Website opinions please

[Stuart Leyland]

Hi all.

This is one of my first posts here so please be kind

I've made a website for my uncle who has a holiday house in Normandy, France which he rents out. The majority of the site is written in HTML as that is the only language I know at the minute, although I do plan on learning PHP. Other sections of the site use PHP scripts for extra functionality.

The website is located here. This by no means my first attempt at website design but I know there is still plenty of room for improvement. If you could offer any advice which would improve the website, I'd be very grateful.

Regards
Stu

 

[Zedric]

- The design feels a bit to strict. Don't take me wrong, I usually make an effort to keep things simple, but this feels a bit "naked".

- The text feels a bit cramped in on some pages. Try a bigger cellpadding on the text body cells.

- Some of the image pages can be reconstructed. Some can be merged as there is very little on each page. You could also try to incorporate the images in the text rather than having them at the bottom. Maybe as thumbnails with links to a more detailed image. A little more text would be nice even if it's hard to come up with anything usefull.

- You write about some places around the house. It would be nice to have links in the text so you could read up more on these sights if you want to. Providing there are any homepages for these sights of course.

- A contact mail address at the bottom of each page is good. If someone saves a page they may not know how to contact you.

- I couldn't figure out the booking calander, but that may not be finished. Am I right?

- I'm generally against drop-down menus, but as long as they are compatible with most browsers I guess it's OK.

I hope I haven't been to mean. Happy New Year! :happy:

 

[Cosmin]

Thought that a forum should be a good ideea , not especially by vBulletin 2.2.9 .. I've built one for myself two weeks ago .. ( by support in my sig )

 

[Hipster Doofus]

What about a picture of the house on the front page to whet peoples appetites?

Cosmin - What sig??

 

[Stuart Leyland]

What about a picture of the house on the front page to whet peoples appetites?

Thank you, I will do that

The design feels a bit to strict. Don't take me wrong, I usually make an effort to keep things simple, but this feels a bit "naked".

Do you think I should add some graphics? I thought about that myself but I'm not very good with graphics :huh: If you could offer some ideas as to what graphics should be included then I could look at creating them. I have Adobe Photoshop 6.

The text feels a bit cramped in on some pages. Try a bigger cellpadding on the text body cells.

I believe the main cell has a cellpadding of 2, what should I increase that to? 5 possibly?

Some of the image pages can be reconstructed. Some can be merged as there is very little on each page. You could also try to incorporate the images in the text rather than having them at the bottom. Maybe as thumbnails with links to a more detailed image. A little more text would be nice even if it's hard to come up with anything usefull.

The images on there are rather old and I hope to get some new ones from my uncle the next time I see him so hopefully that should solve that problem.

You write about some places around the house. It would be nice to have links in the text so you could read up more on these sights if you want to. Providing there are any homepages for these sights of course.

Again, I will try and get some info from my uncle about things to do in the area. I was going to try and do this page from memory but as I was only out there for a week in June, I've kinda forgotten

A contact mail address at the bottom of each page is good. If someone saves a page they may not know how to contact you.

I did intend to put a © notice at the bottom of each page once it was finalised, maybe I could link that?

I couldn't figure out the booking calander, but that may not be finished. Am I right?

The calendar requires an explanation to it, yes. It was kinda finished in a hurry as my PHP bod was being dragged out by the missus

I'm generally against drop-down menus, but as long as they are compatible with most browsers I guess it's OK.

I take it you mean the Javascript menu at the top of each page? As far as I am aware it works in IE4+, Netscape, Opera and Mozilla

I hope I haven't been to mean. Happy New Year!

Quite the opposite, you have been very helpful! Happy New Year to your good self

Thought that a forum should be a good idea.

I was thinking about adding a forum in the future once the house gets more visitors. Maybe an online record of good places to go.

Thank you all for your opinions and suggestions, they are very helpful. If anyone has anymore comments, please feel free to post them.

 

[SPeedY_B]

As you've said...there's meant to be menu's at the top of the page.
They dont work in mozilla.. All i see is the initial page/text.

 

[Hipster Doofus]

Works fine with my mozilla. That's if we're talking about the same thing. Hovering the mouse over the selections brings down the menu.

 

[SPeedY_B]

here's what it looks like this end. Using Mozilla 1.2.1

 

[Hipster Doofus]

Hey Speedy I'm using the same version & get this.

 

[SPeedY_B]

Originally posted by Hipster Doofus
Hey Speedy I'm using the same version & get this.

strange!
What version of java you running over there? I've got 1.4.0_01 installed here.

 

[Hipster Doofus]

Same here:
Java Plug-in 1.4.0_01 for Netscape Navigator

 

[SPeedY_B]

odd, i put my user-agent string back to what it should be, and all works fine now.
Seems odd that it wouldn't work based on the user-agent, i mean the code's still being rendered via the same gecko engine this end.
Anyway, works now, woop

 

[Stuart Leyland]

odd, i put my user-agent string back to what it should be, and all works fine now.
Seems odd that it wouldn't work based on the user-agent, i mean the code's still being rendered via the same gecko engine this end.
Anyway, works now, woop

You was just trying to scare me wasn't ya

Cheers for that though, I was getting worried then.

 

[Zedric]

I suppose you get my point about the menus?
You could make it a side menu I guess.

You could need som more graphics (not too much) and perhaps a bit warmer color scheme. It's a summer house. Blue and white is more winter. It's hard to get a good scheme, I know.

The white table kind of looks like a sheet of paper. So the margin can be 10 or even 20 if you wish and it can still look ok. This will also have the effect that the page will look like it has more contents as the text will break into more lines.

The (c) notice at the bottom will do fine. You may even have the (c) notice and a mail link. Up to three lines of not to wide text can look good.


(The above is personal opinion, not facts.)

 

[Stuart Leyland]

You could need som more graphics

What type of graphics do you think would work well? Maybe if I had some graphics as the menus instead of the text?

Perhaps a bit warmer color scheme

I have decided to change my colour scheme so that is something I will bear in mind.

The white table kind of looks like a sheet of paper. So the margin can be 10 or even 20 if you wish and it can still look ok. This will also have the effect that the page will look like it has more contents as the text will break into more lines.

I will try a cellpadding of around 10 then.

The (c) notice at the bottom will do fine. You may even have the (c) notice and a mail link. Up to three lines of not to wide text can look good.

Yep, I will add that once I've finished the site.

Once again, thanks for the opinions

 

[Stuart Leyland]

OK, I have taken all your comments into consideration and have implemented them onto the site and I must say it looks a lot better

Just to briefly outline what has been done:

- the colour scheme was changed from a blueish theme to a warmer theme
- the front page had some pictures added to it
- the calendar page is finished and now has something that looks like a description
- added a © notice and email link to the bottom of each page
- all other pages got a bit of a tidy up as well.

Once again, the site is located here and I would appreciate any feed back on the site now.

Regards
Stu

 

[Hipster Doofus]

Now that would get my interest if I was looking for somewhere to stay.

 

[ReC0iL]

Thats not a bad site.... I kinda like it

 

[Stuart Leyland]

Now that would get my interest if I was looking for somewhere to stay.

Thanks Comments like that make the job worthwhile.

Thats not a bad site.... I kinda like it

Once again, thanks

 

[rick_422]

i saw your first go at this
and the update is MUCH better, looking very nice
only thing i thought could be changed is the nav bar at the top
its a bit too far up the top for my liking...
i cant really suggest otherwise, but thats the only (minor) bad thing i can see with that
with my resolution at 1024x768, the nav bar is just out of view when i scroll down, so it goes out of view...
but yeah, very nice looking!
cheers