Unreal Media Server website for review

[umedia]

This site presents a free Streaming Media Server for Windows platforms. Any website design feedback will be appreciated.

http://www.umediaserver.net

Thanks.
Steve.

[rapid]

replace table layout (http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/) with css (http://www.glish.com/css/).

your home page is the same as your what's new page, which is first in the menu and so is likely to be the first link users exploring the whole of your site will click on. they might be a bit annoyed to find it has the same content they've just read.

the text links at the top of the page are misleading and unnecessary. the 'about us' link actually leads to the R&D page, which could be in the main menu and anyway, an about us link should lead to an about us page, R&D link can lead to R&D page. the 'media server' text link leads to the overview page, which you already have in the main menu with the correct title. i understand these links are two separate areas of the website, but i dont understand why that is the case and why they cant all be together and make the site easier to comprehend and navigate.

if the image in the top right corner is your company logo id suggest re-coloring the site to work with the colors of the logo. if it isnt the company logo id suggest finding a more fitting image. atm the image stands out as not being a part of the site. also, logos at the top of the page are usually also links to the homepage so users have a sure-fire way of getting back on familair ground if they get lost.

your images should have alt tags.

you might want to disable the link to the current page to prevent users clicking on it by mistake or accident and having to reload the page they were already on, which might annoy them.

the 'arrow pointing down' image looks like it might be a button to a drop-down menu. not really a problem just might be a little confusing.

'another link' and 'yet another link' and 'here' are terrible link descriptions (http://evolt.org/article/Writing_effective_link_text/4090/60343/index.html).

you compare yourself to ms on your faq page, compare the layout of your site to the layout of the microsoft download center (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/). see how they have the download button near the top and very visible to make it as easy as possible for the user to get what they want. a user who already knows about unreal media server and wants to download it goes to your site and has to read half a page of text before he/she gets to the download link. id suggest having a big 'download unreal media server now' image/button link in the header instead of the about us and media server text links.

other than all that it looks pretty good and like a real (no pun intended) company with a quality product that people might want to download, which is obviously the main aim of the site.

[umedia]

Thanks Rapid. Very reasonable and helpful review.

[amazing_andr3]

you are using over a dozen images and javascript for a menu that would only take a few lines of CSS. as it is, the menu is a nightmare to update, a waste of bandwidth and partly or totally inaccessible for a some of your visitors. also, there is no point in making a gif (unreal1.gif) that contains only text and is otherwise transparent.

bckgr.gif is huge and it needn't be. it only needs to be one square, not a bar of 20 identical squares.

of course, you can't do nothing about all the above because you're using a table-based layout instead of CSS.

I won't even try to understand your table-based code, but for some reason Firefox messes up the 'architecture page'.

what's the media server with the orange arrow thing? it looks like a link but it's not. why is it there?

the top of the page is to me a waste of prime real estate. it shouldn't be so empty.