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Old 29-06-2009, 03:57 PM   #1
Rix
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Website Suggestions

Hey i'm currently working on my parents site
http://ridgewoodpc.com.au

could you please tell how i could improve this site like what needs improving

Thanks
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Old 29-06-2009, 04:01 PM   #2
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hey richard, it looks good. but swap contact and links around on the front page. so contact details are higher up.
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Old 29-06-2009, 04:16 PM   #3
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hows that ryan?
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Old 29-06-2009, 04:18 PM   #4
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contact at top
services in middle
links at bottom
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Old 29-06-2009, 04:19 PM   #5
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like that?
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Old 29-06-2009, 09:15 PM   #6
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big issue:
- links are the same as normal text, i thought the services list was just a text list until i checked the status bar. thats a major usability issue
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Understeer is when you hit the wall with the front of the car and oversteer is when you hit the wall with the rear of the car. Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall, torque is how far you take the wall with you.

'97 1.8L Hardtop
'93 3.0L TT 3000GT
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Old 29-06-2009, 09:24 PM   #7
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hows that?
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Old 29-06-2009, 10:43 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rix View Post
hows that?
look at the left hand links, notice they just look like normal text?
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Understeer is when you hit the wall with the front of the car and oversteer is when you hit the wall with the rear of the car. Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall, torque is how far you take the wall with you.

'97 1.8L Hardtop
'93 3.0L TT 3000GT
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Old 30-06-2009, 07:33 AM   #9
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You've used frames unnecessarily and it actually detriments your site.

From a usability point of view its confusing to the user - you need a visual cue to indicate that the link they clicked is "working". For a normal page, the browser does that for them and the user expects this visual indicator that something is happening.

They also make it impossible to link to a page directly.
For example if I want to have a link to the Powder Coating or Contact Details pages, I can't. I can only link to the front page and then manually go to the page I want.

This causes problems in general cases where someone wants to store a bookmark or send a friend the link.

More importantly though, it damages your search engine rankings.
Google, for example, won't interpret the page in the way you do through your browser. The way its spider works is that it sees is the template page and the content pages as separate items. In some cases it won't even follow an iframe link and so the content won't be indexed at all.
This makes it very difficult for it to create association between your company and the content of the site - which in turn means that it can't associate you to keywords and therefore you will get bad rankings in search results.

The point I made that you can't link to content pages also damages your search engine rankings as many will treat links from other sites as a primary indicator in calculating the site's ranking.

If you use Dreamweaver I suggest you remove the frame and use the Template feature to create a re-usable page template across multiple pages. You can also do this manually but it takes that little bit longer to roll out changes in the base template across all the pages. You could do this fairly easily using an SSI include to import the content from the existing inc/* files.

I'd also consider using the same font style consistently throughout the whole site. You've swapped between serif and sans-serif fonts for no good reason that I can see.
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Old 30-06-2009, 10:46 AM   #10
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thanks guys for your comments today i got around to converting the content so it is managed by php and thus it allows for users to quote external links, i have applied a uniform css file for the content so that it looks the same on the pages there are a few minor issues i have to fix with the headings being different on somes pages and i need to get the gallery to work correctly aswell so the quote system but its getting there
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Old 30-06-2009, 12:41 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dogo View Post
... If you use Dreamweaver ...
My opinion on dreamweaver:
http://www.little-gamers.com/2009/06/01/the-filth/
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Understeer is when you hit the wall with the front of the car and oversteer is when you hit the wall with the rear of the car. Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall, torque is how far you take the wall with you.

'97 1.8L Hardtop
'93 3.0L TT 3000GT
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Old 30-06-2009, 01:38 PM   #12
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I use whatever is at hand - lately it seems to mostly be Coda or Eclipse/Aptana. If TextMate did direct SFTP edits I'd be using that more often too.

But for user friendly WYSIWYG editing and website management I don't think I've seen many programs that can do what DW can. Staff complained that it became a slug here at work though because the site they worked on was over 10,000 pages in size and its WebDAV client isn't the best.
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Old 30-06-2009, 01:48 PM   #13
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Be careful with using a query string to designate the page.

Again its not particularly search engine friendly - they don't like query strings much.
It also increases the possibility of security risks, especially if you don't validate the data coming in.
For example drop in an empty id and I now now the location of your home directory, which can be very useful if I'm trying to hack you.
http://ridgewoodpc.com.au/index.php?id=

Quote:
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/ridgewoo/public_html/index.php on line 160
It also adds completely unnecessary server load - although minimal its just bad practice to process something that doesn't need processing, and/or will return the same value every time.

Why not just have separate, static html files using a common template ?


This probably isn't so important in a site of this size but its still wise to get into good habits.
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Last edited by Dogo; 30-06-2009 at 01:51 PM.
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Old 30-06-2009, 04:38 PM   #14
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I've been using Eclipse/Aptana and it seems to work pretty well for me. I'm pretty sure theres a way to do SFTP with TextMate, someone will have found a solution (personally always used Notepad++ and recently PSPad)
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Understeer is when you hit the wall with the front of the car and oversteer is when you hit the wall with the rear of the car. Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall, torque is how far you take the wall with you.

'97 1.8L Hardtop
'93 3.0L TT 3000GT
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Old 30-06-2009, 05:45 PM   #15
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Dogo, i don't use individual html files for a few reasons, i don't like it because if u change the layout on 1 u have to change it on all
atm it all reads from one index page meaning i can change the layout and the text will stay the same as it has a different css file.

ok its not as secure but seriously what is there to steal on a powder coating website, everything that is vital is kept offline on the intranet


I use cpanel file editor and notepad lol if i went to see a visual of it i'll either do it in dreamweaver or cpanel and look at what the changes do etc
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Old 30-06-2009, 06:04 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rix View Post
Dogo, i don't use individual html files for a few reasons, i don't like it because if u change the layout on 1 u have to change it on all
atm it all reads from one index page meaning i can change the layout and the text will stay the same as it has a different css file.
if you're using php you can do SSI (server side includes) of common page headers/menus etc. much easier and usable for the users and easier for the developer (you!).

the idea with css is you apply styles to only what needs them. so have a 'master' css sheet and then individual ones for whats needed (eg. i commonly have a 'common' stylesheet, 'home' one and then stylesheets for specific areas). they shouldn't conflict with each other, you can override them if needed using inline styles anyway

this lets you get away from frames (major design issue) and use standard layouts off either templates (through dreamweaver) or using SSI/common styles.
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Understeer is when you hit the wall with the front of the car and oversteer is when you hit the wall with the rear of the car. Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall, torque is how far you take the wall with you.

'97 1.8L Hardtop
'93 3.0L TT 3000GT
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Old 30-06-2009, 11:22 PM   #17
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Hey dude...

My suggestions are

1. Layout - Contact, Services and links should be on the right hand side. Naturally, we read from left to right... I think that you want your audience to see your pictures (in which you slide show needs some work) first before you they want to even look at the contact details etc.

The Ridgewood Powder Coating title needs to be centered. You could spread your tabs out more and make use of the menu line.

As the others have said. Links need to be blue, so people say "ooh blue. *click*"

Slideshow - I know not every user has flash player, but you could create a flash slide show to run your pictures for you, as the picture shower at the moment is very FLASH........... FLASH...... FLASH......................... FLASH! Well, to my computer that's what it's doing. There are gallery scripts and things on the web, as I set up this gallery which is still very buggy, but since then I have left the website http://www.racenet.com.au/gallery/ (click on the thumbnails and it will bring up the gallery)



Just my 0.02c
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Old 01-07-2009, 02:31 PM   #18
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Pettos it used to be centered and it didn't look right, the slideshow workings but i need to make the files smaller so they load faster
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Old 01-07-2009, 02:52 PM   #19
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IMO the buttons at the top arent big enough - they're quite overpowered by the LHS navigation.

And for that matter, why double up? You've got the 'Contact Us' details on the LHS permanently, and then you've got a separate 'Contact Us page as well. Does not compute.

I don't think the links need to be blue - in this day and age you can have them any color you want - blue just implies that you can't code websites and are leaving the default link color.

Also make sure that the visited links don't stay blue - the site isn't big enough for someone to get lost and forget where they've been if they need to go back there.

Does "Trading Hours' really need a separate page? i'd just have it on the LHS under the permanent Contact Us info.

For that matter, why even have the top navigation when it's already repeated down the LHS? It just makes it confusing.

And i'd make the logo bigger too - about double the height.

Oh, and pick the one font for the whole site (inc italic + bold variations) - combining serif and sans serif makes baby jesus cry unless you have a good reason

I used to to a lot of usability web design (NAB, Mazda, Ford) so i'm not just spouting complete crap. But they're just my opinions.
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Old 01-07-2009, 04:07 PM   #20
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Lol Rupe i know a lot of stuff doesn't make sense but dad insisted in having separate pages why? you tell me but thats what he wanted lol

I have posted on this site to get people's ideas of what could be improved
pretty much

Thanks for the opinions though
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