Web Hosting Talk : Advertising Forums : Community Reviews : Web Site Reviews : We want a review: www.rambach.com

[RambachTJ]

Please review http://www.rambach.com. Adding your feedback using our contact form would be appreciated.

We are in the process of a site redesign and would like some feedback before hand.

[kunal]

Why would you wanna re-design?? I like this one Just add some more color to. Thats it!

[Chicken]

Not all that bad, but I'd put the links at the top as well, and just make the lower links 1 point.

[etLux]

I think maybe I'd dump the counter at the bottom... no sense advertising the fact that you don't (yet!) have very many hits.

[RambachTJ]

Thanks for the feedback. It's appreciated.

[sheepdip]

Very clean, smooth site! I am a big fan of simplicity. I agree with the previous poster regarding the navigation on the first page. It's below the fold, so I have to scroll to get to it. Unless this first page is intended, strictly, as a "welcome" or splash page, I think a navigation bar on the left would work much better. If the first page IS intended strictly as a "welcome" page, then exclude it from the general navigation and leave off ANY links, completely from this page. The only link from a splash/welcome screen should be an "enter" type link to a "main links" page, where one can get to all information pages, from one location. Be sure to identify that page in your navigation structure as "home" or "main" or something similar.

The first page graphic, while diced for speedier loading, is still bulky for a welcome page, particularly since it's main purpose is decorative, rather than informative. I think it could survive quite a bit more compression and still be as effective. I do like the color balance which looks swell with your site-palette.

At 800x640, you have a lot of empty real estate on the right. I would check your traffic and see what the typical, user resolution is (if your stats package includes that). My guess is that you would do better to design for 800x600 and let the lower resolution folks scroll. Most of your visitors will probably be budding or experienced webmasters and will probably be working at at least 800x600 resolution. You should design with your target visitors in mind.

This is just my opinion. Please don't read it as negative criticism. I take the time to look at sites objectively and comment as thouroghly as I can - We all want our sites to be optiimal.

[RambachTJ]

Thanks for the constructive feedback. This is one of the first forums that most people have actually posted good, constructive feedback.

The screen resoultion topic is interesting. I have been recently targeting the higher resolution visitors to the site. From the stats, most visitors are at 1024x768 using IE 4.0 or higher.
800x600 only makes up about 5-10% of the site traffic, and 640x480 is usually about a single hit every 2-3 months.

I already know the site needs some tweaks for the new Netscape 6.0. It appears some of the methods I use to design a site now don't agree with the new version, but looked fine in Netscape 4.78 and lower.
Although Netscape users only account for less than 2% of my site traffic.

Any other opinions on Netscape 6.00?

[etLux]

Screen resolutions used depend very much on the type of site, of course; but if it's any help to those out there, our current break-down (for the last thirty days) of screen resolutions looks more or less like this:

- 800x at 47%
- 1024x or greater at 46%
- all other or unknown at 7%

(That's across roughly a million hits or so, and only a couple of percent in the 1024x or greater category are over 1024x.)

[sheepdip]

Netscape 6 is a mess. No one I know is making ANY changes or basing any decisions on the release of NS6. I'm staying with ver.4

As for the resolution - check out your page at that 1024x768 resolution. You'll have a lot of empty blue space...almost half the screen.

Your traffic, I'm sure, would appreciate a larger page.

I usually don't design for 1024x768, because I'm OLD and I like to be able to READ on my poor old 17" monitor. But I think you'd be safe and way ahead to go for 800x640. This way, better use is made of available screen space and essentially no one has to scroll horizontally (horribility).

Best of luck with implementation!

[etLux]

Netscape 6 is a technical circus... lol. If they fix the thing, I'll write for it. At present, I haven't even got a clue what you need to do to make it cooperate. It seems to crash constantly, often on even the plainest pages.

On the resolutions, you really do need to design at least for 1024x. Many laptops now come with that resolution as standard; and, of course, with monitor prices plunging and people upgrading to new equipment, very many people operating at 800x only a year ago are now moving up to 1024x.

[sheepdip]

TAKE etLux' advice. He knows of what he speaks.

I am a "shepherdess" for crying out loud! We don't upgrade until it breaks - old sheepherding rule. I am hoping that my current monitor will give up the ghost just when I can get one of those 6-footers for $99.99. LOL

Design for 1024! I'm a believer and I will begin to do the same. (Hand me those binoculars, please).

It really makes a difference for serious surfers, and if laptops are looking good at 1024, designing for less would appear "behind the times". You definitely want to appear "cutting edge", so go for 1024. (I'll pull my easy chair a little closer to the screen)

Best,
Sheepdip

[etLux]

I might note that very many designs need little modification for an upgrade to 1024x and greater.

In flat page designs, the most commonly seen problem is that a background image, if used, needs to be altered (widened, usually) to work with the larger screen resolution -- otherwise it repeats across the screen.

Framed designs may need a little more examination, but many that use fixed dimensioning often need no amending. Those with percentile-based dimensioning, however, may need some attention.

[sheepdip]

I didn't know that. I mean, I figured it would mean a dramatic overhaul.

I'm off to look for a tutorial on "resolutions" now. I want to design for the most compatibility.

Isn't WebHostingTalk, wonderful?

[RambachTJ]

I guess we can all learn something here. Thanks for the info etLUX.
One more topic, site design software of choice? I currently use a combo of apps to create a site, which I assume is pretty common thing to do.
Macromedia dreamweaver for the bulk of the work, Frontpage for some minor changes, and notepad to change the nitty gritty of the site.

[etLux]

For the most part (and this is definitely not an endorsement, as it could use a great deal of improvement) I use FrontPage 2000. When you're handling larger sites with hundreds and hundreds of pages, it's a real workhorse and pretty well suited to it... *provided* you stay off most of the bells and whistles and know how to code HTML and JavaScript to begin with.

You can go far upscale to much more sophisticated and expensive environments, of course, but for the vast majority of sites it does a solid job.

In the final analysis, though, many of the middle-range environments are fairly good. What tends to wreck havoc for many would-be developers is -- they haven't taken the time to learn the craft of coding properly to begin with.

No environment is a substitute for knowing what you are doing.