My chess site

[mikexx2020]

Hey, I just started a new chess site. Its only for fun and to help people learn while i do. Look around in it and say what you think. Post it on the forum if you want.

www.michaelboyd.org.uk

Can you suggest any improvments or something for the layout or coding or something? I used NVU (widiwig editor) because I dont know html or anything...

[the tree]

Lots of astrixes,exclimation marks and capital really aren't nessersary for emphasis. Just having a word like "Remember" in bold should suffice and look a lot more professional.

There's no reason why your visitors should have to see your login box if it doesn't interest them, you should either make it smaller or just have an indistinct link to it.

Avoid using WYSIWYG editors for two major reasons. They produce huge, inefficient code. WYS is rarely WYG across browsers

When you do get round to coding you really don't want to be using tables for layout like NVU has. They bring up accessability, flexibility and SEO issues that you can just do without. You'll find things a lot easier if you use CSS (http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/css/) for presentation and leave HTML for document structure. For inspiration: the list-a-matic (http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/) has plenty of good ideas for simple navigation along with much lighter code.
Once you've dealt with that these "validators" will help you clean up your code.
HTML Validator (http://validator.w3.org/) CSS Validator (http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/)

Also give some thought to these Quality Tips for Webmasters (http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/).

[cturner]

It is a good layout but it looks plain. It needs a colour scheme. Check out Template Monster (http://www.templatemonster.com/category/games/) to see what I mean. Template Monster has professionally looking websites.

[thewebman]

I do not think that the yellow border, red backround, and blue links mix at all on your nav bar. that was my initial thought.

[rpcarnell]

I have a problem with combining colors, so I know what it feels like to have the colors of your website criticized.

Try a black or blue border with the yellow bars. Also try a blue background where "Home Page" is. At least we all know Blue and yellow go hand-in-hand.

Website has too many light colors. And it looks too simple.

[ChiefNX]

Personally, I think that you should go about getting more content on your site before you start quibbling about the design. It's functional enough and in time you will learn these design issues.

Once you start getting some traffic through your site you can worry about the design. I think that in this case, if you can get good content then you might not have to worry so much.

[mikexx2020]

Cool thanks for ALL the great advice guys. Especially 'the tree' for the long detailed post :)

I agree that my site is a bit plain and simple just now, so ill add more content for now. Then ill go about the colors

Thanks again!