Please tell me what you think...

[Dizzydee]

Hi All,
I just finished building this website and would love to get some feedback on it. http://www.mpe-programs.com/mpe3

Thanks.

[Dizzydee]

WOW!!! I guess I need to take a hard look at the site. I'm thinking about that old saying "If you don't have anything good to say...".

I'm still learning and eventually I'll get there because I just don't give up. Thanks everyone who has viewed the site.

[AnotherDesigner]

Patience is a virtue Dizzydee... people will comment, they might just be busy (I for example, have just worked solid for 32 hours and have just got out of bed after a 3 hour sleep...)

Review
The site looks amateurish, not what you'd expect of a Management training consultancy (that is effectively what you are?).
The white-background logo doesn't sit right on the dark blue background of the banner... Instead of having a banner like you have, maybe remove the photo, centre the company logo, and have the top and bottom blue border extending across the page with a white background, just to tie it all together.

The navigation bar underneath the banner doesn't fit in with the rest of the design, it looks like it's been stolen from another site. You've got grey "3D shading" on that bar... but nowhere else on the page. A simple (perhaps blue?) bar with white text would be more effective, and tie in with the rest of the page.
The other thing is, you've got three or four different font styles on the page, and they don't compliment each other. Try and stick to just one or two fonts, the usual (I think) are Arial, Helvetica, Verdana or Times New Roman (sure someone will pick me up on that though!).

Try and keep the footer section to a link about copyright, privacy policy etc... There's no need for you to put your contact details on there as you've got a separate contact section... If you want your contact details in view when Joe Public first accesses the site, put them on the home page in with the content (perhaps in bold, to emphasise it).

I like what you've done with the "hover" layers on the module titles on "Create Your Own Day"... however, change the background from that green to a colour that matches the site!

Your "Meet the MPE team" section isn't what I was expecting... Make the site a bit more personal - I know a firm of accountants who (successfully, I point out) have a brief 'portfolio' section for all the Senior Partners of the Practice under their "Meet the Team" section... Perhaps you could do the same? A simple photograph (head and shoulder shot is enough), with their name and experience/brief biography next to it will more than suffice, and gives a more personal and professional approach.



Sorry it's so long and detailed... I wanted to give you a fair review based on what I've seen and from my experience. I hope it's useful.

note: I haven't been able to validate the site using the W3C website due to the website not loading for some (unknown to me) reason. You could test the validation yourself: the address is http://www.w3c.org

[Dizzydee]

Hi AnotherDesigner,
Thank you for your comments. I'm going to try to work some of them in the web design. Here's a question I'm desperate to know. I did this site for a customer and much of what you are saying I was directed to remove. Such as the "Meet the Team" page, there was a bio for each member with a professional head-shot photo for each. However, I was instructed to remove because he thought that it would be better to not put faces on the business. Do you disagree with your customer and if so how do you deal with that? Thanks.

[NetNerd85]

I looked at the source code and you should use external JavaScript and why do you have two head & title tags? One set is up the top the next is below most of the JavaScript...

The site looks okay, it just works but the design style is a little "dated". Gradients aren't the best sort of image to use. It's a good start, tweak it :)

[AnotherDesigner]

Dizzydee, as a web designer, your job is to do just that - design web pages. The same applies to other designers, i.e. graphic designers producing leaflets etc etc...

The only thing you can do, is to suggest ideas to the customer. It's the customer's decision ultimately as to what their company brochures etc look like.
I tend to make several designs for each customer, and say to them, "OK, this is what I've come up with... Now, I like (for example) number 1 and number 2..." I point out to them why I like them, and why they work - basically the positives...
I also say to them - "OK, I came up with these ideas... but they're interchangable..." so if they like one aspect of one design, but they like the majority of another, then they can incorporate that one aspect into the other design.

No matter how 'bad' you think a design looks - you're just "the messenger". You made it based on their specifications - you can't ask them to rework their corporate image to fit the website etc, you have to fit in with them.
After all, you're getting paid for it - no matter how bad you or the design industry think it looks.

Hope that helps? :)