site review - http://besektechnologies.net

[tbesek]

This is my second site that I have set up. It's a computer services site mostly. I do a little bit of everything.
I have just opened up to doing a little web design for others so I want to make sure that it looks clean, and attract not stave of the clients for design.
I did have a few issues with tables in CSS to put in the different price lists, but I think I have it working. I tested in both FF2.0 and IE7. There were a couple glitches still in Opera, but I haven't been able to figure the issue.

I need a good outside source to critique. Friends and family just like to oooh and ahhh at what I have accomplished, rather than pick apart the details to really be of any help.

Thanks again for your time.

http://besektechnologies.net

[fred]

There are some snags in the validator -- non of which are earth-shattering.

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...ologies.net%2F

I like the look -- it's clean and competent.

An odd loading thing though, the page -- for all its simplicity -- seemed to load and load and load. I'm not really sure if it ever finished.

I don't understand what you've got going on there in the background -- I mean, what are all those "vars" about?

I'm betting it's the Micro virus feed stuff.

My only real quibble -- which is purely subjective -- is to see a little more padding on the content areas. You have this wide gutter separating the left and right content columns, yet the text itself hugs up close to the edges of those openings. (The left column, that is. The main or right column is okay)

It would be interesting to see if it looked substantially better by tightening that central gutter, and making the left column four to six pixels wider, with 4 to 6 more pixels of padding-left. (To me, it looks uncomfortable when the text insets are not all the same. )

I like the color combination -- soothing -- and they seem completely appropriate for the site and context.

The logo needs work. Well... let's say the logo needs a LOT of work.

Too much going on -- it doesn't meld into a unified "visual".
That's really the only major bloop.

[tevih]

The website is very clean and very elegant. Ease to use and read, which is a huge [thumbs up].

Overall, very nice job, but I agree with Fred. The logo needs work, as does the whole top of the page. Graphically, it's kind of boring.

But clean and easy to use is way more important! Way to go on having that! So many designers start out designing and they make things messy and ugly in an effort to show their skills with the software. So, you're on the right track that you didn't add any needless, pointless, inane, messy design "stuff"!

[tbesek]

Originally Posted by fred

There are some snags in the validator -- non of which are earth-shattering.

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...ologies.net%2F

I like the look -- it's clean and competent.

An odd loading thing though, the page -- for all its simplicity -- seemed to load and load and load. I'm not really sure if it ever finished.

I don't understand what you've got going on there in the background -- I mean, what are all those "vars" about?

I'm betting it's the Micro virus feed stuff.

My only real quibble -- which is purely subjective -- is to see a little more padding on the content areas. You have this wide gutter separating the left and right content columns, yet the text itself hugs up close to the edges of those openings. (The left column, that is. The main or right column is okay)

It would be interesting to see if it looked substantially better by tightening that central gutter, and making the left column four to six pixels wider, with 4 to 6 more pixels of padding-left. (To me, it looks uncomfortable when the text insets are not all the same. )

I like the color combination -- soothing -- and they seem completely appropriate for the site and context.

The logo needs work. Well... let's say the logo needs a LOT of work.

Too much going on -- it doesn't meld into a unified "visual".
That's really the only major bloop.

thank you for taking the time to go through it for me Fred. I appreciate your input. As soon as I get a free moment, I will change the width of the left column as you suggest. You are absolutely right...the gutter is way too wide.
I'm glad you like the color combination. I had several drafts before I settled on the final.
I don't seem to have an issue here with it loading. I am on DSL though....maybe I need to log in to dial up to have a peek. I know that my CSS file is a mess though. I added and added and added to it to get my look right, I am sure there are things I can clean up and combine to make that tighter, but I don't think that really affects the load time.

Yes, the vars are all from the trend micro feed. There are a lot that aren't needed for what I chose to display it will be a matter of weeding through to eliminate what isn't shown, but I plan to do that as well.

My logo is pretty much my logo. I can tweak it a little if you have suggestions, but a major over haul is out of the question since it's my known brand mark now for the last almost 3 years. I do have a slightly revised version to upload, but it's only added drop shadow to the texts...you probably had more issues than just that from the sounds of it.
I may get rid of the "swoosh" that separates the main logo from the little tag line though. Do you think that will make a difference in a "unified visual" that you mention?

Thanks again. I take it all as helpful constructive criticism. I have another post asking about my photography site...no replies to it yet. I just simply used a wordpress theme for that. Do you think you may have time to take a peek. :-) http://photo.besektechnologies.net
Thanks again.