Website Review Please

[sassafras9]

Hi,

I have done a redesign of my site that has been running for about 2 years now. I have just about finished the design and still have some content and other things to work out.... it's still only 75% percent finished but before I move on i want to make sure I have a decent base for my design.

old site
http://www.esljobproject.com

new site
http://www.esljobproject.com/esl_jobs/

Any and all comments welcome.

Thanks

[Kor]

Design: too "light", a white-and-black page is borring (especially when is too much white). Think that a web page is more like a newspapper page, it has important areas (top, left, top-right) to be revealed and used.

Insert some colors (not too many, say 2) and give your site "personality"

CSS: you have some small errors (open it with FireFox, and it's javascript console will show them to you.

[sassafras9]

Thanks for your insight and tips. I'll check it out in firefox.

Thanks Kor

[KDLA]

It's a little like looking at the Wall Street Journal -- no real design, just text.
There's nothing there to draw my eye to certain components. Overall, I like the layout; it just needs some artistic flair to make the page more interesting to view.


KDLA

[sassafras9]

I wanted to make it as simple and as straightforward as possible but I guess I have gone to far. I actually find it quite refreshing to use and to navigate through but I certainly didn't make it for only myself to use. Better give it a splash or two of color and add some graphics.

Thanks for you comments.

[kocisz]

Add a banner on top and it will make a world of difference.. blue perhaps? :)

[Kor]

It's a little like looking at the Wall Street Journal -- no real design, just text.
There's nothing there to draw my eye to certain components. Overall, I like the layout; it just needs some artistic flair to make the page more interesting to view.


KDLA
Yea. The same as I felt... At least WSJ has some pictures here and there... :)

I passed myself through the "skeleton-like-page" period in my web designer's life. But I have discovered quickly that people dislike both too colored/heavy pages and no colored/slim pages...

[sassafras9]

I'll probably put in a new header... blue background + new logo and possibly a search box or login box top-right. and footer... some graphics or icons with blue and bright dark orange colored backgrounds text and graphics. I think I'll leave the ads system alone in the middle though with the exception of the headings and maybe add some color to the text. Maybe a graphic headline or at least a background behind the headline text anyway. I'm also going to create a splash like page or home page with all the key elements along with a short description of each of those elements... should give the first time user some direction as well as give the regular user enough options to navigate without feeling like they are wasting time always having to go through the home page.

I use a color picker to help me with color
http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html

Does anyone know of a site that groups font together in according to feel or design or suggests fonts that work well together?

Cheers

[KDLA]

Really, you should only use standard fonts if you want to ensure that everyone will be able to read your text.

Serif
Georgia
Times New Roman
Courier

Sans-serif
Arial
Verdana
Helvetica

KDLA

[webfinity]

It is missing images and stylesheet. You may be working on it.

[sassafras9]

Really, you should only use standard fonts if you want to ensure that everyone will be able to read your text.


I would just use specialized font in images to go along with the standard fonts. I'm just looking for groups of font that work well together rather than testing how fonts look together in photoshop or fireworks.

I have started to change stylesheets and such. www.esljobproject.com/esl_jobs/ is my testing site.

Back to grind...

Thanks

Cheers