My Home Theater Page (1 Viewer)

[Dave_WY]

Hi guys here is my home theater site I have been working on through a coarse I was taking ( web page design ). My question is what do you guys think of the site? any suggestions would be great! I had to work on a web page so I figured why not my Home Theater?
Dave
this might help!
http://www3.sympatico.ca/turbod

 

[Jonny K]

Not bad. Your color choices are easy on the eyes, and the layout is simple. Being able to click items in the picture is also a nice touch.


Jonny K.

 

[Myo K]

nice page,

regarding websites design there are several format rules you can follow.

the main format that most sites use is a "magazine" type layout, with the help of tables and frames you design the page too look like a page read in any typical magazine.

its also common to find the able of contents located on the left hand side of the page rather thent he bottom, for ease of navigation. whether or not youd like it to be a fixed list or a list that will be permanently on display via frames, is up to you. though id recommend staying away from frames.

if youd like any more constructive criticism or would like advice about web design, ill be more then happy to give you more input to the best of my ability.(though im a litle rusty)

i used to be into webdesign for a couple of years myself as an amateur, and program my sites from scratch with note pad txt. it provide the most freedom along with background in art and digital imagery.

 

[Dave_WY]

Thanks for the compliments guys and thanks Myo K for the ideas. I too used my notepad for this website, I also took your advice and adjusted my links on to the left side with in another table.(not frames)
Dave

 

[Jonny K]

Hey, I like that even better. Now if you could just adjust every page of the site to have that menu down the left, so no matter where you are you always have access to everything...


Jonny K.

 

[Myo K]

dave! the table of contents is much better on the left hand side.


some other things id recommend, may be minimizing the outside border of the table, its a bit too thick, and somewhat distracting. it detracts a bit from the main focus which is the tect and pictures. but thats my opinion.

i also think that adding a spiffy graphic(jpg/gif) for the "daves home page" rather then basic italic font would improve the overall appearance of the main page.

i also noticed that when you click on the links, each page that follows only allows the viewer to hit one link to go back to the main menu. this makes browsing the site a bit repetative and difficult. you can allow for much easier navigation by taking an extra step and having a row of links at the very top of the pages listed horizontally(or to the left like the title page). so the viewer has access to any portion of the site right when a page loads rather then having to scroll down to the bottom and hit the link or hitting the back button in the browser.

of course this is just my opinion, what it comes down to is whether or not youd be happy with the ideas im listing, the fun part about web desing is tweaking it and constantly making your page better and better as you go. i wish you the best of luck with your page man, have fun programing!

 

[Myo K]

after taking a second look at the site, i have some more ideas to throw at ya , i hope you dont take offense to any of my opinions, i just used to be really into this stuff and with what you have already on the site it has great potential for a lot of design ideas. i find this fun.

well heres some more ideas
---

when you click the link to a specific page ie. center speaker..

i would suggest having a small title graphic using the same graphic style you would use for the title screen (if you decide to create a graphic for it) across the top of the page stating "center speaker" then list the speaker title ie.. paradigm cc 1000 then.. post the picture beneath the title.

its always a better design decision when listing an item to have the picture below the title of the item rather then having the picture above the title. for exmaple navigationg should go like this...

center speaker? clicks... viewer will read paradigm cc.. viewer thinks "oH!" and wishes to view the item and scrolls down to see the pic.

theres a reasoning behind this but im too lazy to type out a detailed explaination.


you should also add a small link at the bottom of each page (other then title of course) that lists "top" so that the viewer can click it and it instantly sends the viewer to the top of the page, (if you decide to add horizontal list at top) where he/she has instant access to any part of the site.

----
another thing you should do is add some variety regarding picture placement... for example in the center speaker page, you can have the image aligned to the left or right and have a small personal comment from you text wrapped nect to it, and then on a different page such as the tv page, you can have that image aligned left with comments to the right of it and so on.

 

[Dave_WY]

Man you guys are going to make me work! But I like the ideas.
Dave

 

[Neil Joseph]

Nice site. This reminds me of the transitions I made on my own site. I went from a single page to multiple pages with buttons, to frames, to the way I have it now. Myo mentioned about not using frames and having done so in the past, I would concur. Frames sometimes mess up other websites when you try to load them in after coming from your own site.

I like the idea of a common navigation system, like what you have on the main page, being accessible from all of your pages. (I used the same approach on my site). That way, a visitor does not have to go back to the main page each time for the menu. Your pictures are just the right size (bytes). I have seen many sites with images that were 500K and up which makes it atrociously slow for dialup users.

 

[Ted Lee]

nice site. i really like the color choices - easy to read. i also like the idea of clicking the component for more info. maybe a bigger picture with more detail would be nice...but that's a minor gripe.

did myo mention a graphic in the upper left corner that links home? i think he did. very common feature you'll see on most webpages.

you can allow for much easier navigation by taking an extra step and having a row of links at the very top of the pages listed horizontally(or to the left like the title page).

i couldn't agree more. to me that is one of the most useful things a webpage can have.

 

[David Preston]

I think its great. I like the ability to click on a component nice feature. David

 

[Dave_WY]

Thanks guys for all the compliments and ideas!
Dave

 

[Garrett Lundy]

Love the skull headphone rest.. very spooky

 

[Dave_WY]

I bought that skull down in Disney World when I was a kid. It's been around for awhile, even spookier is that it glows in the dark!
Dave

 

[Jon_Welker]

Dave,

On a separate topic, I like the GN. Very nice...

My older brother had a '86 Monte Carlo SS (not up to the GN's performance, but still a nice ride), and I wanted one of these typs of cars (GN, SS) so bad when I was in grade school. Then they dropped that engine into the old GMC Jimmy (Typhoon), and I wanted one of them so bad. Never had the money in H.S., and now I pi$$ed all my extra money away on HT. Anwyay, great cars!

 

[Guillaume L.]

Hope you don't mind further comments . A disclaimer first though, I'm quite the perfectionist, I can't seem to stop wanting to make everything even better, take no offense.

[ Checked the site out with both CrazyBrowser (uses IE6 rendering engine), and Phoenix ... err ... FireBird 0.6 ]

It's a great start, heads and shoulders above the average website out there, but there's still some things you could do to make it even better (IMHO).

Colors :

• The link's hovering color is quite hard to read on top of that dark red background.
• I'm not overly fond of the background, but if you like it, it's ok, just not my style.
• I'd edit the components pictures so they blend in better with the background, using .png or .gif to get the transparency.
• The "back to main page" link doesn't look like a link at first glance.

Layout :

• I agree with other opinions about the layout of the menu on the components page. I'd suggest using the magasine layout someone suggested, with all the content focused in a certain part of the screen, basically, the menu would be alone in it's row.
• Float the pictures next to the corresponding paragraph, or even better, a thumbnail of it. You don't want to overly stretch the page vertically, people are lazy, they probably won't scroll down
• You already link a .css file, why not use it to set the layout ?

You might consider using PHP, if the Bell servers allow it, it'd make it easier to include the menu on every page and make updating the page so much easier.

I did a quick mock-up of what I mean, it can be found here. It looks better with a Gecko renderer (FireBird, Mozilla, etc), but IE doesn't change it up too much.

If you want more suggestions, don't hesitate to email me, I'm on vacation, and I love helping people learn new neat things (as this forum and AVS have taught me in the last 1-2 months).

 

[Dave_WY]

Guillaume L.
Thank you for your great ideas! I sent you mail and posted the DVD page on my site.
Dave

 

[Garrett Lundy]

{quote]spookier is that it glows in the dark![/quote]

[arnold] I Vant one! [/arnold]

Actually I had one from Disney world when I was about 8... but it was a very small glow-in-the-dark skull. Now I wish I still had it (it was very well detailed). Hmm, the GF does want to go to DW and I could afford a better souvenier this time......