Site Ratings & Reviews - Critique Please

Author

Critique Please

wayne

2005-08-07, 11:18 pm

I've been trying to add more content and make the site w3c compatible.

Is it looking ok?

http://www.glenmeadows.com

The errors when checking on the w3 org site are from the Quotations page
javascript .

Regards,
--
Wayne
http://www.glenmeadows.com

Beauregard T. Shagnasty

2005-08-07, 11:18 pm

wayne wrote:
> I've been trying to add more content and make the site w3c
> compatible.
>
> Is it looking ok?

It is a .. bit .. red. <g>

> http://www.glenmeadows.com

I like it, except for one thing. You have many buttons on the menu. I
would suggest that all buttons that go to external sites, most of
which appear not to be associated with your Association, to put those
on a separate page. Remove the buttons, and maybe make a page to
"Other favorite sites of ours" with conventional links and
descriptions in the content area of that page.

Opinion: the italic headers don't display as well as regular text would.

> The errors when checking on the w3 org site are from the Quotations
> page javascript .

Didn't have JavaScript enabled...

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

wayne

2005-08-07, 11:18 pm

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
> wayne wrote:
>
>
>
> It is a .. bit .. red. <g>

My bride would like it a little more subdued too, but does it catch your
eye? ;p

>
>
>
> I like it, except for one thing. You have many buttons on the menu. I
> would suggest that all buttons that go to external sites, most of which
> appear not to be associated with your Association, to put those on a
> separate page. Remove the buttons, and maybe make a page to "Other
> favorite sites of ours" with conventional links and descriptions in the
> content area of that page.
>

Thank you, I changed it as per your suggestion. I did have a second menu
on the right, but it looked like Mickey Mouse (ears) so I removed it.

> Opinion: the italic headers don't display as well as regular text would.

Thanks again, removed the italics. Just trying for some variety in the
text. Will look for another way to add variety while staying readable.

>
>
>
> Didn't have JavaScript enabled...
>

--
Wayne
http://www.glenmeadows.com

Beauregard T. Shagnasty

2005-08-08, 4:21 am

wayne wrote:
> Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
>
>
> My bride would like it a little more subdued too, but does it catch
> your eye? ;p

ABSOLUTELY!!!1!!

>
> Thank you, I changed it as per your suggestion. I did have a second
> menu on the right, but it looked like Mickey Mouse (ears) so I
> removed it.

Aha, I see an "Other Links" page now. That'll do.

>
> Thanks again, removed the italics. Just trying for some variety in
> the text. Will look for another way to add variety while staying
> readable.

Yes, I think it looks better with the non-italic font you now have.

Oh, discovered this: went to the Documents page, found a new menu of
various things. Picked ByLaws. When ByLaws content came up, the menu
changed back to the main menu, and not the Documents menu. If I wanted
to read about "Elections" I would have to go back to Documents,
instead of just clicking on "Election" after reading ByLaws. IOW, menu
of the various documents should stay in place.

Heh, was that clear?

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

wayne

2005-08-08, 4:21 am

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
> wayne wrote:

>
>
> ABSOLUTELY!!!1!!
>

> Aha, I see an "Other Links" page now. That'll do.
>

>
> Yes, I think it looks better with the non-italic font you now have.
>
> Oh, discovered this: went to the Documents page, found a new menu of
> various things. Picked ByLaws. When ByLaws content came up, the menu
> changed back to the main menu, and not the Documents menu. If I wanted
> to read about "Elections" I would have to go back to Documents, instead
> of just clicking on "Election" after reading ByLaws. IOW, menu of the
> various documents should stay in place.

Yes, I've been a little lazy on that. I created another menu and placed
it on those pages. While I was at it, some of the other documents
weren't listed there either. Some of the forms are now on the main menu
and the documents sub menu. I want them available to the homeowners
without them having to search very hard. Is this acceptable, or is the
main menu still too long?

>
> Heh, was that clear?
>

Perfectly! <bg>

Thanks for your help!

--
Wayne
http://www.glenmeadows.com

Beauregard T. Shagnasty

2005-08-08, 7:28 pm

wayne wrote:
> Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
>
> Yes, I've been a little lazy on that. I created another menu and
> placed it on those pages. While I was at it, some of the other
> documents weren't listed there either. Some of the forms are now on
> the main menu and the documents sub menu. I want them available to
> the homeowners without them having to search very hard. Is this
> acceptable, or is the main menu still too long?

I see that you've corrected the Document menu; that's good.

What forms were you referencing? The Google Search box? That's the
only one I see.

Re length of menu: I guess it's acceptable now, though the Recipes
also seems to be not related to the Association.

Were you going to remove the form defaults on Suggestions? Visitors
who mouse between form elements rather than use the tab key will have
to first delete your "Your name?" content. If you don't, expect
entries such as "Your name? Jane Doe" ...

On the "5. None of the above" I would change that to "5. Other"

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

jake

2005-08-08, 7:28 pm

In message <ENxJe.2540$Wi6.1742@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>, wayne
<wdh@swbell.net> writes
>I've been trying to add more content and make the site w3c compatible.
>
>Is it looking ok?
>
>http://www.glenmeadows.com
>
>The errors when checking on the w3 org site are from the
>Quotations page javascript .
>
>Regards,

Just a few thoughts:

Opening page:
=========

<a href="http://www.glenmeadows.com/" title="Home">Home</a>
<a href="/arcform.shtml" title="Architectrial change submission
form">ARC Form</a>
<a href="/contacts.shtml" title="Contacts">Contacts</a>

etc. etc.

{ Put some dividers between entries in the menu e.g. "|";
alternatively mark the links up as a list }

{question: why comment-out the 'skip-navigation' link? }

..........................................................................
.............................

<h2>La Porte Community Library<br />
A Harris County Public Library<br />
600 S. Broadway<br />
La Porte, Texas 77571</h2>

{I'd suggest that only the first line is the header. Also, put some
punctuation at the end of each line e.g. commas and full-stop.}
..........................................................................
.............................

<p>Our special events include:<br/>
Easter egg Hunt<br/>
Before School picnic<br/>
Christmas hayride<br/>
Welcoming committee<br/>
Yard of the Month<br/>
</p>

{This would be better marked up as a list. Alternatively, place some
punctuation at the end of each line to prevent the items running into
each other.}

..........................................................................
.............................

<table border=1 cellspacing=0 cellpadding =5 align=CENTER>
<tr>
<td>New Year's Day</td>
<td>1st Day in January</td>
<td>Saturday,
January 01, 2005</td>
</tr>

{ (a) insert a 'summary' for those UAs that can use it.
(b) insert some column headers (you can make these 'invisible'
through CSS if you need to) to assist navigation. If you don't, many
non-visual UAs will assume that the first entries are column headers }

..........................................................................
.............................

Articles of Inc. page
============

{ Various typos (mainly missing spaces) -- applies to other pages --
suggest a trip through a spell-checker might be useful. }

..........................................................................
.............................

DCCR's 4a page
==========

W I T N E S S E T H:

{ Code this as WITNESSETH: and use CSS to space the letters in the word
}

ELECTION page
==========

<h5>by: Jeffrey A. Goldberg</h5>

{ Is this really a heading? and why level 5? }

..........................................................................
.............................

1. Notice
2. Registration & Quorum Requirements
etc.

{ Are these not list items? ditto for other lists further down the
page.}

..........................................................................
.............................

regards.

--
Jake
(jake@gododdin.demon.co.uk .... just a spam trap.)

wayne

2005-08-08, 11:18 pm

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
> wayne wrote:
>
[color=darkred]
>
> I see that you've corrected the Document menu; that's good.
>
> What forms were you referencing? The Google Search box? That's the only
> one I see.
>
> Re length of menu: I guess it's acceptable now, though the Recipes also
> seems to be not related to the Association.
>
> Were you going to remove the form defaults on Suggestions? Visitors who
> mouse between form elements rather than use the tab key will have to
> first delete your "Your name?" content. If you don't, expect entries
> such as "Your name? Jane Doe" ...
>
> On the "5. None of the above" I would change that to "5. Other"
>

Thanks again for your time and help. There are several forms available,
one is "Management" which is for sending email to the management company
(without exposing their email address), YOM for submitting candidates
for yard of the month, "Newsletter" for submitting entries to the
community newsletter, etc. Perhaps I need a page with just forms on it,
but I want them to be readily available. What is your suggestion?

I did remove the defaults from the suggestions form, although the
default at least insured there would be some entry in each field:)

Also changed the "None of the above" to "Other".

Still learning!

--
Wayne
http://www.glenmeadows.com

wayne

2005-08-08, 11:18 pm

jake wrote:
>
> Just a few thoughts:
>
> Opening page:
> =========
>
> <a href="http://www.glenmeadows.com/" title="Home">Home</a>
> <a href="/arcform.shtml" title="Architectrial change submission
> form">ARC Form</a>
> <a href="/contacts.shtml" title="Contacts">Contacts</a>
>
> etc. etc.
>
> { Put some dividers between entries in the menu e.g. "|";
> alternatively mark the links up as a list }
>
I assume you have css disabled or have a device that does not use it? I
tried placing | between the menu items, but that created an extra space
in the "button" on the graphical interface and an inappropriate line.

I appreciate your help and will spend some time changing the items to
<li> entries.

> {question: why comment-out the 'skip-navigation' link? }

Not sure how to implement just yet. Where should it point?

>
> .........................................................................
> ............................
>
>
> <h2>La Porte Community Library<br />
> A Harris County Public Library<br />
> 600 S. Broadway<br />
> La Porte, Texas 77571</h2>
>
> {I'd suggest that only the first line is the header. Also, put some
> punctuation at the end of each line e.g. commas and full-stop.}

This is a document from the public library that is inserted by cgi. I
haven't looked to closely at formatting it. Will spend some time this week.

> .........................................................................
> ............................
>
>
> <p>Our special events include:<br/>
> Easter egg Hunt<br/>
> Before School picnic<br/>
> Christmas hayride<br/>
> Welcoming committee<br/>
> Yard of the Month<br/>
> </p>
>
> {This would be better marked up as a list. Alternatively, place some
> punctuation at the end of each line to prevent the items running into
> each other.}
>

Will change to a list.

> .........................................................................
> ............................
>
> <table border=1 cellspacing=0 cellpadding =5 align=CENTER>
> <tr>
> <td>New Year's Day</td>
> <td>1st Day in January</td>
> <td>Saturday,
> January 01, 2005</td>
> </tr>
>
> { (a) insert a 'summary' for those UAs that can use it.
> (b) insert some column headers (you can make these 'invisible'
> through CSS if you need to) to assist navigation. If you don't, many
> non-visual UAs will assume that the first entries are column headers }
>
> .........................................................................
> ............................
>
> Articles of Inc. page
> ============
>
> { Various typos (mainly missing spaces) -- applies to other pages --
> suggest a trip through a spell-checker might be useful. }
>
>

These documents were on the site when I started maintaining it and I
never noticed the extra spaces between the letters in WITNESSETH! The
original document must have been courier and scanned to have that
effect. Removed the extra spaces and ran a spell check on the rest of
the documents. The spell checker never caught any missing spaces or
extra ones either.

> .........................................................................
> ............................
>
> DCCR's 4a page
> ==========
>
> W I T N E S S E T H:
>
> { Code this as WITNESSETH: and use CSS to space the letters in the word
> }
>
> ELECTION page
> ==========
>
> <h5>by: Jeffrey A. Goldberg</h5>
>
> { Is this really a heading? and why level 5? }
>
> .........................................................................
> ............................
>
> 1. Notice
> 2. Registration & Quorum Requirements
> etc.
>
> { Are these not list items? ditto for other lists further down the
> page.}
>

Good points, thank you for bringing them to my attention. Changed as per
your suggestion.

> .........................................................................
> ............................
>
> regards.
>

Thanks again for taking the time to look at the site.

Regards,
--
Wayne
http://www.glenmeadows.com

Beauregard T. Shagnasty

2005-08-09, 4:24 am

wayne wrote:
> Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
>
>
>
> Thanks again for your time and help. There are several forms
> available, one is "Management" which is for sending email to the
> management company (without exposing their email address), YOM for
> submitting candidates for yard of the month, "Newsletter" for
> submitting entries to the community newsletter, etc. Perhaps I need
> a page with just forms on it, but I want them to be readily
> available. What is your suggestion?

Oh then I misunderstood. I took your comment to mean several forms on
that one page. Sorry. Well, if the forms are specific to the topic of
the page, it should be alright to leave them as is.

Or ... have each of those pages make a note about the "Contact Us"
form page, and have that one form use a dropdown with the various
choices - Management, Newsletter, etc. I do a couple sites that way.

> I did remove the defaults from the suggestions form, although the
> default at least insured there would be some entry in each field:)
>
> Also changed the "None of the above" to "Other".
>
> Still learning!

We all are. <g>

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

kchayka

2005-08-09, 4:24 am

jake wrote:

> In message <ENxJe.2540$Wi6.1742@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>, wayne
> <wdh@swbell.net> writes
>
> <h2>La Porte Community Library<br />
> A Harris County Public Library<br />
> 600 S. Broadway<br />
> La Porte, Texas 77571</h2>
>
> {put some
> punctuation at the end of each line e.g. commas and full-stop.}

I disagree on putting superfluous punctuation at the end of each line.

It's a street address, formatted as you would see it on an envelope,
which is not only common, but expected. When you address an envelope,
you don't put periods at the end of each line, do you? It looks pretty
danged silly if you do.

--
Reply email address is a bottomless spam bucket.
Please reply to the group so everyone can share.

jake

2005-08-09, 7:18 am

In message <3lqlgnF13h0l4U1@individual.net>, kchayka <usenet@c-net.us>
writes
>jake wrote:
>
>
>I disagree on putting superfluous punctuation at the end of each line.

Feel free to disagree ;-)
>
>It's a street address, formatted as you would see it on an envelope,
>which is not only common, but expected. When you address an envelope,
>you don't put periods at the end of each line, do you?
Commas at the end of each line except the last -- and on a Web page I
would always terminate the last line with a full-stop.

>It looks pretty
>danged silly if you do.
>
Remember that the Web is not print.

regards.
--
Jake
(jake@gododdin.demon.co.uk .... just a spam trap.)

mbstevens

2005-08-10, 4:18 am

wayne wrote:
> I've been trying to add more content and make the site w3c compatible.
>
> Is it looking ok?
>
> http://www.glenmeadows.com
>
> The errors when checking on the w3 org site are from the Quotations page
> javascript .
>
> Regards,

The site looks good, but the fancy border work
around buttons seems like a lot
of work to me, to make the page look
a bit old fashioned. I'm a great believer in
doing anything you can to reduce extranious
visual white-noise to make a page easier to use.
This applies doubly to navigation.

Also, text definitely needs to contrast strongly
with background. You have done this on the buttons.
But buttons create more white-noise when they contrast
strongly with their own background. So, if you're going
to keep the buttons, I would make the background behind
them somewhere near, but a little bit off their brightness.
Your navigation will get a more subtle feel and still be
easy to use.
--
mbstevens
http://www.mbstevens.com/cgi/mkatt....tique_Generator
(new, version 1.1)

jake

2005-08-10, 4:18 am

In message <rhUJe.3260$RS.1937@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>, wayne
<wdh@swbell.net> writes
>jake wrote:
[snip]

>
>
>Not sure how to implement just yet. Where should it point?
>
[snip]

>
[snip]

>The spell checker never caught any missing spaces or extra ones either.

Two of them on the 'A of I' page:

.... to all license fees,insurance premiums, taxes, or government charges
....

.... have been adopted, the right and power to alter, amend,or repeal the
by-laws, or adopt new by-laws shall be vested ...

(Others elsewhere)
>
[snip]
--
Jake
(jake@gododdin.demon.co.uk .... just a spam trap.)

wayne

2005-08-10, 8:45 pm

mbstevens wrote:

> The site looks good, but the fancy border work
> around buttons seems like a lot
> of work to me, to make the page look
> a bit old fashioned. I'm a great believer in
> doing anything you can to reduce extranious
> visual white-noise to make a page easier to use.
> This applies doubly to navigation.
>
> Also, text definitely needs to contrast strongly
> with background. You have done this on the buttons.
> But buttons create more white-noise when they contrast
> strongly with their own background. So, if you're going
> to keep the buttons, I would make the background behind
> them somewhere near, but a little bit off their brightness.
> Your navigation will get a more subtle feel and still be
> easy to use.
> --
> mbstevens
> http://www.mbstevens.com/cgi/mkatt....tique_Generator
> (new, version 1.1)
>
>
The menu items that wee there before looked kind of washed out, so I
separated the items with CSS, added borders of different colors, changed
the center section of the menu item to a somewhat darker color than
original, and ended up with the "old fashioned" look.

I did darken the background color of the body which does seem better.

Thank you for your input.

--
Wayne
http://www.glenmeadows.com