Please review my website

[Michael5139]

I have a hobby website with various resources for amateur astronomers. It’s online since about 2011 and was designed in Dreamweaver (styled with CSS). Lately I've made quite a few changes and would like to have some feedback on design, usability, compatibility or even SEO issues.

This is the site:
http://www.deepskywatch.com

Thanks in advance,
Michael.

[Vapr_Arts]

Upgrading DW versions will not be an upgrade to your site.. DW is just a tool, a rather crappy tool at that. If you want an upgrade try investing time into learning code or invest financially in someone who knows how to code and can do it for you.

Your site would benefit from having a look at modern sites. It looks old and sort of boring. One major upgrade should be to make it responsive. If you have any questions on anything this is a great forum to ask. We have a wide range of experience in just about ever aspect of web design/programming.


Regretfully sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk during lunch and other breaks

[Michael5139]

Thanks for your feedback.
Regarding the responsive design - maybe you are right and I'll take some time learning CSS and start with some minor upgrades. Currently 95% of my visitors are from PC anyway (or so stats tell me).

I'm worried more about the design looking boring to you - could you be a bit more specific? What should I change , assuming I do want to keep the overall layout of a top navigation bar and a side bar which I'm planning to use for ads in a future. Should I make the nav buttons animated? navigation bars sticky? give up the fixed width? or you are talking mostly about graphics?

[Vapr_Arts]

I mean boring as in there is nothing that stands out to me. Everything sort of blends in and just looks dull. Graphics are one of them. You have nothing that leads my eye. Everything is extremely static. Honestly the site just looks outdated, which seems like something you understand as you are in the process of updating it. Theres very little contrast between the colors and the font is dull. The deep-sky watch font doesn't fit at all.

Keep in mind im not your target audience, hoping to be as non offensive as i can be while saying this, the subject itself doesn't really interest me so that may be part of it. Now with that being said i have came across sites that looked so interesting i grew interest in the subject.


Regretfully sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk during lunch and other breaks

[Michael5139]

Don't worry about being offensive - I came here to get feedback.

When this site was built I targeted mostly experienced amateur astronomers who do not care about the design, only the content (where I luckily got no issues). However now my target audience have expanded quite a lot, that's why I came for an advice regarding the design.

The fonts are my weak point. Do you have any suggestions for improvement?
For example using something similar to what this forum uses would be better?

I'll try to work on graphics and the colors as you suggested.

Is it acceptable nowadays to use dark theme?

[byronc]

your site is a hobby site, it instantly gained my trust, keep on adding valuable content, as far as I am concerned its responsive and actually looks like you have some expertize. It will eb very difficult to keep[ it modern.maybe you try port it to worpress and buy a theme for it.

[Vapr_Arts]

your site is a hobby site, it instantly gained my trust, keep on adding valuable content, as far as I am concerned its responsive and actually looks like you have some expertize. It will eb very difficult to keep[ it modern.maybe you try port it to worpress and buy a theme for it.

How would you consider that responsive?


Regretfully sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk during lunch and other breaks

[webprosdallas]

Your website has clean layout and is fast loading. It's also easy to navigate which I would make sure you keep in place for the next version. Depending on how many existing content pages you have, have you considered changing to a CMS based website? As far as design, I agree that you should consider making your layout responsive, especially for the smart phone devices so your pages are easier to read and navigate for those users (which could be around 40% of your traffic or more). I would also considering using a mixture of a sans and a serif font for your header and paragraph text.

[Michael5139]

Thanks again for tbe feedback,
I'll try changing the fonts. You mean Sans serif for all my text? currently it's verdana.

Regarding responsive design - I might for starters remove the side bar and increase font size for mobile users, but I'll keep the fixed width and won't alter the images (too much work to manage 2 images for every entry). It is 20% of my traffic by the way (not counting tablets)

As for content managment - I think I'll just stick with dreamweaver's template system. It's very easy to use, and so far I'm OK with the results.

[Michael5139]

I've made quite a lot of updates to the design: Sidebar, fonts, logo, code and tags optimizations, got rid of all the tables, etc. So how is it now ? (apart from the mobile issue). screenshot of old version attached

oldver.jpg