Hi everyone,

I want this thread to be dedicated for review of websites.

There's this site a friend of mine designed for a school that I'd like the gurus in the house to review for me. I know there's something wrong with the site but I can't figure out. The site is www.jabung.org .

Thanks.

To be honest with you your friend's design is totally out of place. Enough said.

Wow. Don't even know where to start with this one. Tell you what, go back and tell your friend to browse the sites of the top 20 universities, anywhere. Then start all over again. This looks like something from 1998.

http://www.itsihost.com/test/geometric2/index.html

review this now

this looks ok.

My suggested corrections:

1. Drop the president's name below his picture ( on the homepage)

2. The search is not providing me with results.

W3C CSS Validator results for http://www.itsihost.com/test/geometric2/index.html (CSS level 2.1)

Sorry! We found the following errors (1)

URI : http://www.itsihost.com/test/geometric2/stylesheet.css

298 .big Value Error : border-bottom pink is not a color value : 3px solid pink



Warnings (14)

URI : http://www.itsihost.com/test/geometric2/stylesheet.css

84 Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts input.btn and #navigation a:visited
84 Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts #wrappergal and #navigation a:visited
84 Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts #wrapper and #navigation a:visited
84 Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts #wrappergal and #navigation a:visited
84 Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts #wrapper and #navigation a:visited
84 Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts input.btn and #navigation a:visited
88 Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts #wrapper and #navigation a:hover
88 Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts input.btn and #navigation a:hover
88 Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts #wrappergal and #navigation a:hover
143 Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts #navigation and #header
148 Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts #navigation and .services
160 Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts #wrappergal and .sbar
160 Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts input.btn and .sbar
160 Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts #wrapper and .sbar


Nice work done there.

It isnt uploaded on the net, its just on our test server

thanks.

I know there's something wrong with the site but I can't figure ou

@ko_soro:
"something"? How about "Some things"? This site is the very reason why Nigerian clients aren't willing to pay top naira for web jobs.

If the client paid more than N70K for this, then i want to know the juju the developer used to yarn the client

@gamine:
EXCELLENT site and excellent use of CSS. I am happy to see that in general, more and more Nigerian developers in Nigeria are beginning to use table-less design. Simple and crisp. Just the way I like it. In addition to what has been said above, a few issues though:

1) NONE of the forms work. Also why have 4 different forms under "contact" that could basically be combined into one, via the use of dropdowns?

2) The power grid photo used here, among other places, http://www.itsihost.com/test/geometric2/projects.html is a bit fuzzy

3) In my opinion, the link colors should be changed to a deeper blue. Perhaps the blue that is the background of the site.

@All
If you use FireFox, you could get the HTML Tidy Validator plug in, among other useful ones, which would help you take care of issues, without having to browse to validator sites. Here are some issues that were pointed out:

1) your navigation UL ha spans in them. They shouldn't. You can do <li> Home |</li> as opposed to <span>|</span>

2) You have many image tags that have no value for "name". Either you give them a name or you leave them out. Never have blank spaces.

3) On the home page, you have an empty span (<span></span>. Either you use them or you don't. If it is within some backend logic, then wrap the entire piece within the logic, not just the value.

4) use of embed, marquee and other deprecated tags.

Taking care of the above will go a long way in ensuring that your site is coded once and that once takes care of your site showing properly across the board on all browsers, PDAs, etc. This is as opposed to maintaining separate code bases of the same code for various devices. I believe it's called Progressive Enhancement/Graceful Degradation.

I know, it may sound like preaching but trust me, it is good to do the right thing all the time. Once you get a groove in it, it becomes second nature.

hey Yawa-ti-de, you seem fully informed and techy for a woman. Nice observations there, will like to chat with you sometime.

Can i find you in yahoo chat?

@Yawa

im really grateful!! changes r being made

@Yawa-ti-de,

yawa-ti-de:



@gamine:
EXCELLENT site and excellent use of CSS. I am happy to see that in general, more and more Nigerian developers in Nigeria are beginning to use table-less design. Simple and crisp. Just the way I like it. In addition to what has been said above, a few issues though:

Please what is wrong with using table-design?

Abidemi_A:

@Yawa-ti-de,
Please what is wrong with using table-design?

@Abidemi_A

Nothing wrong with using table-design! But more favor using CSS (table-less design) instead of table-design. Today's newer browser are 100% support in CSS.

While oldest version browser (version 1-5) that does not support CSS, use table-design. (usually old slowest computer such as Pentium II with old OS: Windows 98 and IE 5 or Navigator 3, where PC users refuse to upgrade newer version)

That is my opinion based on my experience over 20 years seeing technology dramatically change vivaciously.

If you do not like using CSS but prefer table-design, I suggest you installing Firework CS3 that will do convert from table-design into CSS when you are completely done table-design layout!

Also alternative Table vs. CSS convert editor somewhere using google.com. Good luck!

Gamine:

http://www.itsihost.com/test/geometric2/index.html

review this now

@gamine

Very consistency simplified user-friendly site i see today! Keep up good work like @yawa-ti-de has said it all.

@ko soro

I viewed the site, www.jabung.org, that needs more web design concept/principle and improvement that I don't see anything attract me coming back. It lose my appetite!

hey Yawa-ti-de, you seem fully informed and techy for a woman

@HC
Hmm, I would normally take this for an insult on womanhood but I will let it pass. Feeling a little chauvenistic today? That notwithstanding, sure, you can contact me at yawatide at yahoo dot com

Please what is wrong with using table-design?

@Abidemi_A
How about the following for starters:
1) Lighter pages which translates to faster page download times:
Have you ever been to a cybercafe and the cafe's bandwidth aside, the page loads slowly? Chances are the HTML code is to blame

2) Table design can be hard to read:
I am sure you have coded pages that have nested tables in them. How hard is it to follow, especially if it isn't indented?

3) Table design sucks for screen readers:
Have you ever tried to pass a page of yours through a screen reader. If not, here is how it sounds when you have many tables, "table row cell, table row cell, bla, cell, bla" etc. With table less designs via DIVs, you actually hear, "DIV id content, bla, DIV id navigation" etc. In other words, it is easier on those with disabilities.

4) Table-less pages are easier to render on cell phones and PDAs:
All you have to do hear is pull up a page with multiple tables and one with fewer tables or no tables at all. Then check out the respective layouts. Enough said here.

@Uspr1,

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) can be applied to table and table-less designs. Either old or new all major browsers support CSS.

@Yawa-Ti_de,

Div is better for overall page layout, but when it comes to data fomatting, table is better, so you can not completely rule out the use of table on a webpage with list of datasets.

1 Bad HTML codes will affect both designs.

2 Nested Divs that are not well indented are difficult to read as well.

3 Full reference to data container could help disable readers.

4 What about datasets?

Wow! So many comments already. I'm surprised.

To all the contributors, thank you.

So, What do I tell him? Where will he start from? What's he supposed to do?

@Gamine, one at a time . Allow them to finish with mine now.

@Abidemi

A ha!
I see you know a thing or 2 about table-less design

I blv the topic of discussion was on page layout not data formatting. I would love to debate you on what you said about tables being better for data formatting but I will let that slide. For the sake of argument, I will agree with you that yes, for tabular data, use of tables is best. Now to address your points, one at a time:

1) I don't quite understand what you mean here. Taking a stab at it, sure bad markup will affect both designs however, this isn't a debate about bad markup but good markup.

2) I agree with the last part of your statement but not the first. If you have ever encountered pages with nested DIVs (and by that I mean more than 2 layers deep), tell the developer that they are suffering from DIVitis. This disease, together with CLASSitis, is very rampant amongst developers who are still wet behind the ears.

3) Again, I don't quite understand you here. Again going out on a limb. When a disabled person accesses a page, they could care less about the "reference to data container". They want to know about the content on a page. Which would you prefer? "table row cell table row cell *content* cell cell" or "div div *content*"

4) What about datasets?

Please respond. Together, we can both LEARN something from each other. I am actually enjoying this.

@ko soro
He needs hands-on experience with a firm and/or as someone's apprentice (the someone in question being highly versed in the latest technologies). Sure, you can google all you want, click on the first few results, smack things together and call yourself a "webmaster" but without working with others, checking what others are doing or interacting with your peers via forums (which includes site reviews like this), the result will be what is found on his/her site.

@Yewa-Ti-De,

In as much as I like our discussion, I will not want us to dwell on it. The point I want to make is that design rules are not set in stone. Good use of divs reduces or eliminates tag soup and too much of it may cause divitis.

You may contact me at abidemi.adio@adten.net

I think we should dwell on it because in the end, you, I and others on here will LEARN something. There is nothing wrong with a battle of ideas. Sure design rules aren't set in stone but there are recommendations that if followed, results in a better user experience. That is the aim of every website.

Bottom line: Until something better comes along, table less design is the "standard" du jour. Even in the states, 99.999% job applications require you to know table less design. If you dare mention anything about tables, you might as well walk yourself out the door. Of course, once you start working, you could use tables but for the purpose of the interview, you dare not mention tables, unless where tabular data is concerned. On sites like CNN.com, even shaving off 10Kb of unnecessary code could save them thousands of dollars in money they pay for bandwidth. I know, cos not only have I interviewed with them, I have also worked for corporations where you are encouraged to do anything (within standards of course) to shave off as much unnecessary code as you can.

So come on. No need to send each other private emails. Let us all LEARN something. By the way, if you want my free Ebook, feel free to email me for it. Many have written already that some of the lessons in the book have helped them, especially in the realm of table less design.

To all women on Nairaland and around the world, i don't mean any offence to you.

Its just that in this part of the world as we all know 'women and machine hardly mix'

@HC

I almost took yawa's side, but then you kinda have a point.

Lesson of the day:
Never make blanket statements. Never judge a book by its cover. Always clarify yourself to avoid any misunderstanding. Don't use one experience to justify a whole phenomenon.

@HC
You are hereby forgiven. Sorry if I yanked your legs the wrong way. It's just that that statement always rubs me the wrong way.

how does this look like abeg?

http://www.itsihost.com/test/april/

The site looks chopped up and I don't think it makes sense, for download time reasons, for the header to be that big.

Add more content. Perhaps it will look better than with the repeated letters I am seeing there now.

lol

forget about all that

What about the size?

you think the header is too big, ok

chopped up how?

no offense but it looks like that game where u jumble up numbers from 1 to 15 and are expected to rearrange everything in ascending order.

lololol

forget those boxs, answer my questions abeg,lolol

- The header is too tall.

- The photos are in blocks separated by text. Everything is so "sharp" and "boxed up".

- The flash file is over 119K. That's pretty huge in my books. Can you imagine hitting that site from some cyber cafes in Nigeria?

I hope I have answered your questions.

Yeah, thanks

http://www.thepalmsshopping.com/index.php

What do ya think

geez gamine, how many sites do you crank out per week? Can I come work with you?

Observations:

1) Contact form isn't validating email address

2) Google search should be such that it returns results within the context of your site and not launch an external window to google.com

3) The "shopping experience" photo on the home page in firefox doesn't look well positioned

4) There are graphics to the right of the results pages like "shop gold jewelry at habib". It would be nice if it were clickable so that I go to habib's page and see how to get the jewelry.

5) Under "about us", it would be nice to have different photos of Palms

6) On http://www.thepalmsshopping.com/relax.php , what is the point of "viewing/hiding all store directories"?

7) I think the background gradient image should cover the whole screen and not look like a giant block. You might have to adjust your margins/padding.