Peer Pressure...

jimibt · March 17th, 2009, 12:28 PM

Hi guys 'n' gals,

Hoping you could help me out a little with some peer review. I'm in the closing stages of delivering a website for a music festival that I'm involved in and would be very keen to receive any comments that you feel could contructively polish the rough edges of the site. The site was written entirely in c# using the beerhouse architecture (app_code generated from the templates that i had created for the flixon site generator, not the actual TBH site per se). I feel that (apart from a few finished areas) it's time for someone else that's TBH aware to take a sideways glance before i finally commit to putting it live.

point your browsers at: http://www.gatehousemusic.com and let me know how you get on.

As an aside 'design' note. I've tried to avoid using heirarchical menus and instead have opted for 'tabs' above the content where any sub menus would have been on the main menu. does this work for you?? Any other caveats that you feel are present??

let me know your thoughts.

all the best for now

[edit] the right hand sidebar functionality is NOT yet implemented, nor are the 'Venues' and 'How to Book' tabs. Also, there's a mixture of 'durable' and filler content, but that'll become obvious once you glance at it. Anyway, just thought i'd mention that!!

Lee Dumond · March 17th, 2009, 03:25 PM

Right off the top of my head:

I'd like to see the left sidebar a bit wider.
All the Category links contain identical content.
Don't know if you're using Akismet for the Off The Wall, but if it's unmoderated you probably should.
None of the bottom content has been implemented.
Nice implementation of the floating width layout, bit I'd probably have set a maxwidth as well, maybe somewhere around 1000 to 1200 px.

All in all though, an excellent job.

jimibt · March 17th, 2009, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lee Dumond

Right off the top of my head:

I'd like to see the left sidebar a bit wider.
All the Category links contain identical content.
Don't know if you're using Akismet for the Off The Wall, but if it's unmoderated you probably should.
None of the bottom content has been implemented.
Nice implementation of the floating width layout, bit I'd probably have set a maxwidth as well, maybe somewhere around 1000 to 1200 px.

All in all though, an excellent job.

thanks for the feedback lee,

You may be right about the left sidebar, i'll have a 'think' about that... Yes, forgot to mention that the Category links are presently just invoking the same 'all categories' page - still to implemenrt the parsing of the querystring (keep putting that one off for some insane reason). I presume Akismet is an add-in lib??. this is just something that i've implemented myself, so can add the moderation and/or vote up/down to remove it from the list - i.e. community moderation. The bottom content will actually not be quite what we're seeing just now, so will give you a nudge when that is properly implemented.

I've wrestled with this layout and am 90% happy with it. My next attack on it will be to allow me to place the main content div 1st in the page in order for the wee spiders to get to it faster. this will entail lots of css -ve margins etc, so will be a task for another 'day'.

If you have any further thoughts, please fire them off, no matter how sporadic as i 'plan' on getting this finished this week (i've recently finished my day job and was pushing to see if i could write and implement the entire site in under a month - 3 weeks into it now, so hopefully on target!!)

thanks again - i'll give the forum a 'buzz' as/when any major landmarks/hurdles are met as i'm really keen to push myself on this.

cheers again

btw - the day job rest is related to the credit crunch and not alas to joining the young millionaire's club

Scott663 · March 18th, 2009, 01:46 PM

Jimi -

I agree with Lee about the left column needing to be wider. The Features text is hard to read because of the short line breaks. You may want to consider adding some simple bullets in front of the headings (Categories, Features, Search, Newsletter, etc...).

Also, the silo of the flower in your banner art is a bit rough and the 'e' in 'Gatehouse' is cropped. I fixed up your banner images to correct these problems and will be glad to email/upload them to you if your interested.

- Scott.

jimibt · March 18th, 2009, 01:50 PM

scott - looks like the widening of the left column is winning by 2 votes to 1 :)

Yes, please do send me the 'fixed' banner images. i have 6to be honest, i didn't spend too much time on that very important area. also, if you can think of any other nice but simple little flourishes that are non-invasive (and subtle), please do let me know...

email the images to me ..

thanks again...

[edit] images received - thanks

dparsons · March 18th, 2009, 10:49 PM

First off, fantastic job. The colors are well balanced, the design is intutitive, and there is just the right amount of AJAX.

Like Lee and Scott I to feel that the left column should be expanded, it just feels to "cramped".

While I like the tab style menu that you have implemented on your sub pages, I don't like how the tabs just seem to "float" in the negative space. I would have gone for an effect that gave the illusion that the tabs were docked to the content well.

In the "Post your comment" box, at first glance, I over looked the Insert and Cancel links. I might add some additional space between them and tweak the size a tad bit to make them stand out a bit more.

Paging for your comments section does not appear to be working (assuming, of course, they are supposed to page!). I posted the 10th comment 'test' and then posted another comment with the text 'Test to see if paging starts at 10'. I do not see any paging controls on the page to advance the comments.

I tried to execute a basic XSS attack (passing in an alert() javascript) via the comments form and, as expected, the runtime threw an exeception that it detected a potentially dangerous request. Make sure you turn on Custom Errors when you go live!

All and all a wonderful effort. Great Job!

-Doug

jimibt · March 19th, 2009, 05:23 AM

Doug,

Thanks for the comments, this really is the 'lifeblood' of what i'm after - positive critique as opposed to backslapping. I guess i'll be caving-in to the left margin width issue today at some point, as that one is just too compelling to ignore. I'll also look to 'tie' the tabs onto the content (in fact i think i should style the tabs with text/color, rather than images to keep it consistant throughout). Likewise, you've pointed out an area that i had realised was lacking (the comments form section). i'll tweak the css on that to make it visually and ergonomically more appealling. Also, i plan to use paging on the comments but haven't yet and funnily enough 'nabbed' the css from diggit's paging for academic purposes yesterday

.

A 'smart' error/404 page is also on the list (in fact, it really should have been included in this early pre-release but somehow other 'more important' stuff seems to have leap frogged it!!) so that'll be moved up the ToDo list today as well.

I plan on getting all the remaining features implemented today/tmro and will then, in earnest, implement the great suggestions that have been presented to date on this thread.

I really appreciate all the comments from yourself, scott and lee. You know how it is when your head is so focussed on the task - the obvious becomes obscured.

thanks again - looking fwd to further comment on v0.6

jimibt · March 19th, 2009, 10:29 AM

ok, quick update - left column now modified as per 'peer pressure'

thanks guys...

jimibt · April 6th, 2009, 07:25 PM

ok, it's me again (yawn). i'm getting into nitty/gritty level now with this project (did i mention 3 days overdue on promised delivery - or did i say forgot to allude to my own general over optimism on delivery on this one!!).

anyway, i'd love some of you guys to just breeze thro' and comment on ergonomics, accesibilty, browser quirks and other avenues that don't meet with your own preferences/expectations. since you last breezed thro', i've made the following amendements (as per suggestion) as well as added new functionality:

1. widened the much maligned left column (agree 100% that this is correct)
2. added paging to the 'off the wall' section (and any other section that has user comments - tho' only implemented as of 6th april in the 'off the wall' section), tho am currently tweaking this, so not 100% settled..
3. Category links functionality has been updated (only visible now from the 'what's on' page). however, still have to tweak 'headings' to indicate this change (i.e. add a ' - music' etc to them). also, still have to 'maintain' state when selecting a category (at the moment, it flicks back to the default 'artists' initial view on selecting a new category)

i've added:

1. right column live rss feed(s)
2. Live 'festival gossip' on default landing page
3. proper google maps api on the 'info->getting here' page (uk only due to requirement)

this week, i plan to attack the other items that you guys mentioned, namely:

bottom content section
404 error page
docking the main content, where ajax tabs are present

of course, a whole new raft of suggestions is feasible (and hoped for), so let me know your thoughts, no matter how picky...

cheers...

btw - as the site is still not marked as 'live', there still exists rogue filler text...

[edit] i'd also be interested to 'see' if you feel the same way as me about the 'default' view (i.e. initial display control) on the tabbed pages ('what's on' and 'info'). in particular, i'm not sure if 'artists'|'events' shouldn't be 'reversed' in order... opinions please...

dparsons · April 6th, 2009, 08:03 PM

Hi Jimi,
The site is coming along wonderfully it looks like! First, with regard to the order of the Tabs on the 'What's On' and 'Info' pages. What's on is really a toss up to me, as far as precedence between Artists and Events. Ultimately I think this is a business decision. Since, it seems, that the focus of this is on Music I would proably keep the Artists at the beginning of the Tab sequence followed by Events as you have now. Again, there are a million ways to speculate as to what should come first so, again, I think it is best left as a business decision and how the order best promotes the overall event.

Great to see that you got the paging in place but I did run into a problem as I was flipping through the comments. When I got to the last page the comments box was utterly smashed and unusable I have attached a screen shot but you will have to forgive, it is out of MS Paint since this PC doesn't have Photoshop on it. Also, I think it would be nice (although it sounds like your time frame is becoming squeezed) to implement some Ajax for the paging to avoid the nasty postbacks. I would throw this in the "nice to have" category of enhancements as opposed to the "need to have" category. ;]

Two things on the info page: I think i might switch the tab order so that 'Getting Here' is first and 'Accomodations' are second. Knowing where I can stay is of little use to me if I don't know how to get there! I tried to use the Google Map API but it through me a JavaScript error:

Line 86
Char: 4497
Error: Object doesn't support that property or method.

To be fair I supplied Akron, Ohio as my location so that might be the issue but since I don't know any address's in the UK it was the best I could work with!

The lady on the home page with the Clarinet is a real eye catcher, I would probably leave her there! (Ahhh, what is life without a bit of comedy?)

All and all great job!

-Doug