on: 27/04/08
We-elll...looks to me like this layout is a little on the thin side. Stick a sidebar on this baby and you've got an instant diagnosis of weborexia. Just as well there's no sidebar to be seen, eh? Although the width of your layout isn't what I'd class as weborexic, it's still noticeably puny. I'm viewing your site on a relatively tiny 12 inch iBook monitor and your layout still looks tiny...hate to think what it looks like on larger monitors. On larger monitors my term 'weborexic' may well apply to your site.
I see you've decided to incorperate one of those mindless, faux emotive sentences into your header image. Argh, I hate it when people do that, I find it quite lame. Yours reads "Imaginiation and memory evade her. Spring bursts away. She can't remember, but curiousity doesn't slip too far away." I 'imaginine' that you didn't realise you spelt imagination wrong here. On a graphic, of all places. I feel so embarrassed on behalf of you! You can't exactly press delete and type over it in this case since it's an image, you're going to have to use the dropper to get the corresponding green colour, paint over the error and then type it in again! What a mission. Whether this is a typo or an actual spelling error, you need to make sure all the words on your graphics are spelt correctly, so that passers by won't LOL @ you. The sentence does nothing for me anyway, I wish I hadn't been exposed to it. Sounds like the twitterings of Jo Ho, lamenting over her one night stand with Pinhead Pete.
Major problem alert - my cursor has mysteriously disappeared. What is this, some shitty stone age internet explorer only effect? Looking at your internal CSS it seems this stupid problem is being caused by a 'drag and drop' script from Dynamic Drive, one that clearly is not compatible with Safari. Not my problem, I should be able to access your site using whatever browser I please, and I should expect to be able to have my cursor visible. The fact that it isn't is going to prove frustrating when trying to navigate your site, because I won't be able to fucking see where to put my mouse when it comes to clicking your links. I'll be hovering around like a nutter. If I were simply visiting your site, I'd just exit quickly - if I can't see my cursor I'm not going to want to explore because it'd be too annoying. However, you submitted your site for a review so I'm going to have to. Quite a few people have Macs these days, you need to realise this and cater to your Mac users accordingly. This accessibility issue will unfortunately be taken into account when it comes to deciding your QIS rating.
I suppose this is the part where I inject some positivity into the fray as a means of achieving balance. Unfortunately the stick of negativity is rammed so firmly up my no doubt shit-encrusted backside that things are unclear for me, and the bad comments outweigh the positive by far. Can you believe people have been putting up with this since 2004?
Something positive then -- I do actually like your layout -- I like the combination of greens you've used, and I like your font size and colour. You just need to make this bigger! It's all skin and bones at the moment, it needs beefing up.
Why have you placed your Extreme Tracker in the top left corner? It's so prominent, so obvious. I recommend you discreetly tuck this tracker away at the bottom of your layout instead. It's just so obvious at the top and it makes your layout look cheap.
Yay, I've managed to click on the first link in your navigation, despite being cursor-less. Just call me Houdini, or "PS-Gini". I must warn you that navigating your actual pages may not be easy, and in some cases I might choose to give up trying. This may occur in any graphics, poetry, or tutorial sections you might have.
Your Site section kicks off with an Affiliation page. I noticed you say "Be courteous to your visitors and have a neat layout and original content. "...well, that's sort of rich isn't it, you should be courteous to your visitors and make sure that users on all platforms can see their cursor. Your form asks potential applicants the usual things like Name, URL etc, and then at the end you ask them "What is (at least) one thing that makes a good life?" Huh? What has this got to do with affiliation? I honestly can't understand why you have asked this of your potential affiliates.
Your Linkage page contains link back buttons. I was surprised by this, because every other linkage page I've seen in my entire life contains links to other sites. Generally, pages that contain promotional buttons are titled "Link Me". It's okay to be different, I guess.
You begin your Past Layouts page by saying "Due to my lack of skill, you probably won't see a model or celebrity layout." What does skill have to do with celeb layouts? The skill to successfully manipulate an illegally obtained image, by way of mediocre blending techniques and splatter brushes? Do you think you're not skilled with layouts or something? All that's wrong with yours is the cursor and the width...that's not really that big of a deal. Everything else is fine.
I like the two previous layouts you've had up in the past, especially the second one. You've got a real knack for achieving successful colour combinations.
Your Extra section is dominated by pages containing tutorials and graphics, although the final link "Interviews" did jump out at me. I'll look forward to checking that one out, after I've got the less appealing stuff out of the way.
Desktops only contains one image. What is it of, are they powerlines? I clicked on the pic to see and I was taken to a 404 Not Found page. The two free layouts you've provided on your Layouts page are quite nice. The spring one looks familiar, was this also the previous layout you had up, as seen on your Past Layouts page? I like the notebook one too, although light grey text on a white background is never a good thing.
Ah, my cursor has returned on your Sticky note maker page. So this is what the drag and drop script was for. You've provided the bases and the text, but you haven't told users how to actually give the sticky note effect for them. Maybe you should provide a link to the Dynamic Drive script, because as it is now all they'll come up with is a static sticky note instead of one that moves around.
Many of your Photographs indicate that you like to experiment with angles and such. I like the picture of the coloured pencils, although it would have looked better if you'd positioned the camera so that you got the rest of the nibs in. (Nibs = end of the pencil. I don't know what else to call them.) What's with the second picture of spilt brown slop? It honestly looks like liquified shit and it's enough to put me off my Earl Grey tea.
Oh, some Microsoft Word tutorials. MS Word is the application I pretend I'm like, mega familiar with when it comes to job interviews. I shall find your tutorials informative should I ever wish to dabble in the world of Windows based applications, which will be never.
Omigod your Interviews page is so cool. What a great idea! You've provided a set of interesting questions and your visitors can choose to fill them out, and you'll display their answers on your site. How come you've told people that they can't interview themselves after March 28th 2008?
To be honest with you I found the Angela section very disappointing. You seem to be in your element rabbiting on about this and that, but when it comes to concrete facts this page is seriously lacking. This page is decent in length so it's surprising to come away from it knowing next to nothing about you, and feeling mighty confused and a little weirded out over some of the things I've read. I don't even know where you're from, despite the fact you have a header saying "Where do I live", to which you answer with:
Apparently, after a tense session of MASHIB, I live in a B, or a box. That was previously used as a container for a fuzzy toilet seat. Lovely. I wonder if that lady will put it on the real estate market...
I'm all for those who choose to embrace their weirdness but there comes a point when enough is enough, and you have to at least attempt to get some concrete facts in too, instead of solely concentrating on projecting your wackiness. Personally, I'm finding it a bit of an overload. I'm not knocking your quirkiness, I'm just saying that you could have answered some of your own questions seriously instead of resorting to bizarre answers time and time again.
At the end of this page there is a link saying Click here to see what I look like, and it leads to a picture of Adolf Hitler.
Sigh.
And finally for your Affiliates section. Very, very straightforward here - just a list of links that have been well organised. No complaints from me here, the page looks fine.
It's patently obvious that I didn't get a heck of a lot out of your site. The site section was pretty run of the mill, but I realise that nobody can expect anything special from such sections. Your Extras section didn't particularly appeal to me, although I know that people interested in tutorials and free layouts could possibly benefit. The Angela section was executed poorly, what with it containing 5% of factual information and 95% of bizarre rubbish. No idea what you were smoking when you were preparing this page. I can't believe you didn't even describe your hobbies or favourite things! Okay so you mentioned you get accepted into 'elite writing camps', but I'm sure you have other hobbies as well. What they are though I'm not sure, since you were too busy spouting barely comprehensible crap to even think to tell us. How old are you, even? Have you any siblings? What country do you live in? What kind of things do you like to do for fun? Favourite bands? TV? Movies? All of these things should have been covered but they haven't been.
Regarding your layout -- I had no problems with it apart from the fact that my cursor disappeared. This problem probably doesn't exist for IE and Firefox users but don't forget there are other popular browsers out there too, like Safari. The width of the layout was a minor issue, nothing too bad but I do think it'd look better wider. I love the blending of the different greens and the subtle polka dots placed here and there. Keep up the good work as far as your designs go. You think you lack skill here, well, I disagree with that.
I'm giving you a rating of 3 which is average. It's not a rating to get upset over or that indicates that your website is a pile of shit. It isn't - it just requires improvements in several areas, namely the Angela section.
