School Resource Center New Homepage --- Needs some editing before replacing the old!

[richarme]

Hi,

Rose-Hulman Digital Resource Center (http://www.rose-hulman.edu/drc/drcindex.php)

Please run through the new website design, we would just like to make sure in works in most browsers as well as invites people to read, view and interact with the page.

Any comments and/or suggestions will be taken into consideration.

Thanks,
Rose-Hulman DRC

PS: We are currently working with our comments.asp page. It said that your comment has been received on our webpage... but it really has not. If anyone has advice onto how to work with asp.NET and simply take in their comments and store it in the file, but not allow the user to see it that would be greatly appreciated.

[KDLA]

Wow -- that's a lot of red. Your organization is REALLY into "roses", eh? ;)

No offense, but the design looks "old school" - I think it's the disjointed layout. Those round-edged buttons in the midst of so many block elements look out of place. Also, the white-space (or red-space!) doesn't seem to frame the content; it seems almost accidental rather than intended. Lastly, I think the mixture of fonts and cases adds to that disjointed look because there is no cohesive presentation of text.

Some suggestions -

-style your navigation as text overlaying a background image, rather than using solely images; this allows the visitor to navigate your site if the images fail to download
- cut down on the red; use it as an accent rather than a dominant color. A little red goes a long way. If your organization is dead set on using lots of red, change the background to a very deep maroon, which is almost a "neutral" color.
- the page has a very "feminine" look to it, with the red/pink scheme & cursive fonts in the title bar (and the feminine organization name). I suggest you try to balance the presentation to more of a neutral professional look, rather than conveying any sort of "personality."
- use semantic coding (http://fadtastic.net/2006/10/19/the-semantic-code/). Your code, as it is now, is suffering from "div-itis," meaning that you're not using HTML tags appropriately and instead of demarcating paragraphs as <p> and headings as <h1>, <h2>, etc. you're using <div> and <br> to structure your content.

Good Luck -
KDLA

[richarme]

The school colors are Red, White and Black. There isn't much else we want to use.

[expat]

banner too big IMO ...you can make the emblem on the same level as the image and name

[richarme]

What does IMO stand for? The emblem is, unless you are viewing the screen at a small width size. We will adjust that so no matter the width of the screen it will fit vertically together. Thank you!

[richarme]

We believe we have fixed the banner issue. Please let us know if it is still buggy for your resolution, size of browser or type of browser.