Thanks & pls look

Looks great Donna.
I’m no artist, but your work looks really good to me.

Hi Donna

Excellent i have only one very small adverse comment and that is that the text on the button bars once you go into illy or PS is a bit small for my old eyes. Other than that I think it is great.

Clive
United Kingdom

"Donna" wrote in message

Hi everyone–well my first semester of Illustrator & Photoshop is coming to an end. Thanks to everyone who helped me along the way, couldn’t have made it without all of you. Final project was to complete a web site with Illy & PS–I just finished it and posted it to my existing web site. Would love for you to take a look and let me know what you think.
http://www.donnamcmenamin.com/SchoolZonie.html

On Sun, 07 Dec 2003 05:44:27 -0700, Donna
wrote:

Hi everyone–well my first semester of Illustrator & Photoshop is coming to an end. Thanks to everyone who helped me along the way, couldn’t have made it without all of you. Final project was to complete a web site with Illy & PS–I just finished it and posted it to my existing web site. Would love for you to take a look and let me know what you think.
http://www.donnamcmenamin.com/SchoolZonie.html

I took a look. Whilst I understand this is your first attempt, I hope you won’t mind if I offer some advice:

1. Learn about colour theory and complementary colours. Yellow text on a blue background is really a no-no. It makes it hard to read.

2. The text is far too small all through the site.

3. Use serif text for body but use sans serif for headings. It makes them far easier to read.

4. If you;’re going to use tables (I checked your source code) be aware that they may be a problem for partially sighted users as they can prevent them changing font size.

5. Don’t hard code font size as this also prevents users increasing size.

6. Don’t hard code the font either. At the very list give a fall back so that your site looks nice in whatever font the user has available. I notice you used Garamond which shows smaller for a given font size. Try using something more suitable such as Georgia (people are more likely to have that too) and something like Verdana for the header fonts.

Example: code the fonts as:

<font face="Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif">

I’m not a great fan to Times, but it does at least make sure that someone is likely to have it. If you use a font that’s widely available you may find that a font is substituted which doesn’t look right for your site.

7. Be aware that MS Frontpage will make all sorts of choices for you that may not be appropriate unless the person viewing the site is using Internet Explorer, and also, that what may look good on your screen may not look good on someone elses. I never advocate designing for the lowest common denominator, but you should try and make the site as accessible as reasonably possible. And one of the assumptions you definitely should make is that everyone has the same size monitor as you running at the same resolution. 🙂

8. One final thing – for your email, use a javascript coded email routine. Using mailto: as you have will mean that your mail address is harvested by spambots and you will have the dubious pleasure of increasing email, most of which you don’t want.

Hope that helps. Feel free to mail me if you have any questions 🙂

—

Hecate

veni, vidi, relinqui

Donna, I am 47 and I wear glasses so i think i come under the category of old and bad sight but it all looked absolutely fine to me, i thought the colour scheme was fine and the fonts were easy to read. Beats my first sites hands down
The site was easy to navigate and something that i find quite rare now on a lot of sites, it was also uncluttered.
when i go to a site i am not interested in how smart the page has been coded or "look at my Flash animations", i just want clear concise sites and easy to find content, web designers showing off their skills is not my cup of tea.
For a first attempt you put a lot of us so called "Professionals" to shame, well done

Barry, London UK

"Hecate" wrote in message

On Sun, 07 Dec 2003 05:44:27 -0700, Donna
wrote:

Hi everyone–well my first semester of Illustrator & Photoshop is coming to an end. Thanks to everyone who helped me along the way, couldn’t have made it without all of you. Final project was to complete a web site with Illy & PS–I just finished it and posted it to my existing web site. Would love for you to take a look and let me know what you think.
http://www.donnamcmenamin.com/SchoolZonie.html

I took a look. Whilst I understand this is your first attempt, I hope you won’t mind if I offer some advice:

1. Learn about colour theory and complementary colours. Yellow text on a blue background is really a no-no. It makes it hard to read.
2. The text is far too small all through the site.

3. Use serif text for body but use sans serif for headings. It makes them far easier to read.

4. If you;’re going to use tables (I checked your source code) be aware that they may be a problem for partially sighted users as they can prevent them changing font size.

5. Don’t hard code font size as this also prevents users increasing size.

6. Don’t hard code the font either. At the very list give a fall back so that your site looks nice in whatever font the user has available. I notice you used Garamond which shows smaller for a given font size. Try using something more suitable such as Georgia (people are more likely to have that too) and something like Verdana for the header fonts.

Example: code the fonts as:

<font face="Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif">
I’m not a great fan to Times, but it does at least make sure that someone is likely to have it. If you use a font that’s widely available you may find that a font is substituted which doesn’t look right for your site.

7. Be aware that MS Frontpage will make all sorts of choices for you that may not be appropriate unless the person viewing the site is using Internet Explorer, and also, that what may look good on your screen may not look good on someone elses. I never advocate designing for the lowest common denominator, but you should try and make the site as accessible as reasonably possible. And one of the assumptions you definitely should make is that everyone has the same size monitor as you running at the same resolution. 🙂

8. One final thing – for your email, use a javascript coded email routine. Using mailto: as you have will mean that your mail address is harvested by spambots and you will have the dubious pleasure of increasing email, most of which you don’t want.

Hope that helps. Feel free to mail me if you have any questions 🙂
—

Hecate

veni, vidi, relinqui

Donna …

Hi everyone–well my first semester of Illustrator & Photoshop is coming to an end. Thanks to everyone who helped me along the way, couldn’t have made it without all of you. Final project was to complete a web site with Illy & PS–I just finished it and posted it to my existing web site. Would love for you to take a look and let me know what you think.
http://www.donnamcmenamin.com/SchoolZonie.html

My eyes are great, and the text is a fine size, but that background is just absolutely horrendous. Otherwise, nice job.

I really appreciate all of your comments. Thanks so much for looking.

Donna wrote:

Hi everyone–well my first semester of Illustrator & Photoshop is coming to an end. Thanks to everyone who helped me along the way, couldn’t have made it without all of you. Final project was to complete a web site with Illy & PS–I just finished it and posted it to my existing web site. Would love for you to take a look and let me know what you think.
http://www.donnamcmenamin.com/SchoolZonie.html