Sceptre Custom Homes, Ltd.

[Green-Beast]

This was not comissioned as an "accessible" site, per se, but I tried my best to make it so anyway. The text can only really be increased two times in Firefox but I added a PHP contrast changer to compensate. What do you guys think? Good, bad... goofs, and plusses. Please let me know.

http://www.sceptrecustomhomes.com/index.php

Thank you.
Sincerely,
Mike Cherim

PS. The site is effectively complete, but I am awaiting some more content and images from the client and the form sends to me at the moment. I figured it's ready enough for some preliminary reviews. Thanks.

[pyro]

A couple things, quickly...


The navigation looks more like a breadcrumbs navigation than a main navigation, with the right arrow quote as a separator, one would tend to think the links would follow more of a hierarchy than all being on an equal level... Then again, now that I look closer, maybe the site is supposed to be read straight through like that (see 4).
I'm not a big fan of internal scrollbars, at all...
Probably should remove the 'Login' link from the footer. Since it's a CMS login, users won't be using it, so the admin should just bookmark the page, if they need an easy way to access it.
I'm not sure about the 'Go Back' and 'Proceed' links on each page, either. If the site is meant to be read through like that, I wonder if there isn't a better way to denote that.

[Green-Beast]

Thanks for the feedback Pyro.

I agree the navigation is breadcrumby looking due to the use of raquos/laquos. But to most people they are not breadcrumb indicators, nor are they French quotes or double angle brackets or double angle quotes, they are simply little arrow looking things. I could have used the arrorw entitiy but it's not nearly as well-supported as raquo/laquo. It is meant to indicate direction.

I think what I have on my hands is a potentially failed experiement, but one that can be saved I hope. The idea of the site is to proceed in a linear fashion taking a prospective client through the process of building a home. One step (page) at a time. Thus, the raquo use and the proceed and back links (which use php to grab the meta info, prev, next as they are page variables... try to get multiple uses from each variable).

This is good, though (the feedback), it tells me that I need to make the concept more clear. It is a conceptual site for me. Trying something new. Take them through the site, take them through the process. I considered(ing) removing the navigation and using only last/next, (leaving a site map link), but that seems even riskier. I like the process thing. We (me and the client) asked ourselves what people might want to know when explore custom home building. Our first question... "So how's all this work?"

The login link was customer preference just like the stats. I ask them if they want a link on the footer and other such stuff when I start, and then I just take the preperred includes that come with the CMS (it's mine and Jona's) and put them on the webpage visibly. I like the idea of the added exposure ;-)

I will try to somehow clarify the concept to see if that helps as it needs to work for everyone. It's funny, the customers and the non-developer people they had check it out got it right away. To these folks a breadcrumb is something the Grinch took from the Hoos of Hoosville.

:) Mike

[LJK]

Hi -
Hate to say this [:-)] but I thought it was a great design!

"Got it", too, as far as the movement through site links goes / the process.
The differing header img's were pretty slow to load - think it's a nice idea, but not sure if they add all that much.
Only things I thought weren't too functional were the 'Skip Nav' [it's a small layout, not a problem] and 'top' links [ditto].

Once again, another lovely project -
El

[Green-Beast]

Hi -
Hate to say this [:-)] but I thought it was a great design!

"Got it", too, as far as the movement through site links goes / the process.
The differing header img's were pretty slow to load - think it's a nice idea, but not sure if they add all that much.
Only things I thought weren't too functional were the 'Skip Nav' [it's a small layout, not a problem] and 'top' links [ditto].

Once again, another lovely project -
El

Thanks El. :) The links you're talking about don't make much sense I know, but on a smaller monitor, or better yet, without styles or on a text browser, then they work more effectively and make sense. Perhaps I should hide them. Actually if you turn off styles there are more inpage links available, I just left those two visible.

What kind of connection do you have El? Just wondering. The banner images I did make larger for better resolution. I think they a 75-80 compression and are from 13-20k. I kinda figured I was pushing it some, (the main body image is pretty small consider its physical size). The listings page might be a problem as it pre-loads all eight slide show images, not sure. Hopefully you have dial-up which will offer some explanation, unless maybe the server was experiencing a slow down. That does happen sometimes.

I'm just wondering if it's something I should/need to address or not.

Thanks.
Mike

EDIT: Nevermind. I see "Dial-up" in your signature :)

[dera]

i like the base design, but it doesnt go wellin bigger resolutions as its jst cramped in the middle upper of the window. on your footer images the pattern doesnt fit well, so wat i suggest you could add a javascript redirect, if the browser is ie go to current page and else go to a png based style sheet.
also things like online now, statistics are not relevant to the user... and the only case i reckon anybody would care if the person was lookin to advertise a community site etc.

[Green-Beast]

I ask the client if they want the stats (which are recorded by and in the CMS) to show on their pages. If they say yep, I make it so.

-------------------------

Hey guys,

I discussed some of the items brought up during these pre-launch previews. The client has been considering some of them. However, this morning all potential (design) changes went flying out the window.

You see, first of all the client loves the site a lot, then this morning, almost giddy, they told me they didn't really need to have a thing changed and plan to simply continue throwing content and images my way.

The reason: Well, they told me to modify the images on the Listings page ( http://www.sceptrecustomhomes.com/ilistings.php ). I won't spoil it by saying why here, but once you see the first image on that page all will be crystal clear.

Please note, they've had 229 unique visitors and the content isn't done, nor did the site go public yet. So why... well, you'll see. :D

Put it this way, I too am quite happy about this.
Mike

[ffurnai]

Mike, as usual your site looks fantastic. Glad to see the CMS is working out for you.

I'm looking at this in Mac Firefox and I notice that when I click in any of the input fields on the contact page that elements disappear, like background images. It shows the body background through.

Overall another winner.

[Green-Beast]

Thanks man.

Wow, that's really wierd. I don't have a Mac so I can't see that. Does anyone know why this might be happening? There is JS used to make the input fields light up (focus) for IE only (conditional comment on the JS link), but otherwise it's just a form on a page with background images. I don't even know where to begin in figuring out this little buggy.

*scratches head*
Mike