Name: Catherine
Site: Naive
Review completed on: 5/10/05

SPLASH PAGE

No splash n/a

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

My initial reaction was that your site is very simplified, in terms of the way it looks and the way it is set out. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, simplicity can be effective too, but it just looks like a lot of other personal sites out there. There's nothing I can see that jumps out at me and makes me think "Hey, that's different". The set up of your navigation and blog frame is really tidy, and nicely arranged. You may want to consider bolding the links to the content pages though, to make them more distinguishable. 5/10

LAYOUT

This layout is probably one of the more basic layouts out there, it's just a picture with a word on it and two tables underneath. There's nothing special about it, and nothing that sets your layout apart from the rest and in truth it looks like you whipped it up in five minutes. There's nothing mind-blowing or remotely creative to speak of here. I'm not sure how long you've been involved in web design, so I'm trying to refrain from being too harsh. Get creative - play around with filters a little and experiment with brushes - this will give your image a touch of originality and uniqueness, and at the moment it severely lacks these two components. The colour combination you've used suits the image though, so it's clear you have some basic design skills. 7/20

CONTENT

Some interesting (and blunt) comments left about my site in your latest blog, I notice. To quote: "Her site rocks soo much. I stumbled across it ages ago, and just basically thought the layout was overcrowded and the moving background was dumb, but now I decided that's great cause it makes it so unique." That's quite a blunt thing to say, especially about someone who is reviewing your site at the moment - not something I particularly wanted to see. It's enlightening to know people think my site is unique based on an overcrowded layout and dumb moving backgrounds. Ah well, everyone's entitled to their own opinions, and it's not as if I'm sad enough to let this get in the way of doing a review. Trust me though, some people would. Anyway, moving quickly along to the content itself. You have a decent amount of pages in your "Me" section, but I've seen this all before at many, many other personal sites out there. Apart from the page about your handwriting and the facts and description pages about yourself, nothing appealed to me. Not to be harsh, but honestly do you think anyone really cares about an analysis of your name and your starsign? Apart from other Catherines and Aquarians? We all need our fillers though, lol. I had a look at your previous layouts in your "Site" section, and I was quite impressed with two of them - and the rest were pretty much the standard of your current one - basic as fuck. Your previous layout before your current one, "Newspaper Cuttings" is really good, and it looks like you've actually put some time into it! And as for the Barbie layout - I loved it! It's cute and girly, and the colours look great. So now I can see that you do have the layout-making skills required to have an all-around excellent site, so come on, use them, make the effort! Your Improvements form is an original idea, well done with that. Finally, the "Visitor" section - I'm seeing some originality here, which is great. (Believe me, I've been wanting to say this for a while.) The opinion pages were interesting, and you've raised some thought provoking and popular topics for visitors to express their opinions on. More freebies needed though, how about some awards or contests? Your desktop wallpapers were pretty ameteur, but the second one - could it be you've used brushes? That one isn't too bad at all! Although you have a few interesting pages - all of which are in the "Visitor" section, there's nothing appealing here at all. 9/20

SUMMARY

Your site has a lot of potential to be something great, a little more effort will go a long way! I get the impression you are striving to improve your site, so keep up the good effort. More detail in your layouts is needed - a little decoration goes a long way and will set you apart from the rest! Just put a little more thought into it, and remember - simple may be effective at times but when your layout is a clone of so many others it's time to start thinking outside the square, and to start applying some originality to your designs. Also, try and think of some interesting and original content, so that your site isn't so much of a cliche.

OVERALL SCORE: 21/50