Since everybody is getting critical, How about you guys have a shot at this work.

www.gamefestng.com

Give me your best shot. Don't worry i am bulletproof, it won't hurt me.

ON THE GOOD SIDE
Your layout looks really nice and your pages loads relatively not slow.

ON THE OTHER SIDE
Your form does not validate at all, try and fix that

Since everybody is getting critical,

Hmmm, I don't know wether to take this as a compliment or an insult but I will let others judge. This is a blanket statement. Again, I will let others draw their own conclusions.

My observations:

1) Good fixed background. Gives me the feeling that I am actually in the stadium chanting, "you will never walk alooone"

2) I pray the "17 days left" is generated dynamically

3) No Nigerian players. Any reason why? or am I missing something per the rules, etc?

4) I think you should highlight the nav option corresponding to the page I am on. Also, make the nav option text and the page header text the same for consistency. For example, you have "Game Rules" as an option but "Rules and Regulations" as the page header

5) You really need to work on your forms. In particular, in general, if you have required fields, put some kind of indicator (like an asterisk and inform the user at the top that some/all the fields are required. I will talk only of the register form as justice has already been served on the contact form. I do find quite funny though that the register validates whereas the contact doesn't. Were you getting lazy towards the end of the project? :

a) When you indicate that a field is required, give an example so that I know exactly what's up. Don't just say, "field required". Also it is nice to also highlight the field(s) in question as well.

b) You should as much as possible help yourself and the user avoid too much validation and give lesser chance for error, respectively. For instance, I think country and highest level of education should be dropdowns. Also, it probably would have been cool if you provided some kind of eye candy where, you provide name of country where club is based, then you get more granular by progressively providing dropdowns that list the league, clubs and players. Hopefully you get my gist.

Overall, I would have given it a 90% (even though you are using tables ) but because of your forms, sorry, but I have to deduct 20%. Having said that, I take nothing away from the site.

Was that "too critical" enough for you?

Introducing this kind of thing to Nigerians can only work well if its for free, You dont expect people to rush to UBA bank with 2000 naira just to register to a website they dont know what they will see when they got in while they are hundreds of free interactive games online.
The layout and its transparency looks good but beauty is not the issue here.

overrall///nice work

Yes,

We live in an age of "freemiums" now - offer basic services for free then offer something unique/extra for a feee (at a premium).

yawa-ti-de:

Yes,

We live in an age of "freemiums" now - offer basic services for free then offer something unique/extra for a feee (at a premium).

That's the case. I think they should first come with free trials then when the gist gets hotter, it becomes premium.

As per the review, @askphantom, integrate the corrections pointed out so far.

Nice. Pay attention to all they've said above tho'
And guy: we don't bully, we help each other grow creatively
by offering mature critique of web jobs.

Be easy.

yawa-ti-de:


Overall, I would have given it a 90% (even though you are using tables  ) but because of your forms, sorry, but I have to deduct 20%.   Having said that, I take nothing away from the site.

Was that "too critical" enough for you? ;)

A good review, though your comments about the use of tables for layout need clarifications.

When I started of developing websites about year 2000, Layout was exclusively table based and though it required a hell of a hack to achieve the desired positioning, it still did the job.

Two years later, 2002, and the tug of war between CSS and Tables as regards layout was fierce and I felt that I had to, if I wanted to remain relevant, use CSS for layout, not just presentation.

It was a tough ride mainly because new concepts, e.g. absolute, relative, et al, everything had to be calculated and coordinates had to be specified. After a while I decided to use CSS for layout only when I had to. I went back to my beloved tables and Today I (We) have been vindicated. Tables live now but in CSS.

Read: Everything You Know About CSS Is Wrong, From Digital web Magazine and get updated on the latest trend.  http://www.digital-web.com/articles/everything_you_know_about_CSS_Is_wrong/

Regards. No (good) knowledge is a waste (of time) 

PS: Nice Site. The implementation of png transparency is it. You win the digital craft studios best website award of the week for look and feel

castrol, nice write up.

I must beg to differ on a few things.  I say this as someone who "seniors" you in web dev by at least 4 years.  I don't like to bring this up but since you went there, I had to.  Yes, I put up my first website in 1997  .  Yes, it is possible that someone might appear to look old but behave like a child.  That notwithstanding, I don't think I fall into that category.  At the very least, my postings should speak for me.

1) CSS is NOT for layout, at least as I see it, but for presentation.  XHTML is for layout.  Sure, your article says that but people are entitled to their opinion.  I could equally pull out an article that says otherwise.  A website consists of 3 parts: Layout (XHTML), Presentation (CSS) and Behaviour (JavaScript).  You lay out your page using H, P, UL/LI, etc tags and use CSS to present that layout (float left, right, display block, etc).  Then you use Javascript (where necessary) to dictate what should happen (if I click this button, say hello world, etc) - behaviour.

I would like to see how you use CSS for layout.  In other words, I would like to see how you have developed a website without any XHTML tag.  Please show us at least one of such sites.  Remember, a DIV tag is an XHTML tag which you present via CSS (float left, etc).  Please also note, if you use FF and have the web developer toolkit, you can disable CSS and see how your site looks (layout) without styling (presentation).  Perhaps what you meant to say was that you once used table-based layouts on your sites but now you use table-less layout.  Note again that the TABLE tag is XHTML, not CSS.

2) As covered on another post, CSS tables are cool but they aren't cross-browser, at least not yet.  As a matter of fact, your very article was used as a reference .  Does this mean you can't use them? Nope.  What it does mean though is that you might want to be careful with respect to your target audience.

3) Tables are not old news.  They just need to be used for what they were intended for - tabular data.  At work, we just had a situation where we had to rewrite a CSS-based component with tables.  Why?  Because stupid outlook now used MS word to render its HTML and surprise! MS word doesn't display floats and positions properly.  Also, HTML emails have to have the styles inline so you could imagine my pain.  The last time I used tables (other than for tabular data, in other words for layout) was in 2005.  It was a literal pain for me to use tables again but hey! to please 80% of our target audience, I had to do what I had to do.  In the end, I had at least 6 embedded tables.  If it weren't for comment tags and proper indentation, i would have been in trouble as I had to modify the widths of each table, cell, etc many times to make sure that what I was working on printed properly (FF automatically resizes what you are printing but surprise again, not IE).

One thing I will agree with you on though is the need to remain relevant by always improving upon your marketable skills. If you don't, it doesn't matter if you put up your first site like me in 97 or you in 2000 as those who just started will take over your job within the twinkle of an eye. Either that or your job is shipped to china, india or Nigeria. It is good that you are looking at CSS tables as a way of moving forward. Having said that, and I say this again as a "senior", don't jump to use things just because they are new or cool. Let them "ferment" a little bit and prove themselves to be worthy of use. To that effect, I make sure that my sites show well on chrome and IE8 beta. Having said that, until chrome becomes more mainstay and at least IE8 releases the final build, I will continue to develop my sites for what the majority of the populace uses (based on my web stats for my sites - IE6, IE7, FF, Opera, Safari and PDA in that order. From my experience, if you code for the first 3 above, you are pretty much guaranteed smooth sailing, less a pixel or 2, on the others).

Hopefully I have clarified myself with respect to using tables. If not, let me know and I will try again.  In the meantime, please show us a site you have done that has no XHTML tags in it.   if you wish to see mine, you know how to contact me.

Thanks,

yawa-ti-de:

castrol, nice write up.

1) CSS is NOT for layout, at least as I see it, but for presentation.  XHTML is for layout.  Sure, your article says that but people are entitled to their opinion.  I could equally pull out an article that says otherwise.  A website consists of 3 parts: Layout (XHTML), Presentation (CSS) and Behaviour (JavaScript).  You lay out your page using H, P, UL/LI, etc tags and use CSS to present that layout (float left, right, display block, etc).  Then you use Javascript (where necessary) to dictate what should happen (if I click this button, say hello world, etc) - behaviour.

I would like to see how you use CSS for layout.  In other words, I would like to see how you have developed a website without any XHTML tag.  Please show us at least one of such sites.  Remember, a DIV tag is an XHTML tag which you present via CSS (float left, etc).  Please also note, if you use FF and have the web developer toolkit, you can disable CSS and see how your site looks (layout) without styling (presentation).

We have to agree that the matter is not "as you see it". CSS could be used for both presentation and layout of content.

(X)HTML e.g. DIV, SPANS, et al only serve as "Hangers" for CSS styles.

After that clarification, I still believe that we're not on the same page.

in your review of gamefestng.com, the site scored low because it used (X)HTML tables for layout, quite right. So the core of the matter here is Tables for Layout VS CSS for layout.

The layout on gamefest could have been achieved using block elements like divs with it's class or id attribute making reference to a CSS style for layout.

There's room for improvement. CSS can be used for layout and should be used for layout as opposed to (X)HTML tables.

And lastly if you'll like to see a site without any (X)HTML I'll ask you browse directly or download and run, so we settle this yawa once and for all,  the swf file of any flash site.

I believe that will suffice.

Castrol,
I guess we will have to agree to disagree but I won't hang up my boots unless I stress the following 2 points:

1) I didn't say the site scored low because he used tables.  Read my post again.  Better yet, I will paste it for you below.  Note what's in bold please:

Overall, I would have given it a 90% (even though you are using tables  Tongue) but because of your forms, sorry, but I have to deduct 20%.   Having said that, I take nothing away from the site.

Again read my original post to see why I deducted the 20%. I will give you one in case you don't fee like scrolling up - his registration form validated (albeit wrongly) and his contact form didn't.

2) You almost won your argument on the flash site.  However, last I checked, in order to display flash you still have to use OBJECT and/or EMBED tags.  Now, I don't use flash on my sites but last I checked, those 2 tags were, are and will ever be,  (X)HTML tags.

3)

CSS could be used for both presentation and layout of content.

Again, a web site consists of Layout (HTML), Presentation (CSS) and Behaviour (Javascript).  Again, turn off CSS on FF (with the web developer toolkit) to see how a site is laid out (with HTML) without styles (presentation - CSS)

4)

(X)HTML e.g. DIV, SPANS, et al only serve as "Hangers" for CSS styles.

They may be "Hangers" but  at the core, the foundation, is that they are (X)HTML tags.

I really appriciate the fact that you all came out good. Thanks for the observations on the form and the site loading slow i guess is the png. in all i think i will be putting more of my works here for you guys to feast on. Thanks for your support.

You will hear more from me later.