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iamlucky13
04-03-2005, 08:45 PM
The following is a page I created for an engineering-oriented web contest sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). It's a student contest that's an off-shoot of their older poster contest. The idea is to convey information on a technical subject using the web. I approached it sort of like a powerpoint presentation, but over the web and without a narrator.

Formula SAE Educational Site (http://roo.nweci.org/jlynch/portfolio/fsae/index.htm)

Since I got 2nd place (the 1st place was more colorful, but in my opinion not as well organized and it used tables...code was not judged), I'd love to hear comments on how the page could be improved. I'll answer a few of the comments I expect to hear right off the bat so you can give more general critique:

Not all of the pages validate. My doctype is xhtml strict. I made the site on a pretty short timeline and I haven't gone through validating all of them, just the layout and a couple other pages, so there may be a few minor mistakes, which I will clean up when I have more time.

The main navigation menu uses javascript to expand. I tried making my own, but was having a little trouble and running out of time, so I modified one of the listematic examples. I have, however, made it possible to access all of the content on the site without Javascript by using the menu category headings and "prev/next" links.

Also, if the content intrigues you, I'd be happy to tell you more about our race car.

spufi
04-05-2005, 11:40 AM
Your blue space at top looks like it says "This space for rent" to me. I think it would be a good place to add in "Formula SAE." I really don't like how when you get your submenus to display you have to either hover over another submenu, or hover over the hide menu area to make the submenu to go away. I really didn't pick up on why the hide menu thing was there until I played around with the submenus. To me that would be a significant issue to have if I was judging things from a usability stand point.

iamlucky13
04-05-2005, 10:39 PM
Blue space at the top? Is this between the grey bars? There should be an image loading there with a car and text that says "Formula SAE - Designing, Building, and Racing a Class Project." It's had no problems loading before on different computers.

The menu, like I said, was derived from one on listamatic, which always stayed open. I'm not very fluent with Javascript and I was running out of time, so I just created an extra menu heading with no submenu and labeled it hide menu. I'll be going back and rewriting the script for it when I get a chance. Watching the judges go through the site, I don't think they had too much trouble figuring it out, so I don't think that hurt me too bad. I wish they had given us the score sheets afterwards. It's possible I just missed the focus of the contest.

Any opinions on the color scheme, layout, or site structure?

Green-Beast
04-06-2005, 04:51 PM
I like the site's looks. Works for me. I did see the image on the banner. Hated the menus, just not very user-friendly. But then again you know that part.

spufi
04-06-2005, 05:40 PM
I have a high speed internet connection, and I can sit there and wait, and yet I don't see an image filling in the blue area.

Green-Beast
04-06-2005, 06:18 PM
That's weird. It's just a static image and for me it's there onload. It's part of the over all banner jpeg.

http://roo.nweci.org/jlynch/portfolio/fsae/images/banner.jpg