Need honest opinion about site

[Sewolf]

Hi guys,
Well here it is, I did have some opinions from another WDF member and I did take it to heart.
This Web Site is a nautical one for Cadets and Parents. The kids age from 10 to 19 years old. It is very information based, that is why we have the site. It is also non-profit. All advertising (except filbert1's) helps to pay for the site and help to keep it on the web. I don't get paid to do this. I am also self taught in Web Design.(trial and Error)
Any and all comments are welcome. I want to try to make this the best site I can.
The address is www.navyleaguesudbury.ca
So lets open the flood gates and let the comments roll in.

Sewolf:classic:

[TheGAME1264]

I do realize that you're new to web design, so I'm gonna try and be very very gentle here.

First things first: MS Office. The suite has a lot of useful functions, and sadly, creating functional web pages is not one of them. Your best bet would be to get either a dedicated WYSIWYG editor such as Dreamweaver or a text editor that colour-codes the HTML, such as HomeSite, and use it with what I'm about to mention below to pick it up that way.

If you want to learn HTML yourself (and it's a skill that will serve you in very good stead, trust me on this), then I'd suggest taking a few hours or days if necessary just to learn the basics.

Some sites that may help you in this way:

http://www.htmlgoodies.com . This is how I first learned HTML back in 1998, and the fact that the page has changed relatively little and is still an excellent resource for the newcome speaks a lot for it.
http://www.lissaexplains.com . I don't know if you're under 18 or not, but if you're significantly under 18, this site may help (hey, it worked for my sister).
http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp . Another excellent tutorial resource for the newcomer.

And a few general pointers on design:

1) Try not to use multicoloured or textured backgrounds (or dark ones). Keep it simple: use black text on a white or light background. This is easiest for the vast majority of people to read.

2) Your main menu should be in the same place across the site. On some pages, it's on the bottom, some pages, it's in the middle and some pages it's on top. I'd suggest putting the main menu on the top and leaving the left side for the submenus for your various sponsors (good job on landing those by the way: that's one of the hardest things to do for a site like that!)

3) Keep checking back for feedback: if you're ever not sure about something or you want suggestions, we'd be happy to give them to you.

I feel you've got a lot of "information" for your site: all it really needs is a sense of design and consistency. Good start though!

[Sewolf]

TheGAME1264
Thanks for the honest comments. I have Dreamweaver, but I just haven' had the chance to sit down and learn it. I am learning bit by bit, FrontPage Was a starting ground. From there, I'm hoping the sky is the limit. I have been getting some help from my sister-in-law. She likes to play with HTML. I designed the title page on Adobe photoshop 6. maybe I should redesign it differently. I have been using the special buttons menus from Frontpage, Should I stay with them, or should I go back to simple text links. I was also thinking about having the buttons on the background and just assigning links over the area for each.
As for the sponsors, I have to be very thankfull for them, without them, We'd be still on a free server, like Angelfire.
I'm still working on getting more sponsors, my goal is to have at least two more by the end of the year.
I don't charge by clicks, I charge by month for advertisement. $20.00 + Goods and Services Tax(GST) per month.
thats all for now. I'll see what I can change by the weekend.
till then
Sewolf
by the way, I'm 35 years old.:-)

[TheGAME1264]

I personally prefer simple text or simple graphic buttons if you want to use an uncommon font to those that FrontPage will generate, since I'm not a big fan of FrontPage graphics in general.

PhotoShop 6 can also be used to design web pages, since it comes with a program called ImageReady. If you look in the pretty toolbar Photoshop gives you, you'll see a "knife" option there. This is the ImageReady "slice" tool. Use it is to split your PhotoShop 6 design into the various elements of your web page (menu bar, top header, text section, etc.) and click the "Save For Web" option. It will automatically (assuming you leave the settings alone) generate some reasonably good (albeit somewhat buggy) HTML and graphics for your site and it'll look a lot nicer.

If it's done right (and you spend a few hours tweaking the code and graphics, you can do something like this with it:

http://www.ontariomantels.com

This is something I've done using PhotoShop 7 (6 can do the same) I sliced up the mantel itself into the various sections (shelf, cabinet legs, etc.), modified a few of the graphics somewhat so that they would tile and stretch properly to fit across all screen resolutions, added a few graphics to the top, and then put in my menu (by the way, the menu items themselves are plain text).

Now if you're new to HTML, don't go trying something like this. The idea took me over 6 hours to put it all together, and I've been doing this for five years. I'm merely using it as an example of how PhotoShop (with a little help) can be used to take a PhotoShop image and slice it up into the various sections of an HTML page.

And I guess if you're 35 years old, the Lissa Explains it All link might be a little juvenile for your tastes, eh?

(Note: this site is still very much under construction.)

[smoseley]

As far as the navigation is concerned, you should never have that many graphic links on one page. They are way too difficult to visually parse. Also, you seem to have them in the middle of the page. You should present them on the left hand side in a vertical column, organized in a heirarchical fashion.

As far as the look of the site, it's extremely chaotic. You need some common graphical theme tying everything together to make it "feel" like it's one site.

As far as everything else, it's just too big. There's too much content on each page to absorb in one viewing. The graphics are too large, and distract attention from everything else, a banner ad takes up half the screen, etc. Try to compact everything, and organize them into distinct areas. If content becomes too big to fit onto one page, don't be afraid to split it into two or more pages.

[smoseley]

P.S. - Don't know if GAME already got this one... Go with a white background and black text on EVERY page.

And make sure your navigation is consistent on EVERY page. Otherwise, it gets really confusing.

[logodesignworks]

HI,

Site is very good. You have used white space and that gives the site a clean look. However the menu buttons worry me a little.

Have you tried using theme based button. Like Navy theme or something like that. I found it hard to read the menu items.

Also the context graphic in the middle of the site could be toned down a little. It would make your page look like a money scheme website.

Just my two bits.

Jeff
http://www.logodesignworks.com

[iphong]

There is much better than the first time you posted it here. Nice yeah..

[smoseley]

Yes, big improvement by putting the links on the left. I would still make them text-based instead of graphical, though, so that they are more compact (people don't want to scroll to find the link they're looking for).

Also, make all your page backgrounds white, like the homepage.

Finally, put the "Navy Leage of Canada" title and logo across the top as your banner. Put advertisements below that in your main content area (adjacent to the menu). Right now, your homepage makes you look like the "Ramsey Lake Foodmart" website.

[JR]

i agree that looks a lot better with the links on the side, and a lot better with the white background :classic: