PSGR is a solo effort by me, Rhiannon, a 23 year old from New Zealand. There's a lot to explore here, so take a look around and have fun!
Name: Hann
Site: Cherrycola.org
Review completed on: 23/10/06
Reviewed by: Lil
SPLASH PAGE
No splash
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
If your website went on a diet it would disappear from the Internet. Now I've seen my fair share of anorexic websites but this is ridiculous. Is there any logical reason for this? Of course there isn't. Sit down and think about what your website is. It's a personal website with a blog, maybe some user content. You have it online so that you might share it with friends or anyone who happens to stumble along. Therefore you are catering to a user and you are designing to the needs of your end user rather than to your own aesthetic enjoyment. A skinny layout is not exactly what I would call friendly as it requires strenuous reading and lots of scrolling. Learn of wider layouts my vertically challenged friend.
I'd say your layout is about 100 pixels in width give or take. The standard is about 500 pixels for a thin layout. Big difference there.
LAYOUT
Apart from the issue I addressed above your site passes some web standards but fails most of them. The good news is you’re using contrasting text which is just about readable (perhaps making it a size bigger would help) and it look like you're using either tables or divs. The graphic on top is unusual but also unique and memorable. Your layout however is horribly aligned and there's two shades of green in the background (the other shades starts just to the right of the layout). Set the colours so that they match seamlessly and instead of having your layout oddly aligned to a left-centre, just centralize is completely.
Your navigation is horrible. This one, two, three thing reminds me why I started ignoring maths after I finished school. Again remember you are catering to a user and therefore navigation is one of the key elements here. Make it clear where it is each link is going and you can't go wrong. And I don't mean start using alphabets or codes, just 'About Me', 'Domain', 'Exits'... the general thing.
The dark green against the grey is not working. Either make the grey lighter or choose a pink. Green is a neutral colour (neither hot nor cool) therefore it blends against grey in a spooky ninja like matter. Especially when it's small text on an itty bitty layout.
And just a thought - what's with the hash in the upper left corner?
CONTENT
I click on one, not sure where it will lead me. I assume it's your 'about' section, because that's what I would naturally expect from the first link, but I could be wrong and directed to a porn website. A page loads and there's a picture of you in a cap and some information presumably about yourself.
Recently I've been reading a novel by Haruki Murakami. He's a Japanese writer with a beautiful flair for blending elegant metaphors with his harsh storylines. His works have been translated using perfect spelling and grammar. I suggest you translate your writing into legible spelling and grammar also. I know I would never be able to read Haruki Murakami's books in Japanese, and I can't read what you've written very well either. Again think of the user.
Using images for your e-mail is a good idea considering the amount of spamming and such there is. I can only recommend using nicer images that would match your site layout.
I click on two. Read Me? Again unclear navigation. It leads to a rules page for your downloads. This should be on the user content page for convenience. Or page number two. Whatever.
You're offering some nice stuff by installing forms and converting people's sites into PHP. However most people that want this sort of content do it themselves because it's so damn easy nowadays (I didn't know how to make a custom 404, Google'd it, and learnt how to in less than 5 minutes). Mention that you can help people with forms and PHP rather than listing these services because it's pointless.
The pop-up request form is extremely strange and does not match your site at all. Do I need to elaborate?
There's recipes on your site which is a nice sort of feature. Again the spelling and grammar stabs me in the eye and to top it off your bookmarks to the recipes don't work and whenever I hover over your text it goes green. GAH! The correct hyperlink for a bookmark is WTF and the correct way to make a bookmark is by placing this code just before your destination
I prefer baking cookies over anything else, for the record.
Same problem with the reads as above. Your reads are also really spaced apart. What on Earth is going on here? Just put them into a normal paragraph form and separate them with CSS headers. Honestly. All in all I think this section needs deleting, because it's just a collection of bad forward type material. This sort of content does not keep people coming back.
The Ask Marvin thing is a cute idea but I find it slight lacking. It's interactive for all of five seconds before he starts repeating the same dull answers. Besides your form boxes are very awkward on your layout and are screaming out for a defining border. If you want to juice this section up a bit one thing I've seen on some fan sites is 'Ask Me' type things where a fan takes on the personality of their favourite character and responds to a visitors question with that personality.
The languages section is unimaginative. Freetranslation.com does this already anyway.
I really like your 404 page but you don't need to link it. It'd be nice if it matched your layout also, and if you ran a spell-check. Again.
I get onto tutorials and start to believe that I will be reading a load of none-sense. Code snippets and I-frames can be learnt from other more professional and clearer websites as can the CSS. Scrap it all. I start to feel a glimmer of hope when I see you offer some tutorials on PHP and such. I click on Cutenews and am faced with an error. You shouldn't be giving out tutorials when your own site has errors to put it bluntly. And besides you don't explain how to CHMOD or what it is for that matter. Other websites have better tutorials than this, as does the Cutenews one no doubt. The plugging thing is useful, perhaps for people who like to do plugging. If you got this off another site then it's useless and I recommend deleting it and making a link to the site instead.
The path thing is nice, but apply my advice from above if applicable. If this comes from another site, simply place a link to it rather than copy it onto your own site. This skinning tutorial is ok, but you don't really have a natural knack for explaining things. Perhaps it's the poor English. Repeat this paragraph for all other tutorials on this page apart from non-computer tutorials.
The bra thing can be found anywhere on the internet. Hell I don't even need to look on the internet, I can go to Marks and Spencer’s and they'll measure my boobies for free. The emo section looked promising because I thought it would be some sort of opinion, however I found it you copied it from Urban Dictionary. And therefore concludes another session of horrible user content copied from other websites.
As for coming soon - I'd just do the MS Paint tutorial as everyone has a different way of working with it and I'm curious as to how you manipulate it. MS Paint is a crazy program after all.
I forget which number I'm on and fumble round to see which one I haven't clicked on. I get to a page about your site and see some general information however it’s not enough. Why the name cherry cola? Do you like cherry cola, or just the sound of it? Do you prefer supermarket brand or the 'real thing'?
On a sub link (damn your mystery meat navigation) there's a way to change skins. Each thumbnail comes up with a completely different skin that does not match and each skin could do with some visual rehab. Concentrate on making some better skins before making a whole load of unconventional ones available.
You are offering hosting and again I burrow down into the contents of your site by following a trail of links. Your form comes up in a new window again. I'm seriously confused as to why this is necessary. Just put it onto the page.
What the hell is the chain?
You credit your sources to the extent that they probably should. You also have a few 'thank yous' underneath that link and I suggest putting it all on the same page so you can create a thank you/credits bank. It's sweet that you think of the people who influence you rather than just the brushes you use and I really like this as a personal feature. As far as your opinion on your dad - you go girlfriend! Don't take that shit lying down.
Links are all in order. I'm confused as to why you've mad 'radtastic' so large, but hey.
I click on five and end up at another place on your site. Eek.
The hash leads me back to your main page and in the time it's taken me to write out this review you've updated! Nice one. And I love your new hairstyle. I've always wanted something like that but my face looks so weird whenever I have my hair straight so I opt for the electrified look.
A side note apart from this - on scabs you use Enetation. I have used them in the past and lately they've been horribly unreliable. I recommend an update to whatever blogging tool you feel comfortable with. Some nice things on your graphics site, but I recommend you credit all your sources i.e. each individual site you get your images from.
All your other sites are in order, and I suggest making the navigation a different colour to the standard white on /critical, just to make it stand out a wee bit more. I shall comment no more as these are outside your personal page.
SUMMARY
Another case of mystery meat navigation with poor consideration for your end user. I like to be optimistic (unlike Marvin) and think that you are capable of doing better. You're going to have to fatten the layout and thin down the content a lot to start with but eventually I reckon you'll get the knack. After all you are running your site on PHP at the raw age of fourteen and that's something to be admired, even if there are glitches here and there. Have fun with your website and good luck. And for the sake of the children, run a spell-check!
