Name: Stephanie
Site: Drugged Gurly
Review completed on: 30/10/05

SPLASH PAGE

In all honesty, I wouldn't call this a splash page, I'd call it a waste of time and an annoyance. All yours contains is the mega cliched phrase "Nothing fancy, just enter". So in essence this is just a pointless extra link for visitors to click. A splash page that just lets you enter the site without any specified requirements, graphics, or counters is beyond useless in my opinion. If you feel the need to have a splash page, give it more purpose - list any site requirements if necessary, include a hit counter, or even just an enter graphic. 0/10

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Hmm...you've definitely chosen a different path this time in terms of design. I'm not quite sure about the thick pink border around the entire browser window, I think it'd look a lot better if the thickness was decreased. Loading time was fine, probably due to the fact the only real graphic to load was the picture of you. Having to scroll down in all the little sidebar i-Frames was slightly irritating, you could consider increasing the length of the frames so that all of the content can be seen from the get go. 6/10

LAYOUT

This isn't really what a layout should be, in my opinion. My definition of a layout is an array of graphics, or even a singular graphic, supported by a selection of colours and tables. Your 'layout' contains the latter components but lacks the main focal point; this being any graphics. Therefore there's no real trace of any design skills here, and there's only so much I can write about in this section because I haven't got a lot to go on. To give you credit, you have attempted to compensate for the lack of a focal point by using an assortment of bright, vivacious colours. The selection of neon pinks, blues, and greens look stunning together, and you've done a good job with your choice of these colours. I think that the lined border around the frames needs to be decreased as well as the pink border around the browser window, they're both not exactly subtle, and very "in your face". This kind of set up would better suit a Myspace profile or somesuch, as far as a personal site is concerned it doesn't really work. The first thing I actually noticed when your page loaded is that the font size in your blog is absolutely gigantic, at least a good size four or five. Why is this? 10/20

CONTENT

Firstly, I'm checking out "The Girl Personally". I noticed with disdain that the massive font size continues with your content too. Seriously, why is it so big? What's wrong with having a normal sized font like everyone else? The sheer size of it makes your information hard to read, and it involves excessive scrolling. "Insane in the Membrane" - interesting how you have an entire page devoted to your supposed mental disorders...i'll refrain from questioning the legitimacy of these. I like how you've sorted out all your favourite bands into ABC format, it's a great idea to do that. "Zodic", "Pastlife", and "Quiz Results" are pretty useless for anyone that isn't you though, and to be honest I don't think anyone else would really give a damn that you built roads and bridges in your previous incarnation. Now to the "Visitor" section - you have a ton of content here, but where's the interactivity? When I did my first review of your site a few months ago there were pages and pages of things for the visitor to fill out, like opinions and stuff. What happened to these, and why did you get rid of them? What a shame! The "Free Award" page is a great idea, and very generous, but the image doesn't actually load, so you might want to fix this. Additionally, you have some superb subpage ideas for the visitors, but why arent you actually following your own advice and having some of these up at your own site? Birthdays, My Purse, Your Voice...these would all be great subpages for your site. You have a multitude of free games on offer too, as well as a few reads. If you did not create the games and write the reads yourself, its a good idea to actually credit whoever is responsible for their creation. The "Druggedgurly" section is pretty self-explanatory, containing a tagboard, guestbook, awards and the like. The "Linkage" section is much like the site section, with nothing much to review here. That's not an insult or anything, there's just nothing really worth commenting on as far as who you're affiliated with. 17/20

SUMMARY

My main issue with your site is the "splash" page. In regards to it's absolute non-purpose, it served as an aggravating nonsensical page that delayed instant access to information I was seeking. I am not by any means, anti splash pages. I have splash pages on my websites, but for the same reasons that most others have on theirs - a brief page that provides site requirements as well as having a hit counter, that I use to determine the flow of traffic. If you're going to have a splash page at all, just give it more purpose, like your old splash pages used to! My criticism of your site; whether or not you choose to accept it, is my own opinion and I've tried to be as objective as possible. Content-wise, you have a lot of it, but still this is less than what you've had previously. It's a shame you decided to remove all the visitor interactivity because your site really benefitted from that, and it became very popular. You should consider bringing it back! As far as your layout is concerned, it's pretty basic and there's not much to go on, but you HAVE done a great job with the colours. All in all I think you've let yourself down a bit with this version of your site - the last version I reviewed was so much better, in terms of it having an actual layout, and there was more content back then too.

OVERALL SCORE: 33/60