just re-lauched www.i-skillonline.com

please let me know exactly what you think and any suggestions to improve it, nothign spared.

thanks

expecting your valued suggestions

Solid job. From the start, I enjoyed the way page loaded. Layout is well planned, content sitting pretty nicely and really pleasant to the eyes. Great colour combination there you've got. There's so much I like about this site, particularly the way the contact address is displayed there.

Logo might seem a bit generic, even slogan, but perhaps that's what the client already has on-ground.

You might just have to look at the flash movie there though, which constitutes your main navigation. Users with slow connections might have to wait a while before they can navigate from the home page to other pages of interests, like your Services, Knowledge, Contacts, etc.

You might want to have the navbar as plain HTML, so movie isn't really waited for before users can move around, IMO. By the way, flash movie is cool. And emm, let the guys who inspire the site have their site load in a new window. I mean the estrolli people.

I like it.

I may have a little problem with the flash animation. Is it really necessary? (it takes time to load on my dial-up connection).

the logo and the slogan are the client's they also wanted their corporate colors and nothing else because they wanted it to match their brochures,  so we did not have anything really to do in terms of design, that is why the site is so minimalist. I was afraid webmasters might think it sucked,  the client likes it though, 

recieved suggestions.
1: change Flash Navigation to HTML based links
2: the flash animation is composed of alternate graphics that have a blurred and sharp versions. will use a single image instead and use flash blurred effects; then crop the width to fit the image only not the entire background, it should load pretty sharpish
3: you are right, estrolli should have their page load up in a separate window rather than carry visitors away fromthe main site.


Thanks,  i really appreciated your suggestions and criticisms

You're welcome. But don't forget you should also review other people's, this way, everyone's edged towards achieving better designs.

Hello lagerwhenindoubt,

This is not a critique, but an opininion.
The website is absolutely brilliant, making the background sound once per session instead of everytime the page loads
will do a tiny magic,

Regards

Begin by validating your HTML. I will look at other things when that is done.

No pun intended, but this is supposed to be a website of a web development firm- http://www.rextec.com/

hmmm never thought about the sound thing,  it does sound over-used after a while,

I think i will remove the sound entirely,  the effizy effect is wearing off for most people who have visited the site. even for me too.

and my does it have a lot of HTML errors usign a HTML validator, well 3 frequent errors , images with no ALT tags, and somethign to do with flash EMBED tag, will look at it seriously, i think frontpage has somethign to strip all IE-specific tags


will check

You can forget the HTML validation, man. I honestly don't believe sites have got to be 100% compliant to W3C specs. As long as your client and visitors aren't complaining, what the heck should you bother about? For other web developers who think you've got to make your site compliant for just the mention of it? C'mon, give me and others a break.

Moreover, most visitors would be using upgraded browsers that would render pages properly. So, why the nervousness to make pages interoperable among cross-platforms?

Taking a 35,000 ft pass at the site:

1) I would rather you have either a static header or one that fades into another, and that's it. I kept feeling that I would miss something, as each image faded into another.

2) One of the flash images has a guy holding a cigar. Now, for a business, is this the proper way to say "hello world"? This one is my opinion. Perhaps it is okay within the Nigerian business context.

3) I disagree with whoever said html validation doesn't count. Sure, the user may not care, but as a fellowe web guy, first impressions count. It says a lot about you and whether or not a company could hire you. I "view source" a lot and I will tell you, even if you got N1billion for a site, if you don't follow web standards, I will have no respect for you as a coder. But that's just me

That is my 2 cents on this. As I said, this is just a 35,000 ft perspective. For more specifics, you will have to pay me

My resume/CV: http://www.geocities.com/myibibio/bios/itoroResume.html

Thanks,

what!!. cigar, !! where, ohh there, it is a mont-blanc

but i see how it would come off looking like a cigar,

Does anyone know where to get an offline HTML Validator that is not for Sale?. maybe GNU

@lager*


I use the full version of this at work, but the lite version is free: http://www.htmlvalidator.com/lite/ . What's cool too about it is that it integrates with JSP (I don't know about PHP and the others, but it probably supports as well), so you can preview your page as a JSP and not just HTML.

Another free one is via firefox. Go to the developer tool site and download all the extensions you need. The html one you want is at https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/249/ . In addition, it validates CSS, accessibility, etc.

Pretty cool, huh?

got it, will try it on all my sites

my2cents, I didn't say it didn't count. Not at all. But like I pointed out, it counts within the circles of webdevelopers.

But answer me, if your client and audiences aren't complaining about validation errors, if the site just works fine for them, but some coders around are telling you your site ain't XHTML 2.0 valid et all, why the heck would you want to let that give you migraines?

Farriel my friend

I wouldn't go as far as thinking that web standards only work within the circle of web developers. I don't work in Nigeria, but I can tell you that within the american context, even though users don't know what is going on behind the scenes (and practically, probably don't care either), they do get to have a wonderful user experience which ends up in a higher conversion rate, longer time spent on your site, more ad revenue, etc.

To address your other question (with some comedy , it's like u asking me why pple would care what your car in Nigeria looks like. It may not have A/C, or seat belt; it may be driving straight, even though the body frame is pointing in another direction; the tires may be balder than my head, but hey, it takes me from point A to point B right?

Well, I disagree. For one, you can't guarantee that your site will be browsed by people in only Nigeria. Take: www.akwaibomstategov.com. Opens fine in IE. Has a lot of "effects (not that I like it, but that's another thread)". Now, open it in firefox. See how the site falls apart?

Web standards (error-free code, cross-browser, etc) is the way to go. Not to mention, you have a reputation to protect. If you coded that akwa ibom site, I probably wouldn't hire you for a venture of mine.

By the way, I am not saying your code should be XHTML strict-compliant. Just make sure it validates for whatever DTD you declare at the top of your page, even if it is HTML 3.2

are we still friends?