Website Critiques

[LadyKaren]

So with being in the hospital, I know the Website has a lot of errors, and I already know some of them, but in case I don't, I'm leaving it to the dedicated forum members to find the mistakes in Fanime 2008 Beta verson 1.0!

Also, If you'd like to make a comment about it, please use this space too.
Though I warn you, if all you have to say is negitive, I'm expecting you to turn in your portfolio to me to design next year's site.

In any case, Please feel free to comment about the website and help me out by getting to work better while I'm still recovering.

[Mei]

First and foremost, I'd like to thank you again for your hard work and getting the site up and running on-time for us. <3 And again, please don't push yourself so much. I hope you will have a fast recovery!

Now, onto my ramblings. XD;

I've been excited since I first saw the splash/counter page of the '08 site, being the little sakura and pink freak I am. At first, I was a bit shocked at all of the empty space around the content of the site, but it was just merely seconds after the launch, and I'm sure everything still needs to be tweaked. The random image reloaded after I finished reading several pages of the new site, and I jumped! I wasn't expecting that, but I really love this feature so much. I absolutely adore the character designs of the ones I've seen so far, and I like how there's some part of them overlapping the site's content.

I think my only peeve is the .JPG fuzz surrounding the text in the banners. I've always had an eye for it, and while it doesn't kill me, I'd save my images in another format if I had the choice. However, I can understand .JPG loads faster than .PNG, so it's more friendly to slower connections. ^_^; All is good, but I had to say something about the... fuzz. *doesn't know the term for it*

I'm not sure if you're interested in anyone pointing out all of the typos, so this is all for now. I look forward to more additions to the site! <3

[BrightHeart76]

It looks great!  I really like the art work and the way you organized the links makes a lot of sense.  Really great job.  :-)

I don't know if anyone else had the same problem, but when I tried the forum button I got an error page.  Not a huge issue, just something that happened for me.  

Feel better.  I have no idea what has you in the hospital but I do so hope that you will be out soon and feeling better.

Thanks again for being so dedicated to the site, it shows your hard work.

[LadyKaren]

It looks great!  I really like the art work and the way you organized the links makes a lot of sense.  Really great job.  :-)

I don't know if anyone else had the same problem, but when I tried the forum button I got an error page.  Not a huge issue, just something that happened for me.  

Feel better.  I have no idea what has you in the hospital but I do so hope that you will be out soon and feeling better.

Thanks again for being so dedicated to the site, it shows your hard work.

The links are now fixed. Or should be at least....

... And hospital food is all that people say it is. Bland.

[Errowyn]

I think it looks nice.   :D

[Kyokun]

Hi!  The site looks so pretty!  Thanks for a good job!

Okay, I have two observations:

1)  The forum button still doesn't work.  The website that pops up into the address box is "http://www.fanime.com/events/www.forums.fanime.com" instead of "http://forums.fanime.com"

2)  Unless my screen is full size (which it usually isn't at work), I can't see the whole page (at first I couldn't even find the forums button).  The scroll bar doesn't work.  It's only for my Mozilla Firefox browser though.  I just tried IE, and that seems to work, although the front page buttons are under the ninja girl, instead of on the right hand side of the screen like it is in Mozilla.

Take care of yourself, and I hope everything is okay.

[darkkako]

It looks great, but all of the links from the events page are screwy. D: (That, and I can't find anything on the Artists Alley but I guess that would come later)

[LadyKaren]

Hi!  The site looks so pretty!  Thanks for a good job!

Okay, I have two observations:

1)  The forum button still doesn't work.  The website that pops up into the address box is "http://www.fanime.com/events/www.forums.fanime.com" instead of "http://forums.fanime.com"

Heh, Yeah, I kinda forgot to fix the index page. The link on all the other pages are fine.

2)  Unless my screen is full size (which it usually isn't at work), I can't see the whole page (at first I couldn't even find the forums button).  The scroll bar doesn't work.  It's only for my Mozilla Firefox browser though.  I just tried IE, and that seems to work, although the front page buttons are under the ninja girl, instead of on the right hand side of the screen like it is in Mozilla.

Take care of yourself, and I hope everything is okay.

Yeah, I've got this complaint in another email. I'll have to look in to it more. Also, I've had some browser errors with IE involving the menu that we're working on.

[gem2niki]

Uh...sorry...but is there more people helping you with the webdesign @_@;;

(might sound negative)

It looks a lot amateur-ish compared to the previous year. Even tho it's beta 1.0 it'll change right? D:

The border is not the best choice for design >_<;;

I wonder if I can help out even tho I'm in the artist pool?

[Emerge]

how bout a link to the '07 page? i remember the old pre-reg site giving a link to the '06 site.

this may not have much use, but i'm one of those scrapbook kinda people that wants to keep everything.

EVERYTHING.  :shock:

[AbsolutelyCursed]

One mistake I found (btw using IE 6.0) was when clicking the Departments link under Staff button; on the staff page there was 2 navigation bars. Don't know if that was already pointed out or not.

Would prefer to see the navigational bar on the right side so that I won't have to scroll down the page (most likely already pointed out). I'm sure you're working on that, so don't worry.

I do like how each page loaded comes with a different character.

I appreciate the hard work you put into this site. Take care of yourself.

[alkaline]

Uh...sorry...but is there more people helping you with the webdesign @_@;;

(might sound negative)

It looks a lot amateur-ish compared to the previous year. Even tho it's beta 1.0 it'll change right? D:

The border is not the best choice for design >_<;;

I wonder if I can help out even tho I'm in the artist pool?

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with this even though I feel bad considering your position  :?

It's a massive step backwards from last years design. It looks like you went for style over function and even then, it's not appealing. Everything about it is counter-intuitive from the fonts chosen to the navigation. It's hard to read and it's hard to click on anything you want. I don't even know where you're going to stick the mass amount of content that the site will hold by the time the con rolls around.

[Saeris]

Alright, a few things. But before I start, keep in mind that I'm highly critical on these sorts of things, so don't take any of my observations personal.

First of all, I was shocked to hear that you're in the hospital! I was wondering why I wasn't recieving any more emails from you, haha. I'm impressed by your dedication, if I was in the same situation I don't think I would have continued working like you did.

I can see now what the theme is this year, if I'm not mistaken, it's a mix of traditional Japanese culture, somewhat of a festival theme. And definately, centered around cherry blossoms. =) It's a great concept, and I think it can be taken a lot further than it is.

As someone else mentioned before, and I don't mean to be rude, but the site design does seem to be a bit amateurish. I realize it's only a beta release, and I hope future releases will enhance what we already have. For now, just having a site up with information about the convention is better than not having one at all. Unfortunately, I don't think this website will attract many newcommers to the convention. To me, it just doesn't strike that impression.

On first glance at the site, it looks to me that it's made up of 3 fixed sized, fixed positioned tables. It also seems to me you've incorporated the same sort of drop-down list menus I've been experimenting with in Dreamweaver CS3. For the most part, it seems to me that this was made in only a few hours, the initial layout that is. To tell you the truth, I've been working on a design of my own since my first email, and I haven't gotten very far along with it myself, so I can't rightly say I have a better design to offer up.

I do have some ideas to improve upon the site and the theme, now that I know what sort of a look you're going for. Sometime, perhaps, I'll send you a list of them. For now, take your time to recover! Although I'm sure many people are still waiting for the registration to open, we're all just going to have to be patient.

[astroboy]

Also, If you'd like to make a comment about it, please use this space too.
Though I warn you, if all you have to say is negitive, I'm expecting you to turn in your portfolio to me to design next year's site.

It looks much better then my website.  :D

[LadyKaren]

So as orders of people higher than me, I've been told to stop working on the webpage until I've fully recovered. So keep giving me your critiques on the website's beta version, and when I'm up and working again, my web staff and I will get working on it again.

[ININ]

Also, If you'd like to make a comment about it, please use this space too.
Though I warn you, if all you have to say is negitive, I'm expecting you to turn in your portfolio to me to design next year's site.

It looks much better then my website.  :D

Likewise for my website.

I like the cherry blossoms, too.  Different feeling and look.  For me, when I visit the website, I focus more on information than looks.  If the looks are good, it's good for me.

[pockystix]

Round is the new square nowadays. I believe a professional website should be conservative, yet stylish and still express it's purpose. I'd reccommend going back on previous year's layouts and working from there. Keeping a clean font scheme and color scheme is essential. Dynamic content would be cool, too. But at least this is a start. I don't ever remember having the site up this early, lol.

Can someone give me the theme for this year? I would suspect it's Japanesey/Blossoms of sorts (May might be a little late for that, but no matter).

[GokuMew2]

I apologize if I'm the only one who thinks this way, but I don't like the new layout. It's so pink and girly. The design looks like something that should be used for Sakura Con. I don't think it fits Fanime's image at all. The site should look cool, not "pretty."

I'm just not keen on the decision to make everything pink. Sorry.

[mDuo13]

I still think the #1 problem with the website, which can't be fixed unless we convince ICANN otherwise, is that the address needs to be
www.fanime.con

But ignoring that, you've hit a couple of the 149 Mortal Sins that cause your website to suck instantly:
- We say "Welcome to..." on our home page. (personally, this is debatable. It can slide.)
- Our site has sections that are under construction and the public can access them. (i.e. these blank Fanime pages)
- Logo is not on the top of every page and clicking it doesn't lead to the home page. (the part about it not being clickable is true)
-  Our site has graphics that suffer from the "halo effect" â€" dithering that leaves an ugly halo around the image. (Look at the shuriken on the homepage versus that background image.)
-  Our site uses JavaScript for navigation and it doesn't degrade naturally for visitors who come with JavaScript turned off.

Honestly. Try browsing around without Javascript. Notice anything? I suggest that what you do is, below each of the categories on the right, have a list of the subsections that's just always visible, rather than having to mouseover to see it. If you really hate the way that looks, you can create a Javascript that hides them. That way, if someone doesn't have Javascript, then neither the mouseover nor the "hide-the-oldschool navigation" scripts will run.

One other thing: if you view the site on a tallish monitor, your fancy little background image doesn't reach the bottom, and it cuts off from white to pink. Either reverse the direction of the gradient, or change the CSS for body{background-color: #FFE3D3;} to body{background-color: white}

Hope you feel better soon! Were you in the hospital for anything serious? (Though, I guess one doesn't stay in a hospital if it isn't serious!)

P.S. You're also relatively close to getting the site to validate. You should finish that.

[astroboy]

I apologize if I'm the only one who thinks this way, but I don't like the new layout. It's so pink and girly.

That is NOT pink and girly......THIS IS.  :D