Review from Harlequin Reviews.
First Impressions
If I’m completely honest, this layout does nothing for me. The colours are reminiscent of human excrement (from both ends) and that’s putting is nicely. Knowing that you’re capable of a lot more, I’m left wondering why it looks like a web design n00b made this layout. I’m somewhat a little hesitant about saying what I feel I need to say in this review though because I know you’re probably a thousand times better than me at the game of web design, but I shall be honest.
Layout
Aesthetics: Where to start? From the top would probably the best place, I guess. While your navigation menu is easily found, it doesn’t really seem to tie into the layout, especially when I hover. Aside from the bright pink in the middle of the flower on the graphic, I can’t understand why you used that colour for the hover. Inverting the colours (dark text on a light hover) or using the peach of the rest of your layout would look a lot better and tie the navigation back into the layout. Your header graphic looks like it’s simply been run through a few filters in Photoshop and had some text added. It just doesn’t seem like much effort has been put into it and it looks very, for want of a better word, tacky. The footer of your layout needs some sort of separation from the rest of the layout. If you’re not up for changing the background, a simple border-top or <hr> would do the trick. It just seems to run into the rest of the content the way it is now. The overall colour scheme of your layout is weird. I can’t see where you got the purple used in your headings and metadata from, nor can I see the orange for the visited links. The lack of colour co-ordination makes everything look somewhat messy and confusing. I’ll reiterate what I said in my first impressions, this isn’t a visually pleasing layout at all.
Her dislike of my color scheme kind of saddens me, because this has been my favorite layout of mine so far, but then I like browns and pinks. The reason I submitted my site in its current state is because I’m very proud of this layout.
Coding: But here is where you make up for the lack of aesthetics. Your coding is impeccable. It makes me sob with joy. I especially love the fact that you have added hacks to make your website show up correctly in that evil little browser known as Internet Explorer.
Content
You have a ton of it, which is pretty good considering everyone else is about minimalism when it comes to content these days.
Mine
About Sarah – Taking the easy way out tends to pay of sometimes and in your case, it definitely did. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on any important information about you. Good job!
Contact Me – I don’t like how your contact form is pushed over to the right of your layout, but I can understand why it’s like this. If you can think of any way to fix it, that’d be good.
Photo gallery – Do you use a script you wrote yourself for this page? The organisation is simply amazing!
Yours
Geeky stuff – Hello page full of awesome! This is one of the single-most best pages on the internet!
Don’t Deal With These Companies – Another great idea. I might actually submit my rant about Acer Computers Australia when I’m feeling less lazy. Yes, I’m too lazy to open my webmail account right now.
Free WordPress Themes – These are gorgeous, thus reinforcing the fact that I know you can design better layouts than the one you have up at the moment.
I really can’t fault or make separate compliments about the rest of your content. It’s amazing… and there’s a lot of it. Your writing is fantastic and the ideas that come out of your head blow me away!
Summary
I love 3till7.net in a general sense. As I have said many times before, your content is brilliant but your current design drags everything down a few notches. I know a few people who would completely skip over your website based entirely off the way it looks. It’s their loss because they’re missing out on what the rest of your website has to offer, but if everyone decided to skip your website because of your layout, your content ultimately means nothing. I look forward to seeing what you come up with for your next layout!
2 Comments
I don’t really agree with Harlequin Reviews. Personally, I like this color scheme. I do not think it reminds me of “human excrement (from both ends)”. As for your coding I do agree. Sorry I did peek. As for your content, it is one of the best that I have seen in a long time. I believe that I am a good person on the subject of content since I surf the internet for about 9 hours a day for 7 days a week (I am disable and stuck a home most day). Keep up the good work, Sarah.
I have to disagree with HR where layout is concerned. I’ve mentioned it before and will say it again: I adore this layout, especially the color scheme. But then again, I’m one of the .01% of people who actually enjoy brown — it gives it a vintage-y feel.