Howdy,

Can you give you your thoughts on the following site
http://www.careerservicesonline.com

i.e. navigation, colors combination, content etc.

thanks

David

David,

Firstly, congratulations on a job well done. It is simplistic, but very, very well done from my point of view. Usability experts would love your site to bits! Easy to use, everything's quite easy to find. Well done!

Some suggestions.

1. On the Advice page, expand that 'Question' box down further so that people can see what they're actually typing out. Just requires more space.

2. While space is good, I just feel there's a bit too much space down the bottom of each page above and below the links. It just looks rather empty. Reduce it to a single paragraph break and it should be sufficient.

3. I suggest upgrading the links to a size 2 (inside each particular 'section' box), because on a Netscape/Mac they are nearly unreadable at size 1. This also applies for Contact Information and other relevant areas.

4. You may want to consider justifying your text in the descriptions, just to make it a bit neater in appearance.

Again, well done! :)

Thanks BC,

I am glad the main goal of the site, which was simplicity, was observed by you! The end users are not very net savvy so easy of navigation and simplicity were paramount in the design.

I will look into the changes you propose

David

Neat site! the Navigation is great! :)

I was wondering could you change the header or the navdar blue on the left to the same blue shade? I think that would look better! :)

To be Honest, I dun like the purple that much :)

Hey Kunal,

thanks for feedback. The navigation "concept" is that burgendy/cyan, not purple ;), is where the main navigation areas are. And the royal blue is the constant navigation. i.e. the "next step" and "mailing list" are on every page.

we actually tried different shades of blue and what we have has worked the best so far.

thanks again for you feedback!

David

aah :).. well I meant the background baby blue on the left, and the top navbar blue :)


The "Concept" is good ;)

Actually it looks pretty purple to me as well rather than burgundy. I grabbed my pantone color book and it looks closest to pantone-513 if you want to check what I'm seeing.

The cyan is a bit nasty too for my liking. It was a nasty color on the Commodore 64 and it still is now. Your spacer bars are a wonderful shade of blue and would look great with that same blue as that leftside nav.

Should there be white space between the header and the rest of the page? Looks like a mistake to me though maybe you're going for something I just don't get.

You should use more of the cyan bar too. Above the fold it looks fine, but as you scroll it's just a solid bar of color which uses a lot of room compared to the text. Maybe you should fill it with something unimportant like a poll or something to break it up and give it some extra content. I'd lose some of the height on the bottom end of it too where it wraps under the text. Same reason - too much wasted space. Looking at the News page confirms this for me where it's closer to 50% of the whole page all up.

I do like the photography used. Is it stock or in-house? I've been looking for decent 'business' photographs for ages. Do you want to let the cat out of the bag where you got them? :)

All the above is just an opinion. Critiques should always be taken with a grain of salt as it's only one person's idea of what they think looks good. When something becomes a general consensus however it may be worth noting (ie. the infamous purple/burgundy).

Greg Moore
http://www.akashik.net

Hello Akashik,

Thanks for the feedback. I will talk to my team and figure out what changes will be done ;)

The photo's we used are are from photodisk (www.photodisk.com) they let you search for the pictures online. And after you find what you want, they allow you purchase the high resolution version of it.

The pictures cost $80 a piece for 300dpi (not 100% sure of the dpi) And you can purchase a higher dpi at higher prices depending on your needs. But for the web purposes the dpi we got is perfect.

note: the space between the top navigation and side navigation was intentional. It was to go with the "open" look.

later, and thanks again

David

I think it is great. Bright and clean. It is also very easy to navigate through!

your header looks more like a ad banner

Nice, crisp layout! :)

One of my gripes is what akashik said re: the space between your header and the rest of your site. It really doesn't serve a purpose.

My other main gripe has to do with the underlined headings on the index page. Never underline words that aren't linked; visitors will click on them and get frustrated.

Other than that, nice site! :agree:

thanks for the feedback!

The space is to provide an open look and feel.

I fully agree not to underline words that are not linkable. I will make them link to the same page that the "more..." link goes to.

David

I'm not sure I like the purple and blue combo but on the plus side the site is easy to navigate, easy to read and well put together.

Too simple imo.

Simple and sweet. Good work

Drop the purple background at the top. Replace the color with black or dark blue. Also drop the purple at the bottom. Furthermore you have to many line breaks at the bottom where there is "News | Solutions | Clients..." Move that bar up a few lines and move the bottom footer up as well.

Also I can see the curve at the bottom of the page. That does not match up. Replace the color. The curve color is darker than the table color.

Hello hosthero,

Thanks for the feedback.

>> Drop the purple background at the top.
This is is personal opinion ... you don't like it, but I like it.

>> Furthermore you have to many line breaks at the bottom where there is "News | Solutions | Clients..."
Good point. Will fix that

>> The curve color is darker than the table color.
Don't know how I missed that :( ... will correct

thanks

David

Way to many colors being used. Try and limit your color usage

For huge wordings, like your main page "Is Your Career Services Department Taking Full Advantage Of The Internet?".. u can probably use an image instead of bigger sized font.

The font came out unclear and an image that carry the same wordings will do much better. Just a suggestion.