Tell me what you think

Nice style. As an end user though, I'd have to point out:
- You can't really tell at first glance what the site is about. I assume it's your own personal site / blog / photo gallery / offer to do web design and so on. Try and get an idea in mind of who you're pitching to and then let the front page tell them what they want to know ... "Welcome to my personal website. Here I share my thoughts through my weblog (Blog), my galleries of photography ... etc ..."

- The links at left are big and cumbersome. You could easily fit all of these in one column, that can be viewed without needing to scroll.

- There are two links at the top of the screen "See my eBay items" and "See where we are". Why are these seperate? Can they go into the left column along with everything else? I'd assume by reading these two that you are probably a business, so why doesn't the main page tell me what business you're in?

- Try and get a consistent look throughout your site. Keep the links at the left the same style for all pages. The Blog page goes to a very different site, with different colours and fonts, for instance.

- Try and choose colours and fonts that are easier to read. Blue-ish on Blueish in times new roman is just plain ugly. Go for black text on bright backgrounds for preference, and use a contrasting scheme for your links bar at the left (White text on a dark background) so that its easy to see what's what. Splashes of pink here, red there and green somewhere else really make the site look awful.
 
Wow, thats much better already! And so quick to get to it, too.

The colours are good. I like the font used on the Blog page (which I blieve is Arial Bold), do you think you can try and use this font on the main page as well?

I've never heard of a "moblog" before ... a blog gallery of mobile-phone pictures, eh? Makes sense I guess. :)

OK, I guess all that remains now is to go over the tiny little problems, such as punctuation, grammar and spelling, just to make it all look really smart. So here's the nitpicker list (brace yourself) ...

- Instead of "Built by an [Apple]" which is grammatically incorrect, please use one of the official "made on a Mac" web badges from here: http://www.apple.com/about/webbadges/

- "Want a free iPod" needs a question mark.

- If I were you, I'd get into PhotoShop or whatever and put "Northmendo.com" and your opening paragraph onto that beautiful photograph you have for your title page. Since you obviously want to have that image there anyway, you might as well use some of the "dead space" in that image in a constructive way.

- Tighten up the left hand menu (you'll need to use BR tags instead of P tags)

- Get rid of ALL of the table borders you have on the homepage. Trust me, less is more. At the very least, if you must have borders, keep them all of the same width.

Finally, to correct your opening paragraph:
Hello, welcome to my site. It is compiled of random things that intrest me such as computers and photography. Please trip around, and have fun with some of the many games, or learn a thing or two by checking out my messageboards.
 
Had to move this. "Opinion" is not just for anything you want opinion on. That'd make every thread an opinion thread, I guess. ;) (Please do read the forum descriptions...)
 
Hmm. You wouldn't ask for an opinion if you didn't want it. And no, my site is not going to be used as a comparison...

Overall design: organized and concise, yet very dated. The randomness of the included elements takes away from this. Arpanet had more dynamic interfaces, and all they had was text.
Interest level: almost none. I wouldn't even post this review, which is less interesting than your site, if I wasn't an insomniac with a horrible temper.
Font usage: not so great. I feel bad about my above comments, so I'm grading on a curve.
Color:terrible, unless you're actually colorblind; in that case, kudos for keeping it simple.
Photos:aren't bad, but too few of them and very little worth looking at.
You: please tell me that you're the giraffe, in which case the rest of this was altogether too brutal, and I'm hereby nominating you for the Nobel Science Prize.
Spelling and punctuation: look into those GED courses. You can do it online these days, and chicks dig smart guys.

Symphonix raises good points above, but he is altogether too nice. My design teachers believed in a solid ass-whooping to bring change to our chaotic, poorly designed world. Blame them, and our information wasteland, not me.
 
lighten up mseydel. (it's not our fault you can't sleep.)

Constructive criticism is all well and good, but holy crap. everyone starts someplace. what did your early work look like? (hmmm, what's it look like now since you won't share...?)

while you make some valid critiques (tho every point of view differs) the additional commentary has no function but to be a prick.

go take a nap and come back when you're in a more social mood.
 
mseydel, take heed to what quicksan said. Some of what you wrote is skirting the line of acceptable behavior on this board. We take the board rules very seriously here, so be warned.
 
mdnky said:
mseydel, take heed to what quicksan said. Some of what you wrote is skirting the line of acceptable behavior on this board. We take the board rules very seriously here, so be warned.
Click to expand...

Obviously none of what mseydel said would be what Northmendo would like to hear but he has hit the mark.

After all the invitation was "Tell me what you think". I took a peek out of curiosity at such an open (if unilluminating) title.

What do you expect when you stand up in front of the judges at an amateur talent quest, and can't hold a note... "Nice dress Bob" ?

Not sure that his/her hourly rates fill me with confidence.

Career change is all to the good. On the bright side is that Northmendo hasn't turned his hand to discount_brainsurgery.com
 
Northmendo, do you have an AIM screen name? I'd love to go over some aspects of visual design on the Internet with you.
 
Here's some very constructive and easy things to fix:

1. Remove the site name "northmendo.com" from above the white ruled boxed-in area—not necessary.

2. White text on black is very hard to read (unless you use the Universal Access "Inverse" function a lot, in which case your site will appear "normally" :) )

3. You lose viewers within 3 seconds of getting them to your site, so have the top of your site be very clear about why your site exists. Why should a visitor spend time there? Give them a reason in 3 seconds or fewer. :)

4. The point of doing the site, of course, is to get it posted and you have accomplished that! I am a designer and it's torture actually deciding on a design for myself because there's an infinite number of options.

5. Grid out your site on a piece of paper first, never design just on the computer.

Keep us updated on your site progress! :)
 
my apologies, northmendo. I re-read my post, and the additional commentary was out of line and vindictive without reason. Since I reference design teachers whose method of teaching was to kick people in the teeth, I realize that I've always despised people who teach that way. The point of forums like this is to help and inform, not tear down. :eek:
 
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