Hi there

Just redesigned my site and am after some feedback.


http://www.microbubble.net/


OK, I know there's no portfolio page yet. I've been contracting for years and all my work is in the private domain - banking web applications... so not much to show yet. Bit chicken and egg really.

Still, let me know if there are any browser issues, bad, mad errors, likes/dislikes etc.

cheers

I don't like the shadow effect around it all.

On the left it starts to look more like a bevel effect, and on the right a drop shadow. And the bottom of it seems to have gone a bit weird (like it's doubled up).

I'd kill all those 3D FX and keep it really clean and simple.

GENERAL

There's nothing that really stands out about the website for me. If I saw the website as a potenial customer I would be tempted to move on. The use of typography is ok, but leans far too far towards the accessibility arm of design than is at all neccessary. Remember that accessibility is not the same as usability. On a personal note (perhaps) I'm not keen on the font or the sizes used. Remember that the user can change whatever you decide to design in so don't worry about the default being a bit too small for the 1% of people that will need to enlarge the text.

HEADER

The logo, I don't think fits with the rest of the site despite the use of rounded corners and it looks almost completely lost in the overal design. One technique I use is to step back and let my eyes blur whilst looking at the concept. What this does is to stop you looking at the elements by what they are and start seeing them by weighting (how prominent they are in the design). From this you'll see that the logo and strapline have equal weighting and this shouldn't be the case. More interest should be drawn to this area to re-enforce the brand. You may want to relook at the logo as well to give it more of an individual twist rather than using the standard free font.

I like the images you've used but I'm not sure of their relevance with the sections they are used with. The homepage I can see gives me a feel of hand creation which I like. But the other, although I can see some relevance isn't going to be strong enough for Jo Bloggs users to distinguse and instantly get an idea of what this section contains.

I'm not feeling the blue/white bar in the background really. Because it goes all the way across the site and the site is aligned to the left of my browser the bar drags my eye along it and away from the website itself. The way around this would be to centralise the website in the browser window.

CONTENT AREA

You've used the same one template through the pages. Remember that the needs of one page won't always suit the needs of another. Altough you've manged to fill the secondary content box with relevant content I'm not sure I would kept the same layout foreach page. The use of the box on the homepage and the contact page is for secondary content and as such I would be looking for that sort of content to the right of the main content. The use of it on the other two pages is as a container for navigation where I'd expect to see it on the left. I know having the box move around like that isn't ideal so you might want to consider a different design option for each of the pages.

Sorry for the negative feel of my post, it's not intended to be a knock down, just constructive critism.

Thanks for the feedback. No need to apologise. All feedback is a positive thing. Appreciate you taking the time to reply.

Some interesting points raised. I'll have a rethink about the logo/strapline. Prior to the colour photos on the banner, there was a series of blue concentric circles. Perhaps I've lost my branding/identity by introducing the photos. The blue bar had more context too, I guess. How does this look in comparison?
http://www.microbubble.co.uk/test.hmtl (ignore the grey menu bit).

I chose not to centre the site, and move towards the left just for a change. Everyone centres them... but evidently for a reason. It's not left aligned, just left of centre (like me!). Soeone else commented on this matter, so I'll re-centre it.

Moving secondary content from left to right is not an issue with CSS. Not sure. I'll make the change and see how it looks. I agree, secondary content seems to be on the right, yet menu's on the left.

Regarding fonts and sizes, can you clarify. Do you think the font is too big or too small? I'm guessing you're on Windows. IE 6 or IE 7?

I need to re-examine the fonts on Windows. On the Mac it's not far off what this forum uses - size and style.

Cheers

try http://www.microbubble.co.uk/test.html http://www.microbubble.co.uk/test.html

OK. Taken quite a few of your comments on board



Sorted out font issues - there was some offending CSS preventing other fonts to over-ride. That said, I've reduced font size in general

<ul><li>border shadows mostly removed. It was a bit heavy </li><li>logo revamped</li><li>page centred</li><li>background modified</li></ul>Thanks again for your critique. I'm much happier with it.

Interestingly, feedback from a business forum was very positive. Which is food for thought for al of us. I appreciated your feedback, but as designers we will be hyper-critical of each other. We will see things differently to a business person. I'm aiming at small businesses, more than design houses. Just food for thought

cheers

That's much nicer. I think the changes to the header really make the site now. The only thing I would say is that when you beef up the text with the browser you loose the menu text as it's white and the background is white. I'm never that bothered with that but I know the accessibility guru in the agency I work for would see that and have to change it.

enlarging the text causes a serious problem [distorts the whole header]. There are also some serious accessibility issues that need fixing - especially from a company putting weight on accessibility design.

Try to replace the term 'disabled' and 'disability'. Apparantly some people find this terms slightly out-dated and offensive.

nice design

I like the pencils and your other top graphics, but I think that the blue text in the latest news section should link to somewhere.

As I user I'd like more links on your pages and more images.

I know you mentioned about the portfolio, but that to me is one of the most vital pages if you're trying to promote yourself.

Looking much better now. Especially the treatment of the masthead area.

I agree with the comments about blue text looking clickable.

the top bar with your logo doesn't do anything for me. If I scroll the page down so there is only 1 cm over the photo I find that it is more balanced. I would then shrink the logo and put it on the line with the site text which again has to be minimized so there is a hierarchy.

Also the "red" is for me out of place. I would go with two max three colors since you have such colorful photos.

I like the idea with the colorful photos but I am wondering if they represent what you want to say. Maybe you want to save it for one of your customers. For me they signal playfulness ....