http://www.bath.ac.uk/~su2photo/

click: http://www.bath.ac.uk/~su2photo/

This is the website for a photographic society.

the site should be fully functional by now, if you spot any broken links etc... please include those in the critique.

i've tried to make the site quite big and bold, usable, fast, sharp. It should also be pretty cross compatible, both with browsers and screen resolutions (although i haven't finished optimising for 800x600)

any comments, bugs, glitches, fixes and suggestions would be great

Ta very much
Craig

Are the "About Us", "Events", and "Website" links meant to be indented like that? It looks a little bit awkward.

Also, I'd think you could use a little more graphics on the main page, to make up for some of the blank space. Not large photos, of course, but just a couple of thumbnails (like the dragonfly at the side) for the visitor to feast their eyes on.

Try to put some navigation on the gallery pages, too. Maybe a navigation bar at the top so the user doesn't have to go to the bottom of the page to click on "main" and continue.

Otherwise, the site is nice, simple, and uses the contrast of light-dark well.

the inset links are a subsection of the main links, if you click further down the menu expands dynamically. I do see what you mean by awkward though, i'll try to make it a bit more apparent.

i can't really put anymore images on the main page, i was limited to two, and limited in choice of how to use them, the photobox is random and a refresh or a click on a link (in a decent browser) will reward you with a new image.

good point about the navigation in the gallery, i'll get onto that.

thank you for those points

I like the layout and the picture changing on refresh is a nice touch. I have a couple of gripes though....

1. Not too sure about having a black background with such dark content boxes. If it were me i would either make the background a lighter shade or maybe think about using a stronger outline for the content boxes. At the moment your content looks a bit lost in all the darkness and isn't easy to concentrate on.

2. The menu looks ok but maybe using a different colour for the sub-items would prevent all the confusion.

also, i agree with prov on the gallery navigation.


cheers
DTR

I have to agree with the points about it being to dark and the navigation with the indents looking akward. I do like the gallery images on the sides with the text in the middle.

I notice the link on the gallery back to the main page is hardly visible. In general I think the whole page should be lightened up a bit. Otherwise I like the simplicity.

cheers guys, i'm going to leave the site as is for a while, until i can get the feed back from the 'clients' (i don't get paid a penny ) then i'll i'll give things a final polish before the start of semester.

Cheers guys

Why do you put the menu to the right? are you lefthanded?
green/red/yellow letter on the black background is always the meaning of an unprofessional site.

i am left handed but thats not why i chose it. Menus on the right hand side is convention, it aids readability as the western eye reads from left to right, a person expects content to appear on the left.

the site isn't professional and has no aims, wishs or wants to be professional, however, there is not green/red/ nor yellow lettering on a black background.

Okay, i've decided to put the finishing touches to this website... i've tried to include some of the changes suggested above.

however, i would like to see if anyone has anything new to say and also for some hints on how to make the subsections of the menu more 'obvious'

any spotting of bugs (especially on the mac and older browser versions) would be of huge help.

cheers

Craig

Just a quick comment. With the menu, the text doesn't seem to centered vertically. It just makes the menu look a touch unfinished IMO.

As for making the subsections stand out a bit more, I would have to agree with the above posts. Change the background color of the a:link state. I would consider getting rid of the border for the subsections also. Might be worth a try.